It offered control over musical elements such as chords, key and tempo, while also allowing the user to select the 'Style' of a song. There were even special settings for Sound Canvas modules. So what made it - and has continued to make it - so appealing? Simple: it bridged the gap for gigging and home musicians who needed decent accompaniments but didn't have the necessary skills to create them.īy version 5, BIAB could offer piano, bass, guitar, string and drum parts, plus support for GM and Roland's GS standard.

The Melodist may appear complicated, but a complete song can be generated by a swift click on the 'OK' button.īIAB has certainly been around for a long time (it was last reviewed in SOS October 1992) and is clearly still being developed. Version six was released some time later and then BIAB seemed to disappear - quite odd, when you consider that around 150 new features and improvements have been added in the course of its last two versions.

The former added System 7 compatibility and improvements to the Style creator, while the latter incorporated more instruments, the all‑important General MIDI support, and support for a single melody line, making BIAB not dissimilar to a basic sequencer. On moving to the Mac platform I tracked BIAB through versions four and five. It offered three‑part accompaniment, the facility to enter lyrics, a print‑out capability and MIDI File compatibility, along with incredible ease of use. Way back in August 1991, I concluded that the original Atari ST version of the Band‑In‑A‑Box auto‑accompaniment program was 'cheaper than almost any ST sequencer but with facilities belying the price' in a review appearing in the now‑defunct ST Format.

These days, it's very much at home in the latest Mac‑ and PC‑based studios, as Vic Lennard and Martin Walker discover. Style‑generation software Band‑In‑A‑Box is one of many still‑thriving music programs that started life on the Atari.

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