Band-in-a-Box Alternatives for Mac
There are many alternatives to Band-in-a-Box for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best Mac alternative is Impro-Visor, which is both free and 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 are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Mac alternatives to Band-in-a-Box are MMA, JJazzLab, Avid Sibelius and Aria Maestosa.
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.
Features
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.
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.
Features
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.
Features
Avid Sibelius vs Band-in-a-Box opinions
The two softwares have very different goals - BIAB to create backing tracks, Sibelius to compose and notate sheet music. They share very few similarities.
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.
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.
Features
GNU Denemo is a music notation editor that lets you rapidly enter notation for typesetting via the LilyPond music engraver. You can compose, transcribe, arrange, listen to the music and much more.
Features
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
DGuitar is a Guitar Pro (GP4, GP3, GTP) viewer/player that works on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Solaris, and any other operating system that has Java Runtime Environment 1.4 or later installed.
Features
DiscontinuedThe last software release was published on February 20th, 2006.
The Tonelib JAM is a software for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music for guitar and other fretted instruments. You can use Tonelib JAM for regular guitar practicing, for learning songs or for advancing your performance skills to the next level.
Features
iReal Pro offers an easy-to-use tool to help musicians of all levels master their art. iReal Pro simulates a real-sounding band that can accompany you as you practice, and also lets you collect chord charts of your favorite songs for reference.