Is there any alternative to font "PGChords.ttf" for jazz chords, which is more readable? When trying to choose a different font in the preferences, the message appears that the font is reset to the "PGChords".
I am seeking a font that is not a handwriting font, but use small capitals instead of jazz symbols similar to something like this:

You should be able to choose any font that is installed on your system. I often use Arial.

Just checking, is this for a Windows PC?

The method of changing fonts and other display settings changed with version 2016 of BIAB. Can you first tell us which version of BIAB you have? If it is version 2016, there are a few places to look at. Right-click on the main chord display and choose Display Options. There are about 8 boxes in the middle that can alter the appearance of chords. Experiment.

If nothing "holds" as you say, then that's a different problem; likely a permissions thing and we'll deal with that. Write back and let us know your progress.

If you have an older version than BIAB 2016, tell us and someone else can give you the steps (I've forgotten).

I have a German BIAB 2016 (Windows 10) and I do not succeed. In fact, font changes always reset with the message(translated from german): "Note: In order to allow the presentation of Jazz chord symbols like C-7 and Co7 that chord font is set to PGChords" ... if simultaneously "Jazz Symbols" is ticked (as i would like to keep some jazz symbols like Ø).
My BiaB is installed (with administrator rights) on D:\bb and the system fonts are somewhere on C:.
I have looked through all the possible options you mentioned but did not find a combination of settings to represent something similar to my example. I would like this especially for the printed fake sheets.
What I would love is as an example FMI7 instead of F-7 but keep FØ7 and Fo7, Fb 7 (with all "7"s and "b"s superscripted). And all this in a not handwritten font, but a condensed serif font like in the appended example. At least, it is an combination of jazz symbols and letter abbreviations like small caps "MI" for "-" and "MA" for the major triangel.
May be it should be an alternative symbol font to "pgchords" with the same character set but other glyphs (and not handwritten ones) at the corresponding locations.

It is my understanding that would require designing a new font. There is no way to pick and choose individual symbol choices; you get everything as it appears in that one font.

I was a beta tester of a music notation program for many years where there were seemingly endless tweaks to a single new font's appearance, and very little agreement among users on what they wanted.

However, I suggest you make a post in the BIAB Wishlist Forum. Perhaps PG Music can figure a way to have display options for your suggestions.

I'm in agreement that I prefer non-handwritten fonts for chords. I find them much more readable when sight reading.

Although any Times or Roman font would get rid on the handwritten style, it doesn't help with the sizes.

I have an old copy of Encore that does that automatically, and I use it for my charts, so I don't know if BiaB does it or not.

I don't however recommend Encore, as the company was purchased twice and I haven't seen updates in about 10 years. But it works for the limited uses I need it for.

Any good notation program should be able to do this if you export from BiaB though.

Notes

I had the hope that maybe other BIAB users have already developed alternative symbol fonts. Maybe I do that now, if I do find a little time for it. It might be helpful for other users,too.

If you know how to do that, get in touch with PG Music and work with them.

I created a new font pgchords.com inspired by the fonts and layout in the 557 JAZZ STANDARDS real book series. Everything looks and works fine, but one thing I can not solve: Where in the options can I choose the font for the subtitles (for instance the green marked composers name)?

That's not bad! Can you either share the font, or tell us how to do that please?

I will share the font in the next time, but there are some minor things (letter distances, hints) to correct first, also there are still some glyphs left to do.

Also I will ask PG-Music. It would be better to have this new font as an choice but not as an replacement. As far as I can see, BiaB choose jazz symbols just with a font named PCChords.ttf.

Does anyone has an idea, where I can select the font for the "subtitles"? I tried everything in the notation preferences but to no result.

Brillie,

I have BIAB 2016 and I've looked everywhere to see how to change the text for Composer 1 and Composer 2. Initially it seemed as though "Title" text would do the job but when I loaded Windows Symbol font, it was clear that Title text did not do the job.

I think you need to contact PG Music Support about this.

Regards,
Noel

P.S. It's a great font you've created!

In the SONAR forum, Cakewalk finally opened up to users what they call 'themes'. Just about any element on the screen can be changed. Some users have become very prolific designing and sharing themes.

Maybe 15 or so years ago, PG Music opened up BIAB for user-designed color schemes, and this was popular and fun for users. Allanah's scheme was particularly nice. Perhaps the next step is to allow users access to all text parameters.

I wrote to PGs Customer support last week about some technical details on font handling, but did not get an answer yet. I also asked for the permission to share this new font. So lets see.

My font is ready (besides some optimization in the kerning tables as one might see) and it works fine (I attached a sample lead sheet print from BiaB).
I had to name the font the same as PGChords.ttf, to not get it rejected by BiaB when checking "Jazz Symbols" – which is not a perfect solution. It would be better, to have both fonts as a choice.
Also I would love to have the font for the four subtitles (composer 1 and 2, tempo, style) free selectable – for now you can only choose it together with the titles font – and even this does not work: the subtitles will always be PGTextJ or in any other cases Arial.
I am in contact to Peter Gannon about all this. Lets see, how we can solve it.

Looks very good. Thanks for all of your efforts.

It's looking fantastic, Brille! You've done a great job so far.

I'm really liking this!

I hope your statement about 'being in contact to Peter' means he is actively working with you.

The best part is showing the extensions vertically, like #5#9. Really nice.

I agree with Matt.

I hope Peter can implement this font.

Concur - great work - ESPECIALLY the vertical extensions!
Larry

I agree with the look part but as far as My Prince is concerned that chart is all wrong. It's in Bb, why is the melody note in bar 2 written as an A# and the chord is a D7#5#9? The 7 is a C, the #5 is a Bb and the #9 is an F. That chord is simply a Bb7 and I would just use a Bb pedal bass for those two bars. So it goes from BbMaj7 to a Bb7. Big deal. No need for all these extensions when all that's happening is a change of one note of the BbMaj7 chord.

It's charts like these that drive me crazy as a keyboard player. Off topic I know, but it seriously makes my teeth ache...

Bob

That was fun, Bob

Brille, if I could make a suggestion. Can you increase the space between the chord and the number or symbol following, such as 7, 9, 6, 13 or the bubble for diminished (and I assume similar including 11 and half-diminished)? The space between the letter and MA looks good, but there's not as much before MI. This lack of space is most apparent after an accidental. Ex. Bb9

@Bob: I searched my Biab fundus for a piece with alterations and different chord extensions to show the characteristics of the font – and My Prince was the first that fell into my hands. I agree with you that there could be simpler chord interpretations here and there. I suspect that this transcription was made by a guitarist (I myself play bass, guitar and tolerably piano). The dominant#5#9 chord is easy to grip on the guitar and therefore quite common - and, for me, in this particular tune harmoniously even slightly more logical than the change from Major 7 to Dominant 7. Pianists might see things like this a little different than guitar players.
But in principle I agree with you: Many of the spread transcriptions of standards for BiaB are not always edited properly. I would be very happy about a well-edited implementation of the key standards. But this is a lot of work and also distributing it is legally not without problems.

Bernhard (aka Brille)

@Matt: You have good eyes and have seen exactly the problematic parts. I started yesterday to optimize the character spacing. This is not trivial because BIAB uses the characters partially illogical. Some symbols are composed from two or more characters (such as the "MA" without extension by small "M" and small "A"), for others there is a single complete character such as "MA7". It took a while before I understood the principle. Peter Gannon could not say anything precise about how the characters are used, so I had to find out myself.
Still a little work to do.
Bernhard

Very good. To explain, for a decade I beta-tested other software, a notation program, and reviewed special music fonts in development. Before that, I also taught a college course in desktop publishing that covered some of the nuances of font choice. The minute adjustments you need to make can be maddening.

Bernhardt, I'm really impressed so far and I could use your font as-is already. Thanks for doing this.

@Matt: I optimized the spacing and removed any kerning (I will add some kerning tables later). What do you think: Is spacing now better or do you think there should be even more?

@Bob (For Your Eyes Only): I changed chords in bar 2 and 4 ... and left all the other Dominant#5#9 chords ;-)

Bernhard

Wow, looking very good! I like the spacing with one exception:

I know you said MA is a single character. That got moved over too, but should not have. MA7 now has too much space before it, if there's anything you can do about that. Maybe throw in a MA7 after a sharp sign like A# MA7 so we can see (and we'll tell Bob to overlook it for testing).

Hi Matt,
"MA", when used alone: BiaB types small "M"+"A".
Most of the other "MA plus extension"s (like MA7) are single characters.
A little similar with "MI" (the symbol "-" in PGChords.ttf).
But that is not essential with respect to your question. Any subscript sign after the superscript flat-sign "b" will have this much space, until I prepare kerning tables, which remove too much space between selected character pairs (typical example is "A" and "W" - what in music notation is rather rare :-)
I will add kerning tables for selected character pairs later, when all the design works are done. And please do understand that I will not publish the font, as long as Peter Gannon has not give his "okay". He likes the font as well, but he has not yet come to respond to my last emails regarding supporting the font in BiaB - which means allowing the use of other fonts when "Jazz Symbols" is checked.

OK, thanks. I guess to see that, the sample chart would need a flatted chord with MI, like Eb MI7.

You are doing some good work Brille and I wasn't asking you to change that chart or anything. It was just me being somewhat serious in pointing out how some chart writers make things overly complicated.

The subject comes up from time to time on Keyboard Corner especially with big band charts for piano. A lot of them are 5,6 even 7 pages long requiring two music stands when with use of 1st and 2nd endings and repeats it could be condensed down to 2.

It's like a typical big band ending of a lot of jazz tunes like Mack The Knife where the whole band punches the last chord. That chord is usually written as Eb13#11 when they could have simply written it as F7/Eb. Try that yourself on piano, the tonic in the left hand and a simple major chord one step up on the right. Easy peasy. Who needs to try to decipher and voice a 13#11 in the middle of a gig?

Anyway, enough of that what you're doing here is badly needed. PG has made a lot of improvements lately but the notation function hasn't been touched in 20 years.

Bob

To be fair, there was some adjustment made to keep things like endings and repeats from overlapping, and PG Music did introduce a very nice Big Band Chords font last year.

Still, when Bernhard gets this working, it will be perhaps my favorite change all year.

Bernhard, a Question: I assume we're talking about the printed font, but will this new font also display like this on the screen in leadsheet mode?

Yes, it will work on leadsheet window(see screenshot below).




In the notation view you have the choice of supersripting the extensions (which I would prefer), but as far as I can see, the notation window unfortunately does not support jazz symbol fonts somehow.







But while playing around with the font options I encountered a reproducible error in BiaB: when trying to change the font for "Bar Lyrics Font" or "Bar # Font" to get rid of handwritten fonts BiaB muddles up the Chord symbol font (see screenshot) whenever you choose lets say Arial or anything else! You can reset this bug just with clicking the "Default" button. I see no way to select a different font for "Lyrics" or "Bar #" when "Jazz symbols" is checked.




I will report this to Peter Gannon, this bug should be fixed.

Good News at least: Today Peter put me in prospect to support my new font with the next BiaB patch!

Bernhard

@Bob: I did understand that you where not asking to change the two chords :-) haha!
I was just joking when changing the two chords in the sheet.
But your comment inspired me, to think over chord relationships once more! Thank you for your very good hint!
Bernhard

@Matt: Off topic ... I know. But today I (easy) listend to your wonderful "Brazilian Wish" recording on Spotify. Wow! I have big respect, great music! When I am next in New York, I need to come to one of your concerts. Unfortunately I have to wait until next year to be in the United States again (I come to watch the total eclipse of the sun in August 2017!)
Bernhard

Thank you so much for these kind words! It's not so off-topic; all nine songs were composed in BIAB (Peter knows). I do have a great band (at least four of the players on the CD at most concerts) but alas I only play two or three times a year now. My website (see my profile, left) gives the dates. Next one is April 2017, then July 2017.

Excellent! This will definitely make me use the Leadsheet View more. And that's great news PG Music is considering including your new font.

@Matt: I agreed with Peter that he integrates the font in the next build pack. He has to make some changes to BiaB first that the font selector accepts alternative symbol fonts. If you can't wait I can send you the font with private mail - but as is you have to replace the original PGChords font, which will not be necessary after the changes in the next build.
Bernhard

Thanks for the offer, but I think if you do it for me you would be inundated by requests. I'm happy to wait for the official update. The only exception would be if you wanted someone else to test it, which I would happily do.

My compliments on this work, Bernhard. You have done us an outstanding service!

Hi Matt,

I'm still in touch with Peter, we are trying to make the new font more variable to allow different options of the display (Triangle / MA, - / MI and so on). I think this will work.
Off-topic: I would be very interested in how much and how deeply you used BiaB to compose your songs. Can you anyhow document this as a kind of case study? That would be quite interesting for me because I like to compose myself. And may be for others too.

Best regards
Bernhard

Pretty easy answer: 100% BIAB composed.

In the studio, we made some changes that BIAB can't do, such as the section of one tune in 7/4. I also did a lot of part writing in a notation program I use, as did the pianist I hired to further arrange the tunes (tweaking). The CD was recorded live in several studios over a few weeks, so you aren't hearing any BIAB on the final recording.

I am very curious about your honest and detailed references. How did you proceed? Have you set the chord changes in BiaB first or did you even have BiaB generate a song? Did you then choose a style and print the result as sheets for the musicians? Did the melodies come from you or from BiaB? Do you have any BiaB files of your tracks that one can listen to as compared to your real recordings? Questions, questions. :-)
Bernhard

When I compose, I take one idea that inspires me and turn it into a song. It could be a chord or two, or a particular rhythm or groove, that gets me started. I then use BIAB to revise until I have everything as I like it. I am open to 'happy accidents' as I experiment, though I do not use any 'automation' from BIAB besides normal song generation.

Then I take the melody and harmony into a notation program and add the chords for distribution to the band, along with an MP3, to make a leadsheet as a guide for the studio or for a concert. I often notate a sample rhythm pattern for the bass line but no other rhythm instrument (I let the others play what they think best, based on my idea).

I should have some good 'before and after' examples; let me look around. Interesting suggestion.

I'm happy to answer your questions, but this perhaps belongs more in the Off-Topic Forum. Cheers.

That is looking REALLY good.

It really is, Tom.