PG Music Inc. has released the 2005 version of its popular Band-in-a- Box intelligent music software for Windows.

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With over fifty new features, Band-in-a-Box 2005 offers users a major upgrade in features and functionality.

New features include a fully-featured "Piano Roll" window; support for alternate guitar tunings; new harmonies with voicing in 4ths; "auto endings" added for styles without endings; Jazz chord symbol graphics; patch file lists conversion from PowerTracks Pro Audio or Cakewalk patch lists; enhanced TC-Helicon audio harmonies with pitch styles (automatic vibrato and scooping); a new "Vocal Wizard" that displays the best song keys for the user's range, and more.

With the fully-featured "Piano Roll" window users can now edit the Melody or Soloist tracks with greater ease and precision. The window is divided into 2 panes: one for notes, the other for controllers, velocity, and other data. Users can change note duration and pitch by selecting and dragging with a mouse.

Band-in-a-Box 2005 supports alternate guitar tunings, including DADGAD, Drop D, Double Drop D, Open G, and 11 others. The new tunings are supported in styles, chord diagrams, guitar tutor, notation, tab, and printout. Customers can learn how to play using these tunings by watching the on-screen Guitar Fretboard or Notation/Tab Window.

With the new harmonies with voicing in 4ths, customers can add Modern Jazz harmonies to the Melody, Soloist, or THRU parts using 3, 4, or 5 part voicings. Included presets make it easy to select 4ths voicings and add sophisticated 4ths harmonies to existing songs.

"Auto Endings" added for styles without endings. Now 2-bar endings can be automatically generated, based on the current style. Useful for completing styles made from MIDI files using the Style Wizard.

The new Jazz chord symbol graphics include a triangle for major chords, a circle for diminished, and a circle with a slash for half-diminished. Tensions like b9 and b13 are now stacked vertically and contained in brackets. Customers can now see these symbols for display/printout on the Chord Sheet, Notation, and Lead Sheet windows.

TC-Helicon Audio Harmonies are enhanced with pitch styles (automatic vibrato and scooping). Now, customers can generate audio harmonies for recorded vocal tracks and select pitch styles adding vibrato and scooping effects to the vocal harmonies. Presets include "Ballad," "Broadway," "Pop Diva," and more.

Band-in-a-Box can now read a patch file list generated by PowerTracks Pro Audio or Cakewalk and convert it to a .PAT file for use in Band-in-a-Box. Customers with synthesizer patch lists from one of these other programs can now easily convert it to Band-in-a-Box format.

The Vocal Wizard displays the best key for the user's vocal range. Once the user has entered their vocal type (baritone, tenor, etc.), or chosen a custom range the wizard analyzes the song and recommends the best keys for that song. Options available to "include/exclude falsetto range," "restrict choices to these keys [...]" and "transpose now."

For more information, visit http://www.pgmusic.com.

'What's Hot' from Doctor Audio is presented by Doc Dosco, Professional Audio Consultant from Los Angeles, California. The Doctor Audio website is a dealer for most Mac and PC Midi/audio products, and is located at http://www.doctoraudio.com  

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