• Latest Update (Band-in-a-Box Server)
• About Band-in-a-Box
• Video Tutorials
• Getting Started
• Program Tutorial
• Network Setup Instructions

Latest Updates

Download the latest version of Band-in-a-Box Server (2 MB)

This is an update for the Band-in-a-Box Server program in your desktop version of Band-in-a-Box. This is the program that allows the desktop version of Band-in-a-Box to communicate with the Band-in-a-Box and BB Remote apps for iPhone and Android.

This patch will update Band-in-a-Box Server to version 2 Build 2939 from any previous build.

The newest build of Band-in-a-Box Server supports new features added to the latest versions of the apps, makes connection faster and more reliable, and improves stability.

You need to have Band-in-a-Box 2011 or higher for this update to work, since previous Band-in-a-Box versions did not include Band-in-a-Box Server. Install the update to your existing bb folder (usually C:\bb)

About Band-in-a-Box

Band-in-a-Box is a popular music program for Windows desktop PC's.

Band-in-a-Box is so easy to use! Type in the chords to any song using standard chord symbols like C or Fm7b5; and Band-in-a-Box does the rest, automatically generating a complete professional-quality arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar, strings and more. Plus, add REAL accompaniment to your song with RealTracks and RealDrums- actual recordings of professional studio musicians!

Important: You need to also have a copy of Band-in-a-Box 2011 (or higher) for Windows to use this app fully!

Band-in-a-Box for iPhone (BB iPhone) is an app for iOS devices including iPods, iPhones, and iPads. There is also a "desktop" version of Band-in-a-Box (BB Desktop) that is available for Windows machines. A major function for the BB iPhone version is to function as a client to the BB desktop version. If you don't own a copy of the BB Desktop software, the usefulness of the BB iPhone version will be quite limited.

If you have a copy of Band-in-a-Box 2011 Windows, then with the Band-in-a-Box iPhone version you can:

• Quickly transfer your existing library of songs from BB Desktop to BB iPhone, including chordsheets and audio (m4a). See the chordsheets and play the songs anytime on your iPhone, without re-connecting to BB Desktop.
• Enter songs from scratch on your BB iPhone by typing in chord symbols to the song.
• Generate audio on your BB iPhone for the songs by pressing play. The songs play on the iPhone and are stored on the iPhone as m4a files. This connects across your home network or the internet to your desktop version of Band-in-a-Box
• Send songs from BB iPhone to BB Desktop.

Video Tutorials

Getting started with Band-in-a-Box for iPhone

Run the BB iPhone program by clicking on the icon. You will then see the BB screen. This consists of:

1. Top Toolbar area (File Mixer Settings Play/Stop Chord Keyboard).
2. Title display line.
3. Chords area.

If you want to edit information in a song, press the Chord Keyboard icon. This will open up the chord keyboard, and also a "Song Parameters" section at the top to choose style, tempo and song form.

Let's open and play an existing song.

Press FILE and then OPEN. You will then see a list of the demo songs that are included with BB iPhone. You should see "Blues Shuffle Demo" and "Jazz Swing Demo". You will notice that these filenames are in green. The green indicates that audio (m4a) is available for these songs, and they are "ready-to-play" and don't have to be re-generated.

Choose "Jazz Swing Demo". This song was previously generated using BB iPhone, and the arrangement was made entirely from the chord progression. The arrangement sound realistic, because it is using the high quality RealTracks present in Band-in-a-Box.

Press the Green PLAY button (Note: If the play button is Red, it indicates that the song will need to be generated, by connecting to BB Desktop).

Press STOP at any time.

Here are some typical uses for your BB iPhone version. This assumes that you have the BB Desktop version:

• Jim has entered lots of songs over the years into his BB Desktop version. He now wants to practice his guitar playing on these tunes using only his BB iPhone. As a one-time procedure, at home (over his home network WiFi) he first transfers his entire song library to BB iPhone, including chordsheets and audio. This takes about 10 seconds per song. Now he has his BB song library on his BB iPhone, and doesn't need to connect to his BB Desktop again (unless he wants more songs, or to generate different chords for the songs). He plays the songs on his iPhone, either using the iPhone speakers, headphones, or plugging the iPhone line out into his stereo system. He will only ever need to connect to BB Desktop again if he wants to get more songs, or regenerate them in different styles etc...
• Joan is playing a solo vocal gig, using BB iPhone as her backup band. She connects the iPhone audio out to the PA system. A customer requests one of her compositions, a song that she knows, but doesn't have a backing band arrangement for. On her break, she types in the chords to the song, presses PLAY, and the audio file generates and is ready to play on her BB iPhone (by connecting to BB Desktop over the Internet). After the gig, she sends the song to her BB Desktop, so that is available there too as part of her song library.

Program Tutorial

Let's enter our own song from scratch.

We will enter a simple blues progression, which is 12 bars long, in the key of C.

Press File and then NEW

Open up the Chord Keyboard, so that the song is editable

1. Choose a style for the song. Press the Style button (at the left of the screen, below the title), then choose the genre Blues, and select the style _BLSHUFF (Blues Shuffle) which is the 3rd one on the list.
2. Leave the tempo at the default of 140 (or change it by clicking on it).
3. Leave the key signature at C (or change it by clicking on it)
4. The song formula will say something like [1] [16] [3] That means the song form begins at bar 1, and ends at bar 16, and repeats 3 times. Since this is a 12 bar blues (not 16 bars), we click on the "16" and change it to 12. We can leave the number of repeats of the form at 3 (or change it by clicking on it)
5. Type in the chords. Click on bar 1 on the chord sheet. Then use the chord keyboard to type in a chord. To move to a new bar, click on the bar so that the highlight bar moves to that bar. Once you are in the bar, type the chord on the chord keybard.
   Type 'C' in bar 1.
   Type 'F' in bar 5
   Type 'C' in bar 7.
   Type 'G7' in bar 9 do this by typing 'G' and then '7'
   Type 'F7' in bar 10
   Type 'C' in bar 11
6. Enter a title for your song. Call it "My Blues" and then save it by choosing File-Save.

That's it! You've entered your first song.

Close the Chords Keyboard window.

Now to hear your song, you are going to need to be connected to your Band-in-a-Box Desktop version...

Connecting to the BB Desktop Version

Since the song has not been generated yet, the PLAY button will be RED, indicating that the song audio needs to be generated. Press the Red Play button, and this will launch the Server connection dialog. At this point the Band-in-a-Box Server app must be running on your desktop version - to start it, from your Band-in-a-Box desktop version click [Window > BB2GO > Run Band-in-a-Box Service Now].

• If your iPhone is connected to the same network as your computer running the Band-in-a-Box Server, enter the IP of your desktop computer (details on finding your IP are found below).
• If your iPhone is not on the same network as your computer running the Band-in-a-Box Server, please follow the section "Connecting to Band-in-a-Box server from the Internet (out of range of your Local Network)" below. Further details of router setup are available on the File-Help menu.

Once you have entered the Server IP, then press OK, and then enter the password (the default password is admin, so if you haven't changed it, that will work).

You will then see "Loading styles" … this only happens when it is a new connection, and BB desktop is telling BB iPhone what styles are available.

After that, you will see "Generating song" and then "Downloading file". After a wait of 15-30 seconds, your song will start playing. Press STOP to stop the song. At this point, the song "My Blues" now has audio saved with it, and will be ready to play next time without connecting to the BB Desktop version..

Let's get an existing song from the BB Desktop version

Press File and then Server , then "Get Song(s)". You will then see a list of the songs that are available on the BB Desktop program (ie the songs present in the BB2Go folder inside the BB folder.

Choose a song, and then press DOWNLOAD. This will download the song. Press PLAY to generate it, and hear it.

That concludes the tutorial.

Network Setup

Connecting Band-in-a-Box Server and iPhone application over a Local Area Network.

1. Set an Anti-virus exception for the application Band-in-a-Box Server.exe which resides in your "X:/bb/bbhelper" directory (X: Being your hard drive with Band-in-a-Box installed)
2. Check your Windows Firewall and make sure that a Firewall exception has been added for Band-in-a-Box Server.exe
   • Windows XP -> Start -> Control Panel -> Windows Firewall - Exceptions tab -> Band-in-a-Box Server.exe (should be in this list) If not add it manually using the "add program" button.
   • Windows Vista/7 -> Start Icon -> Control Panel -> Windows Firewall -> Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall -> Band-in-a-Box Server.exe (should be in this list) If not add it manually using the "allow program" button.
3. Find your IP address

   If you have a wireless router, you should be able to connect to Band-in-a-Box Server from your iPhone on your LAN (local area network) without any further setup. You will need to know your IP address. Band-in-a-Box Server displays your IP (double-click the icon in your task bar).

   The IP address should be 4 groups of digits separated by periods - eg. 192.168.1.156. If you're seeing odd letters & symbols instead, please follow these steps:

   1. Click [ Start >> Run ], and type CMD, press Enter / OK.
   
   2. Notice there will be a Command Prompt window. Type in "ipconfig" and press enter button on your keyboard.
   
   3. Wait a few seconds and you will be given your IP address, DNS address and possibly some more information. Use the IPv4 address.
   
4. Install the latest version of Quicktime for Windows.

Connecting to Band-in-a-Box server from the Internet (iPhone is not connected to Local Area Network)

1. Set an Anti-virus exception for the application Band-in-a-Box Server.exe which resides in your "X:/bb/bbhelper" directory (X: Being your hard drive with Band-in-a-Box installed)
2. Check your Windows Firewall and make sure that a Firewall exception has been added for Band-in-a-Box Server.exe
   • Windows XP -> Start -> Control Panel -> Windows Firewall - Exceptions tab -> Band-in-a-Box Server.exe (should be in this list) If not add it manually using the "add program" button.
   • Windows Vista/7 -> Start Icon -> Control Panel -> Windows Firewall -> Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall -> Band-in-a-Box Server.exe (should be in this list) If not add it manually using the "allow program" button.

   **If you have other third party firewall software, it may ask you if you want to allow this program.

3. Find your IP address and set up your router.

   If you have a wireless router, you should be able to connect to Band-in-a-Box Server from your iPhone on your LAN (local area network) without any further setup. You will need to know your IP address. Band-in-a-Box Server displays your IP (double-click the icon in your task bar).

   If you have a router, and you want to connect to your computer from the "outside world", you will need to configure a port forwarding rule on your router. To do this:

   1. Log on to your router. Typically, you access your router by typing an IP address into your web browser. Different manufacturers use different default IP addresses - for example, dlink typically uses 192.168.0.1, and linksys typically uses 192.168.1.1.
   2. Once you are logged in, find the port forwarding settings. Again, this varies with different manufacturers, but in general:
      • For dlink routers, you should find it by clicking the Advanced tab along the top, and then clicking Port Forwarding menu item on the left side.
      • For linksys routers, you may find it under the 'Applications and Gaming' tab along the top.
      • For Siemens routers, you may find it under Internet | Address Translation.
   3. Forward the following ports to your computer. You can find out your computer's IP address by looking at Band-in-a-Box Server:
      • Port 6789 TCP
      • Port 6790 UDP
4. Now you need to know your router's public IP address. This is the IP address that the world sees, i.e. the Gateway to your LAN. You can find out by looking in the router settings (e.g. the Status tab on dlink routers), or by clicking the Find My IP button in the BB2GO dialog.
5. Download the latest version of Quicktime for Windows.

Additional Notes

• To close Band-in-a-Box server you must right click on the icon labeled Band-in-a-Box server in your task bar and select exit.
• The default password for the Band-in-a-Box Server Application is admin.
• **Resetting Band-in-a-Box on your iPhone Device: If anything goes wrong with your connection or the application needs to be reset, you can find the reset dialog in the app's -> Settings -> Preferences -> (scroll down) -> Reset Program -> Enter the word YES in capital letters and touch the "OK" button on the iPhone device to reset the application.