2012 (Macintosh)

Chapter 11: User Programmable Functions 166
The strings will play in the “b” substyle only, because that's how they were
made in the Miami Pop style.
You could now import the Guitar from the ZZCONTRY.STY for example,
using the steps above. It is quite easy to quickly add instruments to styles by
importing instruments from other styles.
Intelligent Guitar Styles
Would you like to hear some realistic, accurate MIDI guitar from Band-in-a-Box
styles, with strumming, picking, and accurate fret fingering? You'll get it with
Version 11! “Guitar Styles” are styles that show strummed and picked guitar
parts accurately on the guitar fretboard, and they sound great. These styles also
play accurate guitar voicings, in your choice of Pop, Jazz, Country, or Folk
Guitar chording. There's even a “walking guitar comping” style that plays guitar
that emulates the famous “Basie Big Band” Jazz style. The “Guitar Styles” play
like any regular style, and when you view them on the virtual guitar fretboard
you can see exactly which strings and frets are used so it is a great learning tool
as well.
Information about Guitar Styles for Playback.
Guitar Styles are identified by the exclamation point (!) in the style name. This
is not a requirement, but is usually present in the style name. Guitar styles
require Version 11 of Band-in-a-Box. With an earlier version the guitar track
will play wrong notes. For the typical user who is just using the styles for
playback and isn't making their own styles there's not much that you need to
know about the styles, since they play normally like other Band-in-a-Box styles.
You can see which tracks have intelligent guitar parts by looking at the title
window of the Guitar fretboard, when the track is highlighted. If it is a guitar
style track, it will say [Guitar voicings] after the name of the track. The usual
track that has the intelligent guitar styles is of course the Guitar part. Some of
the styles have more than one guitar, so the Piano and/or Strings part might also
have an intelligent guitar part. In these cases, you can also view the guitar on
those tracks.
The styles can be set to use different types of voicings for guitar. For example,
there are Jazz, Pop and Folk (open position) voicings. Also, some of the styles
allow the guitar to play advanced chords and inversions. Some of the styles play
chord patterns, so the chord in the song might be F7, but the guitar plays a
“walking-chord” pattern of F7, Cm7/G, Abdim, F7/A on each beat. There can
be “finger-picking” styles that have a lowest note alternate between root and 5
th
.
Guitar parts use channels 11 to 16 for the notes, corresponding to strings 1 to 6
of the guitar. When the notes are output to MIDI, they are re-channeled to the
Guitar channel, so that it only uses 1 channel. When you make a MIDI file, the
notes will all be written on the single guitar channel. Some other sequencers