Finale PrintMusic Finale 2008 Finale Allegro 2007
Finale SongWriter NEW! FREE Finale Notepad Smart Music Band in a Box 2007

What's New in PrintMusic 2008

Powerful New Mixer
Integrated controls for each staff enable you to set volume and panning as well as choose to mute, solo, or record. Adjust parameters for all staves using convenient knobs and faders for each staff- all in real-time during playback.


More Reverb Options in Playback
Select from five reverb types and control the amount of reverb. Plus you can now audition real-time changes to
volume, panning, and instruments with controls added to the Instrument List.



Improved Playback Controls
PrintMusic’s Playback Controls have been enhanced with a repeat pass indicator.

Scanning
No other entry-level notation program offers scanning as accurate as PrintMusic, with its included SmartScore® Lite by Musitek®.
NEW in PrintMusic 2008
• Improved recognition and accuracy with XML Technology.
• Easier Scanning - Both Macintosh and Windows users can scan directly from SmartScore Lite from within PrintMusic. With a compatible scanner,
PrintMusic 2008 provides an auto-preview and automatically chooses resolution and contrast settings. * All you have to do is click "Final Scan".
• Improved recognition of multi-measure rests, grace notes, and repeat measures (slash & dot symbol).
• Improved recognition when scanning scores with optimized staves.

PrintMusic’s SmartScore Lite Scanning includes:
• Secondary voice recognition - counterpoint
• Correct transposed instrument recognition
• Multiple page scans
• Correct page formatting including system and staff sizes
• Up to 32nd note resolution
• PrintMusic's SmartScore® Lite scanning utility has been updated to run natively on Intel-based Macs.**
• Recognition of grayscale images to simplify the use of scanners, including HP models, that save in this format
Scanning is brought right to your fingertips in the Launch Window. What's more, Windows and Mac users can now scan directly from PrintMusic, and PrintMusic determines the ideal resolution and color depth. PrintMusic now imports scanned SmartScore 5.3 and SharpEye files, capturing notes, text, lyrics, chord symbols and more. (While SharpEye is Windows only software, the Music XML files it creates can be read by PrintMusic on Macintosh and Windows computers)
Take a look for yourself.
Here's the original:


Scanned into PrintMusic: Only 5 easy edits needed.


Another notation product using PhotoScore Lite™: 30 difficult edits needed:


These examples were scanned from original engraved music (no photocopies), using a Canon N670U scanner at 360 dpi.
The scan for Smart Score 3.0 was a line art (black and white) tiff file, and the scan for Photoscore Lite was a gray scale, the preferred file type for Photoscore. Both images were untouched to enhance results. The Photoscore example was transferred, without edits, to the most current version of a competitor's product. The time to correct errors in the two examples: PrintMusic, 10 seconds to add missing rests and tie necessary notes, hence the term 'easy edits' compared to the 2 minutes it took to add Voice 2 notes, correct notes, change notes from Voice 1 to 2 etc. in the competitor's product, thus the term 'difficult' or time-consuming edits.
* Scanning directly from SmartScore Lite within PrintMusic is supported by nearly all Windows scanners and Epson scanners on Macintosh.
** Mac-Intel Users – PrintMusic 2008 has a universal binary version of SmartScore Lite Scanning. If you are using PrintMusic 2007, download the PrintMusic 2007a maintenance update to use SmartSc`ore Lite Scanning on your Intel- based Macintosh.

Selection Tool - Improved in PrintMusic 2008
A powerful new Selection Tool has inherited all the functionality of the former Mass Edit Tool. Adapted for selecting measure regions, the Selection Tool is now PrintMusic’s universal editing utility.
With the selection tool you can:
• Cut, copy or paste music
• Change time and key signatures and clefs
• Transpose
• Add repeats
• Adjust expressions, change bar lines, and more
Accomplish more without changing tools

* Get what you need faster from streamlined menus.
* Keep your momentum going with more powerful contextual menus and intuitive new keystrokes.
* Get it done using the Selection Tool or other tools that support copy/paste, measure additions, transposition, measure layout, and much more.

Cut/Copy/Paste Improvements - New in PrintMusic 2008
PrintMusic’s streamlined, easy-to-use interface lets you focus on the music with less switching tools and more universal menu commands specifically designed to help you finish projects faster. The most intuitive cut/copy/paste/insert for more efficient workflow
• Use intuitive keystrokes to select measures or partial measures horizontally and vertically. No need to visit a menu.
• Consistent clipboard- and drag-copying make it easy to copy all measure items, even between documents.
• Quickly drag and drop music, even over highlighted regions. Make small adjustments easily, like shifting music a beat or two right or left.
• Paste faster: no need to highlight the entire destination when clipboard-copying.
• Get improved visual feedback when pasting and inserting.

Different-colored cursors indicate how your music will be inserted.

Use intuitive keystrokes to select additional staves

Additional notes...

or additional measures without using the mouse.

Import & Export Graphics - New in PrintMusic 2008
Import Graphics: Create interesting music with the addition of graphics. PrintMusic can now import TIFF graphics into your score.
Imported graphics are embedded to make it easy to share your files.
Export Graphics: Create quizzes, textbooks, worksheets, hymnals, dissertations and more by exporting music into word-processing software. PrintMusic now allows you to save entire pages or any part of a page as a TIFF file.

 

Setting-up your score - Enhanced in PrintMusic 2008
PrintMusic 2008's enhanced Setup Wizard offers more options and control. Make your choices and get up and running
quickly.
New in PrintMusic 2008
• Personal Document Styles — Choose from a wide variety of styles.
• New and expanded text inserts. Now you can specify the arranger, lyricist and a sub-title in addition to the composer, title and copyright.
• Expanded spacing control — Just click the "Add Vertical Space" button for more space between staves.
• Intelligent page layout that automatically adjusts system position, size, and space between staves to reduce white space on the page.
• Specify the number of measure in your score.
Just answer a few questions: What instruments or voices do you want? You can even select from pre-defined ensembles or create your own. What key? Time signature? Music font? Tempo? PrintMusic will set up your score, complete with staves in correct order, tempo marking, staff groupings, et al. Nowhere else will you get a setup so complete or so quickly.

click on images for larger view

 

Document Styles - New in PrintMusic 2008
Create the look you want with personal Document Styles
Choose from a wide variety of document styles to instantly personalize the appearance of new documents, controlling text and music fonts, all libraries, text, graphics, and page layout. Simply select a Document Style on the first screen of the Set-up Wizard to get the visual results you want, and save time.
Documents Styles control:
• text and music fonts
• text inserts
• available expressions, articulations, document settings, etc…
• page size and orientation
• page layout
 

 

Templates - Improved in PrintMusic 2008
When creating a full score, a worksheet, quiz or even a dissertation, the easiest way to start is simply to open a pre-created template from the launch window. Select from more than 30 pre-made templates then let PrintMusic’s Setup Wizard do the rest, adding text (including title, composer, copyright, arranger and lyricist) as well as key/time signatures, pickup measures, tempo markings, and the number of measures.

Click on the image for a larger view
 

Finale has always been the world-wide standard in music writing, but now Finale 2008 adds new ground-breaking features that re-define how people write music.
 Finale 2008:

Audio Features - For the first time ever, the industry-standard notation program has the ability to record or import a mono or stereo audio file to enhance playback. The possibilities are endless:

  • Give arrangements authenticity and life with a real vocal or instrumental track

  • Import a stereo mix of a rock band and add a horn arrangement

  • Import audio for transcription/take-down

  • Create learning files for choir students with accompaniment and sung text

  • Record a vocal track to a soprano aria

  • Add a trumpet solo to a jazz chart

  • Easily control playback of recorded/imported audio with staff controls and mixer

Playback features

  • New Garritan sounds – Our newly-added Garritan sounds bring the total number of sounds in Finale to over 250. The competition gives you half that number

  • Combine any of Finale’s 128 general MIDI sounds with Garritan sounds

  • Save any new sounds in Finale as an audio file to burn to audio CD or iPod®

  • Human Playback® support is added for additional sound libraries

 Productivity Features

  • Enhanced Document Setup – determine all aspects of a file in one easy wizard

  • Improved Scanning – never has it been easier to get notes into Finale with an even cleaner result

  • Simplified Interface – productivity is improved with many new speed features

  • Five cut/copy/paste features added to improve your workflow

  • ScoreMerger™ – Easily combines parts into a score and joins multiple scores/movements into one

 More Enhancements

  • Colored Noteheads – now included along with Boomwhackers® tuned percussion tube sounds

  • New documentation – Fully searchable and interactive

  • Import files – Expanded XML support allows import of Sibelius files

  • Vista support

And much, more…For the complete story, go to www.finalemusic.com.

 

NEW IN FINALE ALLEGRO 2007

EASY
 Getting Started
• Launch Window puts the power of Allegro within a single mouse-click
• Setup Wizard and pre-designed templates help quickly create new music
• QuickStart Videos show you how – on your computer screen

Entering Notes
• Enter notes with your mouse, computer keyboard, and/or MIDI keyboard
(including sustain pedal) in step- or real-time
• Enter notes by playing your brass or woodwind instrument into a mic with Allegro’s exclusive MicNotator®
• Scan sheet music with SmartScore® Lite (included) and import (or export) MIDI files

FAST
State of the Art
• Universal – Allegro runs natively (and quickly) on both Intel- andPowerPC-based Macs as well as Windows  computers Composing and Arranging
• Automatically add two- and three-voice auto-harmonization from Band-in-a-Box® Auto Harmonizing
• Automatically add Drum Grooves (and easily expand your choice of styles)

Teaching Music
• Exercise Wizard instantly creates warm-ups for the whole band, orchestra, or choir
• Setup Wizard includes diverse options, including Orff instruments and marching percussion
• Create quizzes and tests that students can open, edit, print, and play with the free, downloadable Finale NotePad®

 SHARING YOUR MUSIC
• Print your score or parts: Finale® technology ensures world-class output
• Collaborate – Allegro files can be opened, edited, printed, and played by others using Finale NotePad (a free download), Finale SongWriter™, Finale PrintMusic®, and Finale – details at www.finalemusic.com
• Save as audio file (including MP3) to create CDs
• Export TIF graphics files to add music to word
processing documents

POWEFUL
 Playing Your Music
 • Play back with integrated software sounds
(including Row-Loff™ marching percussion)
or via external MIDI devices
• Human Playback® adds expression, phrasing,
swing, and dynamics – automatically
• Powerful mixer offers control of volume, panning,
patch, and reverb as well as the choice of mute,
solo, or record
 

Editing Your Music
 • MIDI tool allows you to edit your MIDI data
• Transpose, edit page layout, and add chord symbols,
guitar fretboards, guitar tablature, lyrics, slash, or
rhythmic notation

 

 
EVEN MORE FEATURES
 • Start easily with QuickStart Videos
• Setup Wizard support for Orff and marching percussion instruments
• Launch Window and Setup Wizard guide you through any project
• Exercise Wizard
• Instruments are automatically transposed
• Multiple ways to enter notes, including real-time with/without click
• Transposed instruments appear as written or in concert pitch
• Pre-defined templates included
• Import/export MIDI files and MusicXML files
• Import SmartScore, Encore, and Rhapsody files
• Export TIF files
• Slash notation
• Dozens of articulations, including staccatos and accents
• SmartShapes, including crescendos, slurs, trills, glissandos, and more
• Change clef or key/time signatures
• Repeats are easily entered and automatically play back
• Mid-measure playback controls
• Real-time control of volume and pan
• Control of reverb type and amount
• Automatic music spacing
• Staff optimization automatically hides inactive measures
• Control the number of measures on each system, plus additional page layout controls
• Textured manuscript backgrounds
• Two music fonts included for an engraved or handwritten appearance
• Automatic swing playback
• Free software synthesizer offers more than 128 professional sounds, including marching percussion from Row-Loff®
• New features, including Create Coda, Auto-Slur Melismas, Chord Analysis, and Score System Divider
• Auto-resize printing
• Beautiful, engraver-quality printed pages
 

Order Allegro today!

MAKEMUSIC! ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF FINALE SONGWRITER

MakeMusic!® Inc. (Nasdaq: MMUS) announce the release of Finale SongWriter™, the latest addition to its family of innovative music notation software. Finale SongWriter allows users to quickly and easily compose and arrange music, hear their work and print premium-quality sheet music. Created for songwriters of all levels, including those who may be new to notation software, Finale SongWriter offers a large array  of powerful but easy-to-use features. Notes can be entered via a computer keyboard, a MIDI keyboard, or by importing MIDI files. Users can effortlessly add key and time signatures, lyrics, chords, guitar fingerboards, markings and musical instructions.

Additionally, Finale SongWriter can automatically generate two- and three-voice harmonies and drum grooves. The software also allows the user to create and edit guitar and bass tablature, save MIDI files and create MP3 files. 

Musicians can experiment with over 129 professional instrument sounds (a free professional software synthesizer is included). Songs sound like they’re being performed by live musicians thanks to “Human Playback™”. All of these features come  at an affordable price of R395.00

“Songwriters need to experiment,” stated Anne Donnelly, Director of Marketing. “They need to try different melodies, harmonies and rhythms. SongWriter encourages this experimentation and allows users to hear their music and the changes  they make to it. When it sounds great, they can create an MP3 to save to CD or e-mail to their friends. And of course they can print it out with the same quality as the world’s best publishers.”

Finale SongWriter is available for Windows® and Macintosh® computers.

FREE MUSIC NOTATION

NEW FINALE NOTEPAD 2007 NOW AVAILABLE

Finale® NotePad(tm) 2007 is your invitation to the world of music notation software! Find out how fun and easy it is to transform your musical ideas into beautifully printed music by downloading NotePad 2007 today! It's completely FREE


 For Windows: Click Here


For Macintosh: Click Here

Based on their award-winning Finale® music notation software, NotePad allows users of both Windows® and Macintosh® OS X computers to create, play back, and print out sheet music. Downloads are available at
http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad
NotePad software has been downloaded nearly 1.5 million times from musicians in over 200 countries worldwide. 

Finale NotePad 2007 offers a variety of powerful and timesaving features for educators, students and hobbyists including compatibility with Finale 2007 files. NotePad is especially popular with music educators because they can create assignments in Finale and share them with their students via NotePad.

NotePad users can set up a music score and enter clefs, time signatures, key signatures, notes, rests, lyrics, markings and musical instructions. The Finale technology automatically arranges the many elements on the page just like an engraver would and prints the sheet music with the same high quality publishers enjoy. New in NotePad 2007 is the ability to easily create and edit Guitar and Bass tablature. Finale NotePad also offers “Human Playback™”, a feature introduced in Finale 2004, which transforms the playback of music entered via the computer keyboard into an expressive performance, allowing arrangers and composers to hear their work as it was intended to be performed.

NotePad also serves as an introduction to the entire Finale family of music notation software. Many NotePad users decide they would benefit from additional features and upgrade to more advanced Finale products. Because all these products can share files (including between Windows and Macintosh computers), music created in NotePad is fully compatible with Finale, Finale Guitar, Finale Allegro®, Finale PrintMusic!® and Finale NotePad® Plus. For years thousands of Finale files have been shared on the Internet and now, with Finale NotePad, anyone can access those files and distribute their own.

MAKE PRACTISING FUN!

SmartMusic® is the essential teaching and learning tool that guides student development in band, orchestra, and choir.

 • Students practice more, build skills, and gain confidence with SmartMusic.
• Students discover their musical abilities and improve rapidly with SmartMusic. The one-of-a-kind practice software is an essential tool for educators who wish to transform their music programs.
• With SmartMusic, students master technical skills faster while developing musicianship and engaging with music on a deep, meaningful level. That gives educators the freedom to focus on the nuances of performance and the pleasure of making music with their students.

SmartMusic helps students:
• Develop technical skills quickly – practicing slowly at first, then building speed
• Get more from home practice with instant performance feedback from recordings and assessment
• Gain the confidence to perform and solo in concert and at contest
• Develop improvisation skills for playing the blues and jazz tunes
• Make practicing fun and inspires a passion for making music today and for a lifetime

SmartMusic helps educators:
• Develop ensemble skills thanks to home practice that fosters students’ listening skills as they perform
• Achieve national standards with practical means to document success
• Document individual student progress with assessment tools like recordings and graded assignments
• Create their own files in Finale® and play and assess them with SmartMusic

How Does it Work? The SmartMusic system listens to students sing or play through a microphone attached to a computer. With accompaniments for over 30,000 titles and 50,000 exercises, students practice their individual part while listening to the piece as a whole. They see – and hear – immediate feedback on how well they’re doing.

What's New in SmartMusic 10.0?

  • More than 200 full ensemble titles for band, jazz band, and orchestra with on-screen notation, professional audio recordings, and pre-authored assignments for all parts.
  • SmartMusic Impact allows teachers to easily manage, grade, and document assignments for all their students with this effective, web-based grade book, included with all educator subscriptions.
  • Create assignments with audio-quality accompaniment for any concert selection: SmartMusic supports any piece of music! Simply upload the audio file and distribute sheet music; then the band, orchestra, and choir students can practice their part with accompaniment in SmartMusic.
  • Educator-approved SmartMusic assignments help all students improve quickly. Now it’s easy for music teachers to give students graded homework assignments. Band, jazz band, and orchestra titles in version 10.0 include pre-authored practice assignments for all parts, so teachers can guide how, and what, students practice—even at home.
  • Compatibility with SmartMusic accompaniments created in Finale® 2007
  • Support for Intel-based Macintosh computers
  • More new repertoire—Standard of Excellence Book 2, Time Pieces for Flute, Volumes 2 and 3, and many Baroque titles for all instruments.
  • Percussion assessment in large ensemble titles and Standard of Excellence, Book 2

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
  • Real Drums We've added real audio drums to Band-in-a-Box! This replaces the MIDI Drum track with real recordings of top studio Jazz/Rock/Country drummers. These are not "samples," but are full recordings, lasting from 1 to 8 bars, playing along in perfect sync with the other Band-in-a-Box tracks. For example, choose a brushes style, and you will now hear lush Jazz brushes. The results are dramatically better than MIDI. They sound like a real drummer, because they are recordings of a real drummer. Adding a real instrument to the mix makes all of the Band-in-a-Box parts sound more authentic. You'll wonder, "why does the guitar sound more real?" It's because the realism of the drum part has the effect of improving the overall sound. As well as improved drum sounds, you are hearing the exact rhythms played by the drummer, including features not seen in MIDI (subtle drum rolls, variations in ride cymbal taps, complex fills etc.). And the tracks intelligently play differently at faster/slower tempos, so you hear appropriate playing for the current tempo (not seen in MIDI drums). Change tempos or volumes during playback, using the same tempo/volume controls as MIDI. And best of all, we've seamlessly integrated the RealDrums into Band-in-a-Box, so you just use the program as you normally do, and you will hear RealDrums instead of MIDI drums, according to your preferences. You can fully control which styles you will hear MIDI vs. RealDrums. New RealDrums styles can be made by the user or third parties, using standard WAV files. User created styles can control fills/post-fills/pattern lengths/substyles etc. We include a huge library of RealDrums styles to get you started, and all of the RealDrums styles are available in the MegaPAK Upgrade or MegaPAK First-Time purchase package.
  • Chords from MP3 ("Audio Chord Wizard"). This is one of the all-time most requested features for Band-in-a-Box, and now this amazing wizard automatically figures out the chords from any MP3, WAV, or WMA (Windows Media) audio file and displays them in Band-in-a-Box. Just load in any MP3, WAV or WMA file and you'll instantly see the chords in Band-in-a-Box.

    And there's more! In addition to the chords of the song, the PG Audio Wizard also figures out
    • the tempo of the file,
    • bar lines throughout the song,
    • fine tuning detection (e.g. 5 cents sharp from A440),
    • key of the song,
    • and it can even stretch the file to different tempos while preserving pitch.
    An included Audio Piano Roll displays many of the notes found in the file. This serves as a helpful guide to transcription. Once you have the chords-from-MP3 inside Band-in-a-Box, you can auto-sync the file with Band-in-a-Box, so you can hear the original MP3 playing in sync with the bar lines in Band-in-a-Box. You can then add your own Band-in-a-Box parts to it, for example, add a Strings part, or a RealDrums part to an old audio recording that didn't have drums! Or have the Band-in-a-Box Soloist generate a Bluegrass Banjo solo for one of your Country MP3 files!
  • Soundtrack Generator. Need to generate some original, royalty-free music for backgrounds, home videos, slide shows, voiceovers, jingles, themes, underscoring scenes or entr'acte, dance routines, ceremonies or any occasion that calls for musical accompaniment? The Soundtrack feature allows you to generate music in the style you choose for any length of time you specify. As the "producer," you select the genre, length of time, instruments, and fade-in/fade-out options. The Soundtrack adjusts the tempo and duration to match the settings, and then allows you to save the file as a WAV, WMA (Windows Media), or MP3 file for further use in your own projects. Generate original music (over 20 genres) or select from over 50 supplied Soundtrack types (Bluesy/Excite/Healing/Jazzy/Tropics etc.). In seconds, you can generate an audio music clip of any duration, in the genre of your choice!
  • Generate Chords for a Melody, or an improved chord progression for a Melody - with the new "Reharmonist" feature. This feature generates a chord progression in the genre that you choose, based only on the melody. Generate an entirely new chord progression for a complete song, or a portion of a song. Or use the feature interactively by displaying a menu of possible chord progressions for a portion of the melody, and audition them to choose the best one using the "Bar Reharmonist." This allows you to hear some new chord progressions for existing melodies, or brand new progressions for tunes without chords.
  • Solos are enhanced - with the new "Melody Influenced" Soloist. When musicians solo for a song, the solo is typically influenced by the melody as well as the chords. Now Band-in-a-Box can also allow the melody to influence the type of solo generated by its Soloist feature. The result is a much better solo generated for the song. A strength (%) setting allows you to control how much the solo will be influenced by the melody. Choose the melody influence (%), and one of several presets to control the type of influence (pitches/rhythms/note density, etc.).
  • TranzPort® support - Wireless Remote Control support for Band-in-a-Box! The Frontier Design TranzPort® is a wireless remote control hardware unit (Electronic Musician Editors' Choice 2006) that now allows you to control Band-in-a-Box 2007 through walls from 30 feet away! The backlit LCD provides a two-line readout, while buttons and a wheel allow control of many Band-in-a-Box features. Select songs and play/stop/pause/loop. Select/mute/solo tracks and volume/tempo changes are all supported. And best of all, when the song is playing, the chords of the song are displayed in time on the backlit LCD screen. You can, for example, put the TranzPort® unit on your piano at home (or your music stand on a gig) and load/play/control and view chords for songs, all while far away from your computer - all wirelessly up to 30 feet - even through walls! Selectable transpose lets the TranzPort® show chords in a non-concert key (e.g. Eb Alto) while the computer shows concert - great for jam sessions! Or display the scrolling lyrics of the song on the TranzPort® for a wireless Karaoke session! The TranzPort® also works "right-out-of-the-box" with other popular music software, including Pro Tools®, Sonar�, Logic®, Cubase®, Digital Performer® and others. Note: the TranzPort is sold separately and is available from PG Music for only $199. Band-in-a-Box/TranzPort® bundles are also available. Click here for details.
  • Audio Settings dialog - makes it easy to mute, solo, or change the volume of the audio track, similar to the control of the other instrument parts in Band-in-Box. Simply click on the "audio" label on-screen, and choose these options.
  • Other Audio enhancements. There is now punch-in audio recording, allowing you to punch-in record or overdub a section of audio. You can also now hear the existing audio part when you are overdubbing. A new Audio-Offset feature allows you to synchronize any point of the audio file with bar 1 of the Band-in-a-Box song - this is useful after importing an audio file into Band-in-a-Box that you want to sync with a song - just right-click on the audio window to set bar 1. The Audio settings dialog is now also accessible from the MIDI Drivers dialog or Audio menu.
  • Batch-convert a folder of songs to Audio files (MP3, WAV, or WMA). Do you need to convert an entire folder of Band-in-a-Box songs to Audio files? This can now be done easily by a single command. There is an option to name the resultant audio files based either on the original file name or the song title name.
  • Chord "Breaks." This feature is great for practicing tempo control. Select the # of bars, and Band-in-a-Box will play for, say 4 bars (selectable), and then will rest all instruments for the next 4 bars. During the silence, you keep playing (comping, drums, melody, etc.), trying to stay in tempo. Drummers can mute the drum part and play along. When the band comes back in after the 4 bars, you'll get instant feedback on how well you have maintained the tempo, if the band comes in time with you or not. Once set, this feature works automatically with all songs until you turn it off.
  • The Keyboard "QWERTY" Wizard now works with MIDI keyboard input. The Keyboard Wizard always plays correct notes (chord tones or passing tones on the current chord), and is a fun way to play along with Band-in-a-Box (as well as a useful way to enter melodies, by playing notes in correct rhythm and fixing the pitches afterwards). Now you can also use a MIDI keyboard to play the Keyboard Wizard. The MIDI keyboard also sends volume information (unlike the QWERTY keyboard), so is a better choice if you have a MIDI keyboard connected.
  • Automatic Memo-Generation. The Song memo has been enhanced, with a "summary" checkbox. If selected, you'll see an additional window that automatically displays a full summary of the song (title/tempo/patches used in the song), as well as other special features, such as substyle patch changes or harmonies. This saves much of the work previously required to manually type in this information to the memo.
  • A new "Practicing Window" allows convenient "1-click" access to many Band-in-a-Box features that help you with practicing. These include the Ear Training dialog, games (Pitch Invasion etc.), Metronome, CopyMe, Sight Reading, 101 Riffs series, and more.
  • The Soloist has been enhanced. You can now select "Genres" of soloists (e.g. Modern Jazz) and see only soloists matching the genre. You can also filter to show/not show soloists from Soloist Sets that you don't have. Expanding on the "trade 4's" feature, you can now "Trade 2's" or "Trade 8's." Soloist suggestions have been enhanced.
  • QWERTY Input is now compatible with international keyboards (non USA). Previously some keyboard chord shortcuts were not recognized on international keyboards.
  • Lead Sheet "Lyric Text Block." A large text block can now be appended to the Lead Sheet window and Printout. This is ideal for song lyrics that you want entered as a text entry appended to the end, multiple verses of lyrics, or any other text information. Select font type and size, copy/paste text from other programs.
  • Fakesheets can now optionally include the 2-bar song ending.
  • Auto Piano Hand-Splitting. The Piano part now displays on both clefs, using intelligent hand-splitting routines that dynamically change the split point. This happens automatically. You can also manually split a piano part on a Melody or Soloist track using the intelligent hand-splitting routines. The left/right hands display in red/blue on the big piano, and on bass/treble clefs on the notation. Import a piano MIDI file to the Melody track to get a split-hands display and printout!
  • Notation enhancements. When mousing over notes, summary information about the note is displayed (pitch/channel/velocity/duration). Lyric entry now has convenient buttons to enter line breaks or paragraph breaks. Guitar chord diagrams are improved. Polyphonic (chord) notation spacing is improved. There is now a filter for the Event List Editor, allowing you to, for example, quickly spot all patch changes. Hot key support is added to delete or insert notes directly in the Event List.
  • DXi features are enhanced. Lower latency settings for VSC DXi are now possible, and they are typically auto-set to approximately 100ms on newer PC's. Looping during playback is now seamless while using DXi/VSTi soft synths. Recorded melodies now automatically adjust for any latency. While using DXi or VSTi, all playback information is routed to the DXi/VSTi, including the option to route the THRU part from your MIDI keyboard to the DXi/VSTi synth. The "Panic" button feature is enhanced to reset a "hung" DXi/VSTi driver. Latency selection has been simplified, with informative messages added. ASIO4All support has been enhanced, with messages added to detect/correct silent output.
  • A Patch list (.PAT) is now provided for the Roland VSC DXi synth, and the list of available synth DK/PAT files is enhanced to support newer sound cards.
  • MIDI Latency Calibration. For software synths with latency, there is now a "Latency Calibration" dialog that allows you to accurately set your soft synth's latency by listening to 2 tones a fifth apart. The MS GS Wavetable synth (included in Windows XP) is now auto-set to correct latency.
  • There is a function to auto-determine the correct key of a song, given only the melody.
  • Yellow "Fly-By Help Hints" have been expanded throughout the program to provide more information and tips.
  • Chord Entry and Editing are enhanced. "Nudge" Chords feature allows moving a range of chords by any number of bars/beats.
  • A "Fold" routine converts a song with a single large chorus to multiple smaller choruses, with optional tag ending.
  • A Search/Replace Chords feature is added. Search and replace chords, including support for asterix (*) as wildcards. Also a "simplify Jazz chords" option will simplify chords like C13#11#5 to simply C9.
  • Deletion of chords over a range of bars can be done by selecting the range and pressing DELETE, and no confirmation dialog is required for chord delete.
  • The Stylemaker now displays current patch numbers for the parts on the main window. Moving notes in notation on the StyleMaker notation now plays the note on the current instrument.
  • Melodist has been enhanced. Melodists can be filtered by "Genre" (e.g. Dixieland) to show only melodists in that genre. And you can also filter to show/not show Melodists from Melodists Sets that you don't have.
  • Direct Render to MP3 button is added to the Render Dialog (this uses existing the MP3 audio codec that you have in your Windows installation). This renders the Band-in-a-Box song to MP3 in a single step, using your Roland VSC DXi (or other DXi/VSTi synth).
  • Feature on program boot-up added to detect and prevent conflicts with the THRU channel and other Band-in-a-Box instruments.
  • Convenient buttons added for setting "no-harmony" in harmony dialogs, loading "song demo" on Style menu and more.
  • Jukebox option added to stop the Jukebox when set is completed.
  • StylePicker now auto-rebuilds when new styles have been added.
  • ...and many more!

 

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