BIAB! I have Powertracks 3.5d (maybe e?) but I use Cakewalk 6.0 since that’s what I got to know. 

You honor me with your comments, above and going back to our initial correspondence last October, but I have apparently given you and impression that I play guitar well enough to “solo” along with BIAB stuff... ummm, not exactly! My guitar playing is strictly playing chords, although after thirty years I know quite a few. I use a 1972 Goya G-10 classical. I recently came “full circle” by hooking up with a fellow I met at a Kingston Trio concert last fall. I had already been playing out weekly at a local lounge, doing mostly torch songs, 30’s - 50’s ballads, and a few pop-folk ballads (at a second venue, the owner asked me please not to play “Over The Rainbow” again... it made her wanna cry!) 

Now Mike and I have teamed up (he plays 12string) doing just Kingston Trio and other pop-folk stuff from when we started back in college mid-1960’s. It’s getting quite a warm response and I hope we can organize some “Hootenanny” playing dates.... maybe even make a couple bucks while having fun. 

Back to jazz... My father brought me up early on 45’s of the Big Bands, so my love for that music style was nurtured at a young age. Last year I was able to realize the incredible act of creating my own Big Band music with midi and BIAB... and it’s all by ear since I don’t read music! 

I have MidiScan and start a song with that. I’ve acquired a library of over 500 thirties thru fifties songs from sources at our Main Library, also building a searchable database of over 1,400 that they have available to me in songbooks. I have several hundred more in songbooks that I own. Lately, I’ve begun a small collection of old sheet music. 

So, I select the song, run it through MidiScan which gets a generally close midi file of the melody line, piano treble and bass, then edit it to a clean result. From there, it’s off to BIAB to flesh it out and, usually, add the soloist parts, if any. I make 3 or 4 or more versions with different harmonies because BIAB is limited to One melody and One soloist per song. Then I’ll assemble the various parts as I want them in Cakewalk. 

Wal-LAH! I end up with a helluva “recording” that Dad would be proud of (he died many years ago but I'm sure he knows...) and it sounds great here because I‘m playing through the full instrumentation of the Yamaha DB50XG daughterboard on an SB-16 through decent Panasonic speakers. 

I don’t consider myself a “musician,” really, doing this... but maybe I have some knack for arranging, given the incredible tools I have and the wonderful responses from opinions I trust. I envy you guys who can do it “for real!”