Launch the Band-in-a-Box app

When you open Band-in-a-Box, it will automatically try to detect any Band-in-a-Box Server that is running on the same network. For example, if you have a home PC connected to a wireless network and Band-in-a-Box Server is running on it. You may see a server connection dialog - if you aren't sure what to do at this point, just cancel the dialog and come back to it later.

The main screen

In the Band-in-a-Box app, you'll notice a few areas (from top to bottom):

1. Top Toolbar, with File menu, Settings button, Play/Stop, and 'Chord Input Mode' button.
2. Song title.
3. Song Settings (Style, Tempo, Key, chorus begin/end, and number of choruses or repeats).
4. Chordsheet area showing your song, with 4 bars per line.
5. Bottom Status bar (green checkmark if connected to server).

Let's open and play an existing song.

Choose OPEN from the FILE menu. You will see the demo songs that are included with BB iPhone. You should see "Blues Shuffle Demo" and "Jazz Swing Demo", and you will notice that these filenames are in green. The green indicates that audio (m4a) is available for these songs. This means that they are "ready-to-play" and don't have to be generated by connecting to Band-in-a-Box Server.

Choose "Blues Shuffle Demo": This song was previously generated using BB iPhone, and the arrangement was made entirely from the chord progression.

Press the Green PLAY button The arrangement sounds realistic, because it is using the high quality RealTracks present in Band-in-a-Box. If the play button were Red, it would indicate that the song needs to be generated by connecting to BB Desktop. Press STOP.

Make some changes to the song.

Press the Keyboard button. This will open up the chord input keyboard, allowing you to edit the chords in the song. Change the third chord to a C7 by highlighting bar 7 and press 7 on the chord keyboard. Close the keyboard by touching the button at bottom-right.

Change the song's style by touching the style field (_BLSHUFF). Choose a different Blues style, such as _BBBLUES. This is another RealTracks style, which is indicated by the underscore prefix in the style name.

Press Play, or double-click on a bar to star playback. You'll be asked to either 'play existing' or 'regenerate'. Since the song arrangement has changed, in order to hear the new style and modified chords Band-in-a-Box will need to regenerate the song. More on how to connect to Band-in-a-Box desktop below.

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.

Enter a title for your song, call it 'My Blues'.

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.

Change the tempo to 120 beats per minute by touching it and using the slider/arrows.

Leave the key signature at C.

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)

Open up the Chord Keyboard, so that the song is editable and enter the following chords. To enter a chord, highlight the bar in the chordsheet. Then in the keyboard input area, select the beat number (there can be up to four chords per bar), the chord letter (C,F, etc.), followed by the chord type (maj, 7, etc.).

• Enter 'C' in bar 1.
• Enter 'F' in bar 5.
• Enter 'C' in bar 7.
• Enter 'G7' in bar 9. Do this by typing 'G' and then '7'
• Type 'F7' in bar 10.
• Type 'C' in bar 11.

Save the song by choosing File-Save. That's it! You've entered your first song.

Close the Keyboard window. Now to generate your new song, you are going to need to be connected to your Band-in-a-Box Desktop version...

Band-in-a-Box Server can alternatively be started "manually" double clicking on it in the /bb/BBHelper folder.

When Band-in-a-Box Server is running, it will be visible as a green and white note in your task bar, normally at the bottom right corner of your computer screen. Open it to access basic options and see your computer's IP address. The Server password default is admin, and you may wish to change this to your own password. Note that if you are connecting over the internet, you will likely need a different IP address (your public IP) than the one listed in this window. There are a few ways to find out your public IP; one way is to use the button in the BB2Go dialog.

Connecting to Band-in-a-Box Server

There are two general ways that you can connect to Band-in-a-Box Server: Over the internet from anywhere, or over a wireless Local Area Network (LAN). BB iPhone will attempt to detect any Band-in-a-Box Server

• If your iPhone is connected to the same network as your computer running the Band-in-a-Box Server, i.e. a local wireless network, the server should be detected automatically and the IP address of your desktop computer should appear there (the same IP as is seen in the Band-in-a-Box Server window).
• If your iPhone is not on the same network as your computer running the Band-in-a-Box Server, i.e. you want to connect over the internet, you will enter your public IP address. There are a couple of extra steps required as well, to set up your router at home to handle the connection correctly. See the section below - "Connecting to Band-in-a-Box server from the Internet (out of range of your Local Network)".

In any case, once you have selected the server or typed your IP, press OK and enter the password (default password is admin).

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

Your song should now generate and download, and start playing. 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...

Getting songs from Band-in-a-Box desktop.

You can Get any song from your Band-in-a-Box desktop version, or Send songs that you've done on your iphone. To access these options, go to the File menu | Server.

To Get Songs, first place them in the BB2Go folder on your PC. Using the BB2Go window in Band-in-a-Box desktop, you can prepare all the songs so they are ready for immediate playback once downloaded to the iphone. On the iphone, these prepared songs will appear green.

Note: Another option for downloading songs from your desktop computer is to use the "Download from PC/Mac" feature - this is described below.

As you've seen, it is necessary to have (and be connected to) the desktop version of Band-in-a-Box in order to create and generate new songs.

However, it isn't necessary to have the desktop version of Band-in-a-Box at all to download and play existing songs. Starting with version 1.0.8 you can download songs over a local network / WiFi from your home computer - PC or Mac - without needing to connect to Band-in-a-Box server. Here is how:

Note: This requires iOS 5 or higher.

Step 1 - File | Download from PC/Mac

Make sure your device and your computer are connected to the same LAN (local area network). If you have previously set up a wireless (WiFi) network, the connection will typically happen automatically.

Go to the File menu and select 'Download from PC/Mac'.

Step 2 - Follow the on-screen instructions

You can download Band-in-a-Box songs (e.g. MySong.MGU) and rendered audio (e.g. MySong_Render.mp4 or MySong_AllMix.m4a), or a zip file containing files, from your Mac or Windows desktop PC that is on the same LAN network.

Remember that in order to play the songs on your phone/tablet without a connecting to Band-in-a-Box Server, you'll need to have the songs pre-generated. This means that the rendered file (.m4a) should be located beside the Band-in-a-Box song file. On Windows you can put your songs in the \bb\BB2Go folder and use the options in the "Window menu | BB2Go" dialog. On Mac, you can render songs by opening each song and clicking the Audio button in the main toolbar; choose the "Full Mix" option.

In any browser on the same network (e.g. Firefox or Internet Explorer), type in ip address given in the dialog, into the address bar. It will look something like this (although the numbers will probably be different) http://192.168.0.102

Step 3 - Enter the URL into your desktop browser.

After you enter the address into your browser as described, your screen should look similar like this. Click the Browse button to choose the files you want to download, and then press Submit.

Note that Internet Explorer doesn't support downloading multiple files at the same time. For this reason, we suggest using a different web browser (e.g. Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera) to download more than one file.

Remember:

• You need to leave the download window open on your iPhone until the files are downloaded.
• In order to play the songs on your iPhone without connecting to Band-in-a-Box Server, you need to download both the BB song file (e.g. MySong.mgu) and the rendered audio file (e.g. MySong_Render.mp4 or MySong_AllMix.m4a).

As you've seen, it is necessary to have (and be connected to) the desktop version of Band-in-a-Box in order to create and generate new songs with the app. However, it isn't necessary to have the desktop version of Band-in-a-Box at all to download and play existing songs; you can download them via WiFi or Dropbox without needing to connect to Band-in-a-Box server.

It is easy to download songs using Dropbox or Google Drive. Note that you need to already have a Dropbox (or Google Drive) account set up.

Step 1 - File | Download

Go to the File menu and select 'Download', and then tap [Download from Dropbox] (or Google Drive). If you have not yet signed into Dropbox on the device, you need to tap [sign in], and then [Allow]