Free Band-in-a-Box Alternatives
The best free alternative to Band-in-a-Box is Impro-Visor, which is also Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Band-in-a-Box and many of them is free so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free alternatives to Band-in-a-Box are MMA, ChordPulse, JJazzLab and Avid Sibelius.
Band-in-a-Box alternatives are mainly Music Production Apps but may also be Digital Audio Workstations. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Band-in-a-Box.
Impro-Visor (short for “Improvisation Advisor”) is a music notation program designed to help jazz musicians compose and hear solos similar to ones that might be improvised. The objective is to improve understanding of solo construction and tune chord changes.
Impro-Visor vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
better user interface. many similar facilities to BIAB.
“MMA—Musical MIDI Accompaniment” is an accompaniment generator. It creates MIDI tracks for a soloist to perform over from a user supplied file containing chords and MMA directives.
MMA vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
Produces backing tracks to play over.
MMA is free. It runs on (among other platforms) linux. I have it running on my $35 Raspberrry Pi. The data file of chords (and, optionally, melodies, and song structure (repeats!), is text but pretty easy to follow. Type in the chords, the repeats, some melody or solo licks, choose styles (and substyles) and a quick run will generate a MIDI file. A free Biab alternative!
After trying it out, I should be able to describe it.
ChordPulse is a handy backing band software for music practice, inspiration, improvisation, and pure fun with music. Play and sing along with ChordPulse. Use it as a full accompaniment, a drum machine with bass, a metronome with chords, and more.
ChordPulse vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
Easy to use, simple interface that even beats I-Real Pro.
better designed user interface, you won't need a manual. It has lots of styles embedded, which all sound perfect for practicing soloing. Also, it exports to midi so you can load your jam track to a DAW and start recording your song. ChordPulse does not do automatic soloing but who uses that, really?
I have BB but this is easier for beginners.
it's cheap. incredibly easy to use, it's very complete in its chord options and many styles which all sound great. Also, having a mixer built-in for the separate tracks like drums of bass helps me a lot. I also use it to create chord progressions which you can export to text and MIDI which I will then import into my recording software
Its just so much easier to use.
Easy and fast to create some jam-tracks, lot of styles, midi export
JJazzLab is a free Midi-based application which automatically generates backing tracks (a musical accompaniment) for any song. It’s a jam buddy to have fun improvising, learn new stuff or just practice your instrument. It’s also a great tool for teachers.
JJazzLab vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
Easy to use and imports Band-in--a-Box files
Sibelius is a scorewriter program, created by Sibelius Software (now part of Avid Technology) for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and historically RISC OS.
Avid Sibelius vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
Sibelius is a notation (Score writing) application, Band-In-A-Box is not.
It's for writing sheet music, not for making backing tracks
Sibelius is music notation software. You would have to create the accompaniment yourself in the notation. There is little similarity between this and BIAB.
Power Tab Editor is a free tablature authoring tool created by Brad Larsen for Windows. It is used to create guitar, bass and ukulele tablature scores, among many others. The current version uses the *.ptb file format.
Frescobaldi is a LilyPond sheet music text editor. It aims to be powerful, yet lightweight and easy to use. Frescobaldi is Free Software, freely available under the General Public License.
Frescobaldi vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
create sheet music not accompaniments
Aria Maestosa is an open-source (GPL) midi tracker/editor. It lets you compose, edit and play midi files with a few clicks in a user-friendly interface offering keyboard, guitar, drum and controller views.
LeMMA is a simple GUI “front-end” written in Python for MMA (Musical MIDI Accompaniment – also written in Python). Just enter the chords, select the grooves and press “Play”.
Discontinued
The project looks abandoned. Last version, 0.9 alpha, released in August 2010, can be still downloaded from the official website.
AutoDrum is free, open source software for automatic drum performance, helpful for practice or speeding up composition.