What is JJazzLab?

JJazzLab is a 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

BACKING TRACKS

• Instant generation of a Midi backing track with drums, percussion, bass, piano, guitar, pad, horn section, …
• Fine tuning of the backing track per song part: rhythm variation, intensity, muted instruments, drum fills, tempo factor, …
• Play from start, from selected bar, or loop selected bars
• Any song structure: intro, chorus, 1st coda, etc.
• Adjust tempo, transposition, choose and solo/mute instruments
• Support for multi-rhythm backing tracks, possibly with different time signatures
• Customizable click and precount
• Export to Midi file, enabling easy Midi-to-MP3 conversion

EDITORS

• Chord leadsheet editor, song structure editor, chord symbol editor, mix console
• Multi-file editor with dockable windows
• Intuitive user interface with unlimited undo/redo, copy/paste between songs
• Free placement of the chord symbols, off-beat chord symbols anticipation
• Support all pop-rock and jazz chord symbols, plus user-defined chord symbols
• Edit chord symbol rendering: underlying harmony, accent, harmony variation during solos, …
• Force section to start on a new line
• Customizable song template
• Customizable UI colors and fonts

RHYTHMS

• Support for Yamaha style files (SFF1 & SFF2 format), access to thousands of free styles on the web
• Hundreds of embedded rhythms in the installer
• Support for “YamJJazz Extended” Yamaha style files for even more variations per style
• Open architecture: new rhythm generation engines can be easily added via plugins

MIDI

• Connect to any audio engine via Midi: SoundFont player (recommended with the JJazzLab SoundFont), Java internal synth, external synth, VST host via virtual Midi port such as ‘LoopBe1’
• Compatible with GM/GM2/XG/GS instruments
• Compatible with any instrument via Cakewalk instrument definition files (.ins)
• Automatic drums/percussion key map remapping from Yamaha XG key map to GM/GM2/GS key maps
• Optimized JJazzLab SoundFont for a high-quality rendering and automatic instrument selection
• Ready-to-use presets for VirtualMidiSynth (Windows) and FluidSynth (Linux)
• User-defined default mix per rhythm
• User-defined default instruments

IMPORT

• Impro-Visor files
• musicXML files (from JJazzLab 2.1)
• Band-In-A-Box files (from JJazzLab 2.1)

MISC

• Autoupdate notifications
• Based on the open-source Netbeans application framework