You DEFINITELY (!!) want to buy the Roland GS VSC-3 for the extra $20... this is the equivalent of software that Roland sells for around $150; and for use with Band-in-a-box, its as good as my $1200 Kurzweil PC2R synth. You can use BinB without it, but the internal MIDI sounds from Windows are pretty bad.
BinB is great ... I own almost every piece of software that PG Music has produced ... a lot of the good stuff has been taken away because of copyright problems. The initial Mac version of BinB had a regular fake book, with copyrighted songs ... I still have these files, and they work with BinB 12. If you play piano, bass, guitar or drums, they are great learning tools ... like metronomes but a lot more interesting. With basslines, you can actually see how the pros play a bassline (mainly walking bass in my case) and try to imitate.
Buy Roland GS VSC-3 (Please note that the VSC-3 is only sold with the purchase of any additional PG Music products of $29 or more. We cannot sell the VSC-3 alone.)
Roland GS VSC-3 - $20 (for Windows)
Why do we say that PG Music's programs sound spectacular with the Roland Virtual Sound Canvas? Because they do!
Roland high-performance synthesizers have been used by professional musicians for years, and the Roland Sound Canvas sound module is the widely accepted reference standard for MIDI programming. Now the Roland Virtual Sound Canvas VSC-3 puts advanced Roland technology right into your personal computer, turning it into a powerful synthesizer that allows you listen to high-quality sounds without any external sound sources.
One of the most exciting features of the VSC-3 is the ability to render a *.WAV file right from a MIDI file in seconds. There is even a batch mode where you can convert numerous MIDI files into WAV files with a click of a button. When you have your WAV file, you can create your very own Audio CD using your favorite CD creation tool!
Roland's unique software synthesizer uses digital signal processing technology to turn a PC into a powerful processing synthesizer. The Virtual Sound Canvas is a software simulation Sound Canvas that uses the processing power available in your sound capable Windows or Macintosh computer to direct MIDI file data in real time through the CPU rather than the MIDI processor chip. This high speed software adds a sophisticated enhancement which plays through the system's audio processor chip. The result is a dramatic improvement in the performance of MIDI files, playing them with the high fidelity of a General MIDI/GS Format wavetable synthesizer.
Note: The Roland Virtual Sound Canvas VSC-3 is recommended as a superior MIDI playback system. As with any software synthesizer, there is a small processing delay when using the VSC-3. For real time performance or recording, an external sound module is recommended.
