BIAB vs. Onyx 2.1 arranger

Choros · Post by **Choros** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:36 am

Hi all,

very much I like to know if anybody compared these two
SW's. Especially of interest are experiences with Onyx.
I know BIAB but not Onyx, (in practice).
Is Onyx worth an investment?

Thanks for infos!

Choros

Gorilla · Post by **Gorilla** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 6:56 am

Choros, couldn't tell you about Onyx. I have been with BIAB for years. I have been with BIAB since the Atari 520/1040 ST days. The support is superb and the program is almost excellent.

Peter Gannon, the creator of BIAB has worked out the in and outs of this great program. Haven't heard of Onyx yet. If you have not visted the PG Music.com website, please do. Great forums. Did I mention the cost value. The price is right. The program to me is excellent. Hope this helped. Oh yes, if you are using the Pa1x the two are a marriage made in heaven.

I visited the Onyx webpage. Correct me if I am mistaken. It appears that the program is written solely for the Mac v.1.9. Is this true?

Choros · Post by **Choros** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:18 am

Hello Gorilla,

I have BIAB since 2004. In general it is an overwhelming program.
What I am missing oftener is some groove in its styles.

Onyx uses own styles too and makes songs out of them.
It runs on Windows XP.
Here's their webpage with details and a 20MB video zip:

http://www.jasminemusic.com/onyx.htm

Question is if Onyx could be a tremendous asset beside BIAB.
It costs 99 Bucks.
(I find Jammer could also be of interest).

What do you think?

Gorilla · Post by **Gorilla** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:31 am

Choros, I forgot about Jammer Pro. I am registered with them also. It too is a good program. I have not received updates or upgrades since v.5. They were having issues a couple of years ago. Great program though. In my opinion not as good as BIAB. BIAB constanty upgrades and has gotten better with every update. I will check out the Onyx site.

Since the above message I downloaded the free sample good for 21 days. I think graphically Onyx looks nice. It looks a little like Jammer Pro.

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:27 pm

Choros wrote:I have BIAB since 2004. In general it is an overwhelming program. What I am missing oftenly is some groove in its styles.

Hi Choros,

I think it's quite easy with BiaB to edit the standard "rigid" styles and make them sound really nice. I am using BiaB 2008. This has "real Drums" and "real Solo instruments" which sound great but are of no use for working with the Pa keyboards because you have to stick with MIDI.

One of the issues is the "latency" on a PC which causes notes in BiaB to sometimes not be played back at exactly the right time when you use a PC based soundcard or an external MIDI instrument.

The big difference for me has been using the new BiaB to Pa1x patch map which allows all the great Pa sounds and drumkits to be selected instead of the GM sets. Then I download the styles to my Pa1x keyboard and using live playing on my keyboard to trigger the styles as native User Styles, instead of using the BiaB playout mechanism using a PC based sound card. This is starting to sound something really special. These styles are already at least as good - probably better - than most of the factory styles.

Over the next few months I will post some of these new Pa1x styles onto www.createsongstyles.com and I'd like your feedback.

Best regards,
Rob

worth · Post by **worth** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 6:09 pm

I am very excited about this developement Rob. In affect making my own styles will prbably be the way to go for me in the future . Thanks for all your hard work

steve350 · Post by **steve350** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:25 pm

I've also been a BIAB user for many years. I have Jammer Pro as well. It's O.K. but I like BIAB much more. I also use PowerTracks, for the money it's a great program for recording midi and audio.

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:35 pm

worth wrote:I am very excited about this developement Rob. In affect making my own styles will prbably be the way to go for me in the future . Thanks for all your hard work

Hi Worth,

Maybe I can develop some styles (via the BiaB method) for you and you would kindly try them out and provide feedback? What are your favourite songs or choruses? For example do you know Graham Kendrick's "Tonight", and do you have the music score yourself ?

Best regards,
Rob

Gorilla · Post by **Gorilla** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:55 am

Rob, once again, good work.