User Guide

Chapter 6: Band-in-a-Box PowerGuide

Styles that are similar to the prototype are indicated with an asterisk (*). These are styles that have the same feel

(triplets/ eighths/ sixteenths) and a similar tempo range. Styles with similar feel but a different tempo range are

marked by a caret (^) symbol. So you can quickly see styles that are similar to Jazz Swing (in this example). The

styles J_BASIE and J_DIXIE could be substituted with a perfect match so are marked with an asterisk (*). Styles

like J_DJANGO are marked with a caret (^) because they sound best in a much faster tempo than the prototype Jazz

Swing style.

Use the filters to display all styles, or only ones

that you choose.

You can play the style demo from the StylePicker window by pressing the [Load

Song Demo] button.

The [Search] button that lets you find data in any of the fields. Also, the StylePicker window

opens up at the current style.

There is an option for this called “Defaults to current style.” When you choose a style with the song playing, it will

switch to the new style and continue playing!

When you find a style that you'd like to test, double click on its

name in the list to hear a preview of your song in the new style.

Note that you must set the option Preview on Double Click for this to work. Alternatively you can press the

[Preview] button.

The [Preview] button generates and plays an arrangement with the new style; use the [Stop] button

to end the preview.

Change the tempo by typing in a new tempo in the t= field at the top.

You can [Reduce] or [Expand] the duration of the chords, useful when changing the feel

of songs. If the Prompt With Preview item is set, the program will ask you if you want

to change the feel of the song's melody, or auto-reduce/expand the chord durations when the styles change.

When a new style is previewed, patches appropriate to the new style

get loaded in if you have selected “Auto Change Melody/Soloist Patch.” So when you load in a “Chopin Piano

Style” the Melody patch of your song will change to Piano. This allows the song to blend in with the new style.

This will copy the Styles List to the clipboard so that it can then be printed as a text file from any

word processor.

If you have added new styles to Band-in-a-Box (or edited the BBW.LST file) the [Re-Build] button

will update the styles list.

You can add your own styles to the StylePicker list by pressing the [Edit] button on the StylePicker.

Technical Note: All of the styles that you add will be appended to the bottom of the StylePicker under new category and

style names. This is because we don’t want editing of the main style list (BBW.LST) provided by PG Music, because we

update that list frequently ourselves, and the updated list would overwrite your changes. The edits that you make in the

StylePicker editor will stay permanently, and not be overwritten by future versions of Band-in-a-Box.

When you first launch it, there won’t be any styles added, so you’ll see a screen with only a blank category with no

styles on it.