Below is a guide to setting up BIAB so that it will play three chords as a sequence of 1/8 note triplets on the 4th beat of a bar. In the below, a swing (SW) style is used as the basis style. Images are from BIAB 2016.

Download and have a listen to the below SGU file.

• Test file - triplet chords

Background Notes
The 'A Bb B' chord progression in the above SGU file is across 1/8th note triplets. To accomplish this, BIAB needs to use two bars of three beats. The first bar of the pair will play three beats at the song's normal tempo and the second bar will play three beats in the time of a single beat of the previous bar. Below is how I set that up for a backing at 85 bpm.

The Process
1. Select a suitable 4/4 blues shuffle style and set the song's tempo to 85.

2. Bars 2 and 3 (and 5 and 6) in the example work together as a single bar.

3. Right-click on bar 2, select bar settings and set "#beats this bar" to 3. This bar will play these three beats in the same tempo as the song (in this case 85 bpm).



4. Click OK to exit bar settings.

5. Right-click on bar 3, select bar settings and set "#beats this bar" to 3 also.

6. Since all three beats of bar 3 need to play in the time of a single beat of bar 2, set "Tempo change to" to 255 (that is 3 x 85 = 255).



7. Click OK to exit bar settings.

8. Right-click on bar 4, select bar settings and set "#beats this bar" to 4 and "Tempo change to" to 85. (That is, return all settings back to the original time signature.)

9. Click OK to exit bar settings.

10. Repeat the above with bars 5, 6, and 7. The settings in bars 5, 6, 7 parallel those in bars 2, 3, 4.

11. Generate and play the backing.

Cool stuff Noel. Thanks for posting.

Great guide, Noel, thanks a lot for sharing.

Thanks Noel,

Very informative. Adding the test SGU file is a great idea. It's a lot easier to understand once you hear it and have the SGU file to visualize what's going on.

I'm glad the information is useful.

In relation to the example SGU file, it's also possible to right-click on any of the bars and to have a look at the bar settings I've used. This might add extra insight, too.

Thanks Noel,

Very useful and the SGU file makes it all very clear.

Cheers
Rec

This was very helpful! (I was just setting up an SGU for "Beyond the Bluebird" by Tommy Flanagan, and needed to create some chord triplets.)
What I have to add to this as a suggestion, is to use the percentage of tempo change instead of actual tempo, so that one can change overall song tempo without a problem.
On the Flanagan tune, I created triplet bars, compensated by +33% tempo, then to go back to normal 4/4, -25% tempo.

That's a great point! It didn't occur to me to use percentages but it's much cleaner and no need for calculations.

Thanks for this great tip Noel, I was able to adapt it to "Red, Red Wine" that I was entering from the Neil Diamond Songbook.

The second last bar was Am for two beats and then a triplet of C, G/B, Am7 on the second two beats. The final bar was a held G chord.

I broke the second last bar up into two with 2 beats (Am) on the first bar and 3 beats (C,G/B Am7) on the second bar. On the second bar I increased the tempo by 50% as it was playing 3 beats instead of two. I then reduced the tempo of the final bar by -33% to bring it back to the original tempo, and changed the number of beats back to 4. It worked great - thank you.

I have to say that it sounds better with MIDI styles as you suggested above, although I only checked it with a couple of real styles.

Regards,