In my preferred song form I'd like to have an
- intro,
- chorus x 2 (done via repeats)
- bridge
- 2 more choruses (via repeat)
- tag.

Am i trying to do something BiaB is not built for (I know I can do it via a very long one chorus song, trying to make it better).

Thanks in advance
Gordon

Gordon,

For what it's worth, this is my view on using BIAB for arranging songs...

Because BIAB is software for creating backing, it's actually better to treat the song as one long work rather than try to think of the backing as sheet music.

When listening to recordings, the arrangement of a song develops as the song progresses. Usually, there's not just one sound for the verse and one sound for the chorus. Creating a backing in one long format allows one to consider the arrangement aspect. With copy and paste, it's actually very quick to create a song without repeats.

The above being said... If you want to use repeats, the below link will take you to some videos that PG Music have prepared to help understand BIAB. There's one called "Repeats and fake sheet mode" in the INTERMEDIATE section. This is worth looking through.

http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htm

(The above is for the Windows version of BIAB.)

The link below will take you to a thread about repeats. About half way through, I go into much detail, including images, on how use repeats in BIAB. This might be useful.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=351518

Regards,
Noel

P.S. Gordon, thanks for creating a thread on Repeats. It's a topic that comes up every now and then and others will find it useful.

In this song form you're only going to get a repeat of the first chorus for the first and second chorus. The rest of the song will be in a "Tag".
Make your first bar the first bar of the 1st chorus (after the intro). Make the last bar of the 1st chorus be the end of song. Set the repeats to "2". So far it will play the intro and repeat the chorus one time for your first and second chorus. Now, in the song settings dialog; set it to "Tag Exists", and set it to "Jump to Tag" at the bar just after your chorus repeat. Choose something like "Song Ends After Bar "90", You will change the actual last bar later as needed. Create your bridge and copy paste your chorus twice after the bridge. Create what you wanted for a tag after your last chorus. You can still have BIAB create a 2 bar ending for the song. I do sometimes just to get creative ideas for an ending but I have never used the BIAB 2 bar ending. I almost always leave 2 - 4 blank bars before the final last bar. That give me room to fade out as needed or allow reverb to tail off more naturally. It seems to help If I force a resolving chord into the last bar after the blanks. It gives my final held chord something to hold out for. But I might mute the drums during the last hold. This last chord gets chopped off in my DAW.
Band In A Box chord sheet is "strophic" in nature. A chorus is one time through the entire song. It does not do well with a pop style arrangement as far as the repeats go. Example; The Star Spangled Banner. The accompaniment is simply the same for each chorus with perhaps some variation on the middle chorus.
Making the song into "One Big Chorus" or just building it that way from the start is best on pop/rock arrangements. I think it maxes out at 240 measures or something like that. If I approach the max bars allowed that;s when I look for ways to repeat choruses.

Alternately, build your into, 2 choruses in a row, and bridge. Make your 1st bar the first bar of the first chorus, your last bar the end of the bridge. Use repeat 1 time. It will go from bridge back to your 2 complete choruses. Create a "Tag Exists" at the end of the second (now fourth chorus) because it repeats. Your "Jump To Tag" will go from last bar of your choruses to the first bar after the bridge. (By-Passing the bridge and jumping to your tag. Here you create your actual TAG.
It will play from the into through to the end of your bridge, repeat the combined choruses, jump over the bridge to the tag.

Like Noel, I like to write it out in long form with no repeats.

Highlight an A, B, or C part (or whatever) copy and paste.

If the 255 measures isn't enough, or if there is a vamp part that I might want to solo over and change the length of before starting the playback, I'll use repeats for that.

I don't use BiaB for notation, although the notation editor comes in very handy as a tool. If I need to make a chart, I have an old copy of Encore, and it has many more notation tools than BiaB, Of course, that's all Encore does - it's a 'one trick pony'.

Insights and incites by Notes

Thanks to all for the above. I will take the time to digest it and try things out. Tibias I think your suggestion will get me what I want. Love BiaB (2017 Everything Pack for Windows), just need to understand the capabilities & the right way to get where I need to go.

Thanks again
Gordon

Notes,
Just curious, you ever watched the movie One Trick Pony (Paul Simon)?
You strike me as one of the guys that may find it interesting .. or not.
Gadd, Tee, Gale, etc. drew me in

Gordon, ALWAYS, always unfold the song into one big chorus, as PG calls it. Put it into linear form rather than trying to get the musical road map signs to do the work. It's so much easier to work on the long form.

You simply copy and paste the chorus or verses where you need them. Your song has no verses? Or do you intend to mean the choruses are actually verses..... I assume the "choruses" in your song actually have different lyrics, if so that probably makes them verses and the bridge is a chorus. Tags are most often the repeat of the second half of a chorus. But.. that's not the point of this post.

By using the unfolded long linear form, you can easily get to where you need to be.

I
C
C
B
C
C
tag

I use this method in every song I do. First thing I do is to unfold the form. I started out trying to learn how to make BB do what I wanted by using the repeats and codas and other musical signposts..... but that was too much of a pain....and worse, you didn't know where you were in the song if you get distracted. Is this the 2nd verse or the third verse kinda thing. Long form, you know instantly by looking. In addition, starting somewhere other than the beginning is so much easier in the long form..... just click where you want to start and press START.

This can be achieves very easily your way - Type in your chords in order but only intro, verse, bridge and tag (only 1 of each) - Then in the menus go to song form - select song form dialogue - this will bring a table asking what the various sections are fill this in the at the bottom of the box it asks for the order each section should be played - in your case it would probably be ABBCBBD.

I have used this several times - occasionally biab throws in 4 extra bars at the end !!???? - just delete them

Hope this works for you

Keith

Keith, welcome to the forum. That's a good suggestion: people should consider the Song Form Maker. Those who think in terms of verse, chorus and bridge might especially benefit.

Another general comment to everyone:

While several here have said they prefer to use the one long forum for their songs, and I have certainly used it, most of my songs do not require doing that. The default of three choruses (three times through the repeated bars) works just fine for many of my jazz songs. Also, BIAB defaults to playing the B substyle in the second (or all middle) chorus, where the sound has more energy behind a solo. So, don't automatically discount using the defaults; they may do the job for you. Experiment. The one practice I find critical is that I always decide on how to do the song form before making any copying of measures or melody etc.