What do I need for BAIB..?

Chas Holman · From: 10 miles outa Lone Star, TX - USA

Hey Gurus..!,

Any ideas on a "good" ..er... hopefully, inexpensive way to get going on this BIAB thing..? I'm not curently set up for ANY "music" on any of my PC's so, I'm assuming that I'll need some form of sound card and speakers (mfg., type, etc..??).

Also, I have a few old 486's that I could config for this purpose, or does the processor need to be P-1 or better..? Is a particular type of monitor (VGA, SVGA, etc.) a requirement for this kind of thing..?

Any help would be appreciated,

-Chas

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"may the FORUM be with you"

Skip Ellis · From: Bradenton, Fl USA

Hi Chas-in my experience, BIAB will run on just about anything-I have an earlier version on a DX4 33MHZ laptop with 4 megs of RAM! Just get a "Soundblaster" compatible sound card and some speakers and you're in business.

Good Luck and holler if you need any info.

Skip

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

I echo Skips thoughts with these additions, and they are only common sense. The more expensive the sound card and speakers, the better the sound. Buy at least a soundblaster live value soundcard. I got mine at buy.com for 65$ about a year ago, including shipping. If I were to buy now, I would get soundblaster platinium. More money but has a front panel for inputs I understand. Do not buy a 10-20$ soundcard. It will work, but the sound is not good. I even bought a Roland sound module about-500$-to get better sound, however my useage is for more commercial applications.

Speakers are the same way. You get what you pay for. The soundblaster card has outports for 4 speaker surround sound and one pair is connected to the computer monitors and one to my stereo. In fact, if you have a good stereo nearby, you don't need to buy computer speakers.

BIAB is a blast. Good luck.
Ken

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

You'll have lots of questions along the way. My advice is to contact Big Jim Baron at bigjim4b@madnet.net and buy it thru him. He's a steel player who attends the steel shows, promotes BIAB, knows it extremely well, creates his own styles for it and will be there, by email, for you to answer your questions, usually the same day, whenever you need him. This is definitely the way to go, IMHO.

Chas Holman · From: 10 miles outa Lone Star, TX - USA

Russ, Skip, Jim & Ken,

Thank you all for the advice. Looks like a trip to the computer store is in order (and a little surfin') to find a good peice at a good price.

And I'll contact Big Jim and get the expert's low-down...

-Chas

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"may the FORUM be with you"

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

The current version of BIAB (Version 9) requires a WIN95/98. An old 486 won't support WIN95 and really be able to do anything. A P1 also has problems with WIN98.

As far as the sound card, if you don't have a fairly good (midi support) card, the Roland VSC88 software midi works well. I've got a Soundblaster AWE64 card and I can't tell much difference between the midi instruments in the Soundblaster and the VSC88 software generated MIDI.

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

When I bought my BIAB from Big Jim, it came with the VSC88 included as a freebie. The price is the same everywhere, so don't bother with the stores. Just email Jim, really. Trust me, this is what you want to do.

Chas Holman · From: 10 miles outa Lone Star, TX - USA

Thanks Jack & Jim for the input. Actually Big Jim picked up on this thread and has already emailed me info on BIAB.

As you stated, he is very supportive.

Thanks again,

-Chas

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"may the FORUM be with you"

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

One note of caution. I received the vs-88 with my BIAB as well. If you only use it for BIAB, no problem. It sounds pretty good. Beware if you convert BIAB files to midi and use a sequencing program of some kind. There is a lurking problem called latency, and if not set correctly, you can input a midi note only to have it sound a half a second later. This makes all your new midi notes out of sync.

You have to go back into BIAB and reset latency and start again. For my application, I deleted vs-88 and went to a seperate sound module. Ahh. Order is restored.

Again, with only BIAB, it is a good virtual sound program.

Chas Holman · From: 10 miles outa Lone Star, TX - USA

Thanks Ken,

I appreciate the response. I'm learning more about this every day..!

-Chas

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