I prefer using the staff view to analyze and adjust playback in BiaB. What I've been playing around with lately is the Melodist to generate melodies to some of the chord progressions I've written, and occasionally there is some pretty good stuff that it generates. As an example, I have loaded a George Benson style and in this style the melody is closer to being a chord solo. But when I click on the Note symbol to pull up a notation screen, only the melody line is displayed -- none of the other chord elements. I've looked around in the menu selections but I can't find anything to modify this.
So what I did was export this tune with the generated melody to MIDI, and when I did this, it exported the melody as chord solo. So at least I have access now to all the notes that were generated. I can then import the MIDI file into Cakewalk Sonar or Presonus Notion, where I can adjust things. But this is an additional step I'd just as soon avoid if at all possible. It is also not without its own set of problems. For instance, for some reason the drum track (Channel 10) isn't picked up at all in Notion, which of the two software packages, is the one I prefer for editing musical notation. And yes, I have gone into the MIDI setup in Notion to make sure that Channel 10 is configured for drums. There's probably something I've overlooked, but I haven't found the secret yet.
I have some old BiaB tunes I've picked up here and there over the years, and many of them display the full musical output when I click on the Note symbol. I think most of these files were imported into BiaB as MIDO 0 files because when I click on the Note symbol, it displays everything, which can get confusing real fast. But anyway, I know it is at least possible to display more than a single line of melody.
So, is this possible in BiaB and, if so, what have I overlooked?
The harmony you are hearing that produces the chord solo is obtained by BIAB's "Harmony Maker".
To see which harmony routine is being used, it's necessary to enter into the "Edit" dialogue for Melodist Maker (#2, on IMAGE 1 below).
When I did the above, it showed me that "108 George Benson" harmony was being used. (As an aside, if you want to disable this harmony, this is the place to do it. Simply select "0 <no harmony>" as the option.)
If you want to write this harmony to the Melody track, under the "Harmony" menu select "Convert Harmony to Melody Track" (see IMAGE 2 below).
Thanks for the feedback, guys. Noel, your directions worked. I also found that if I open the Leadsheet window, click on the Opt. button, and uncheck "split harmonies to different tracks" this gives me the full notation readout in the Leadsheet window. Which I prefer for just sight-reading.
But this raises another question, and I'm not able to find a solution to this one. I'm thinking it might not exist in BiaB. If you're a guitarist and you read music, then you know that the notes that we sound are actually an octave below the notation as written. In other words, using middle C on the keyboard as an example, a guitarist would play that note an octave below where a keyboardist would. Most full-featured notation based software packages have the capability of displaying the music at a different pitch, while not affecting the pitch of the sound being generated.
This "one octave below" condition, peculiar to guitar (and perhaps other instruments?), is expressed by showing an "8" attached to the base of the treble clef.
If it isn't possible to do this in BiaB, then I'm back to exporting it to Notion, where I can just print out the part.
A few other instruments are octave transposing, such as tenor sax that sound an octave below written (and a ninth below a note in concert key). Acoustic and electric bass is also written an octave above where it sounds.
Go to Options, Preferences, Channels. Find the row for the instrument playing your guitar part and move to the 2nd column in that row. You'll see a zero. Change it to a minus one. Note that the bass track does this by default.
Then you may want to go to the Melody (or Soloist) menu, do Edit, Transpose, Transpose UP an octave. Depends on where you prefer to read it. My guitarist can read either way but I normally write parts up an octave from where I want it to sound.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
Hey Matt, thanks for your response. Sorry it's taken so long to get back with you. I checked in here a couple days ago, but somehow I missed your reply.
OK, I did as you suggested. The first step -- Options/Preferences/Channels lowers the melody an octave -- which might be fine in some cases, given that this will usually bring the notation into the same octave as performance. But with one specific tune I'm working on, it's kept the chord portion of the track -- as originally written -- below the range of the guitar. So I tried your step two: Melody/Edit/Transpose/Transpose UP. Well, that took care of that. Back to the original octave as sounded but the music was now transposed up an octave.
So I can't find fault with any of that. But doing this uncovered an interesting glitch, and once again, it's a glitch to which I cannot find an easy solution. There are portions of the melody now that mix octaves as written, not as played. That is, Cs and Ds and Es etc. may be scored, but are no longer scored in the octave being played. Typically they're scored an octave below. And there are other portions of the score in which the wrong notes are written. High Ds instead of high Bs, Cs instead of Es, etc. These incidences appear to be almost random in occurrence -- I write "almost" because whenever the melody fragment recurs it is always displayed the same. I checked with the transpose functions to see if there was any sort of limiters being set on the range of transcription to be made, but I could find none.
So once again BiaB has thrown me a curve that I don't know how to handle.
Oh, and when I first did all this transposition bit, instead of just leaving the instrument alone, it reset it from jazz guitar to marimba. Marimba! ??? Easy enough to change back, but still . . .
Ya know, BiaB may run glitch-free on your machines, but it never has on mine.
Hmmm. I'm not at a BIAB PC now, but I wonder if you are running into the "lowest note" limitation while jumping octaves. In Options, Preferences, Arrange there are I think two checkboxes and choices having to do with the lowest guitar note. Try removing the limits, so to speak.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
I'm not at my DAW at the moment either, but I'll check once I'm there. So I'm thinking that if there's a "lowest note," there's probably a highest note?" Because that's what I find more disturbing. The melody flows along fine to my ear, but then as I watch the music, I see it jumping octaves, but this is always occurring in upper registers and it typically jumps to a lower octave.
I found it. It isn't a bug after all. If you go to Options/Preferences/Notation, there's a setting for max ledger lines. It defaults to two -- which wasn't enough with the music I was reading through. I set it to four and now my high notes are reading out the way they should. What's curious is this "control" had no effect on ledger lines below the staff. They would plunge as far down as they needed. Oh well, I'm glad I found this little control.
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