Songwriting Software Express, Issue # 16 -- Do Your Own Demos, The Easy Way

To help your songwriting with a focus on the benefits of innovative songwriting software, tools, resources and programs for your songwriting craft and career.

How To Be A Hit Songwriter - Platinum selling songwriter Molly-Ann Leikin has a houseful of awards. She's written songs for TV and movies and has had songs recorded by artists like Cher, Tina Turner, Anne Murray, Placido Domingo and many more.

Learn: "Seven Easy Steps to Writing Hit Lyrics", rewriting lyrics and music and industry inside tips plus more. Click here for more information and to order How To Be A Hit Songwriter.

This book has gotten a perfect 5 out of 5 stars from all seven reviewers who commented on the value of this book to their songwriting (source - Amazon.com).

Note: this book is for intermediate to advanced songwriters but is certainly instructional to those newer to songwriting.

1. Run Your Own Virtual Band And Have Them Do Your Demos For Free
2. This Month's Notable Quote

Let's face it, producing song demos is one of the most expensive aspects of a songwriter's career and the more you can do on your own the better.

Granted you want the best tracks producible but with the advent of newer software innovations in recording professional sounding production is getting more and more at the fingertips and budgets of the aspiring songwriter.

This month's spotlighted program, Band-in-a-Box, is a program that allows you to go from entering just the chord progression to your song to a full band demo in just about any style automatically and almost as quickly as the time it's taken you to read these few sentences.

And the quality of sound coming out this program today is so close to the real thing that you may well think you're listening to live instruments play your songs. Easily add vocals yourself or get a stellar singer and you've just become a full producer of your own song demos.

If you live in or will be in the Los Angeles area this Spring take note that Jai Josefs will be teaching his once-a-year "Writing Music For Hit Songs" class at the Songwriters Guild beginning Thursday May 20th at 7:30pm.

This is an extraordinary opportunity to study personally with the author of “Writing Music For Hit Songs” - the definitive text on modern music writing used in colleges and universities throughout the world and endorsed by hit writers including Diane Warren.

In the class, Jai lays out a step by step process using current hit songs as examples that shows you tangibly and specifically how hit music is created in all styles from country to pop to rock to singer/songwriter. And all in a way that you can immediately apply to your own writing.

Here’s what one of his recent graduates says: “In the last 18 months I’ve been offered two record deals, had over 40% of my Taxi submissions forwarded, and seen my band’s radio airplay double. I attribute this primarily to how much my songwriting has improved since I’ve been working with Jai.”

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If you or one of your collaborators can write out at least a basic chord progression for a song you're working on then you've got enough to work with musically to create a full band demo of your song, in just about any style, using nothing more than your home computer.

Today's technology makes producing the sound of a full band that sounds real, as in like live instruments, very doable and much more affordable than it has ever been. And all this on your typical home computer set up.

A program that fills this need well and has recently been significantly upgraded is Band-in-a-Box for windows (and Mac versions are also available). Its technology has been upgraded to even better sounds and even includes optimal sound boosters like Roland's Virtual Sound Canvas.

The program is very easy to use and you can get a full band production of your song literally within minutes. And all this for far less than what today's typical demo costs start at, typically decent demos today are costing $250-$350 and often up in most places in the United States.

This program starts at the fundamental level that all songwriters have to begin with, at least musically after the melody, and that's at the chord progression for your song.

With Band-in-a-Box you simply type, or play in if you prefer, the chords to your song using standard chord shorthand like Am or F#7 into a grid that is already set up with bars and measures to coincide with the timing and rhythm of your song as you indicate.

Once your chords are typed in you can further define the sections of your song as in what parts are verses and choruses and bridges that instructs Band-in-a-Box to play those sections a bit differently.

In other words Band-in-a-Box will add a drum riff leading into the chorus just a like a real drummer would do and it will elaborate on the instrumentation and rhythmic pattern in the chorus to differentiate it musically from the verses.

When your parameters are set simply pick a style you want the song played in and hit play. Immediately your song is played to you with a band that includes keyboard, guitar, drums, bass and even strings. Edit out parts you don't want, right down to the beat, and even change the instruments playing the different parts until you've got just the sound you want.

Just add vocals or your instrument for your melody and you've got the makings of a fully produced, band accompanied, song.

One hot new feature that Band-in-a-Box offers is the new auto harmony function that can take your vocal part and then auto create, from your voice, 4 part harmony vocals to your singing in your own voice! These are not midi files. This is a pretty amazing development. You just have to try it.

Auto harmony works great when you want to fill your chorus and or bridge with more impact.

And Band-in-a-Box also now will auto-correct your singing if you're singing out of tune. This is essentially the famous "auto-tune" that until recently had only been readily available on very high-end systems.

Band-in-a-Box is also now much faster in processing and all the midi instrument sounds have been updated and over a hundred new instruments added.

There are numerous other features and new innovations that this program offers but it gets to be almost mind boggling.

An understanding of the basic function of Band-in-a-Box described above is a good place to start and from there you can access the features you'll need fairly automatically and quickly produce song arrangements.

However, if you want to manipulate the arrangements further, you'll find a ton of other features that are relevant to many different musical situations that you can incorporate as you learn more about the program at your own pace.

Either way with Band-in-a-Box you now have the ability to produce your own tracks and indeed your own demos. You may still want to hire a vocalist but now you can have the tracks to your song nicely prepared in advance.

"I'm a recording artist signed to a Sony Music Licensed record label called PPL Records USA. I want you to know that I often use Band-in-a-Box for production. Thank you PG Music for what I believe is the greatest and most innovative music product software in recent music history, and you can quote me on that."

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down."

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