Import midi and get harmony parts for singers ?

I accompany 3 to 4 singers in a church setting. The hymn book we play from has melody line only. I make a lead sheet for myself by inputting the melody line and adding chord names in Sibelius. I can save and export as midi.

Can I open this midi in BIAB and have it figure the singer's harmony parts ?

Danna

If the Melody is in MIDI format, YES.

The Harmonizer inside bb can instantly make harmonies from a dropdown list of selections.

See the BB FAQs, online Help inside BB or the ,pdf manual inside your bb folder for details on how to access and use the harmonizer.

Note: Don't confuse this one with the TC Helicon VOCAL harmonizer, which is a plugin for Audio tracks.

--Mac

Thanks Mac, surely good to hear it can do this.

Looked through pdf manual and tried a few things.
Imported midi of a short 2 stave melody to try.

Went to Harmony and tried a few of the different drop down picks.
I can hear the harmony on playback, but cannot see the notation, no matter which instrumeent I select.

Went to "Harmony Display" in the manual, but cannot find the command "Convert Melody To Harmony."

Then the manual does show the harmony on separate tracks, as below, which is what I'm aimimg for.

Made progress, but not there yet.

Thanks

The "Band in a Box" FAQ page on this website is a very good place to go when needing to find out a host of issues as concerns many things. There are also RealBand and Powertracks FAQ pages as well.

Use "ctrl-f" in your browser to Search the page rapidly for a term.

In this case, I typed in, "harmony" and used the down arrows until it got to the following tidbit that you are looking for:

Quote:

156. How do I print harmony parts with Band-in-a-Box?

You first need to 'convert the harmony' to the Melody track (or Soloist track if you are using a Soloist/Thru harmony). This will write the harmony permanently to the track so that you can see the notation. To do this, you can go to the Harmony menu and select Convert harmony to .. Track. In Band-in-a-Box versions 12 and higher, there is a feature that allows you to display and print individual harmony parts. Here are the basic steps. After you have chosen the MIDI harmony you wish to use:

Open the Lead Sheet window and click the OPT button to open the Lead Sheet Options dialog.

Press the [Convert Harmony to Track] button.

Choose the harmony part you would like to view/print, from the 'Show Harmony Voice' pull-down menu.

Press the [Print] button in the Lead Sheet window to print out that part.

Band-in-a-Box 11 and earlier do not have the ability to print individual harmony voices separately, however one thing you could do would be to save your song as a MIDI file (making sure that 'MIDI File Harmony on Separate Tracks' is checked in the MIDI File Options dialog), then import the MIDI file into PowerTracks Pro Audio and print it each track separately from that program.

There is a link to the PGMusic FAQs pages located at the bottom of every one of my posts here. Bookmark it and learn to use it, many of the things you encounter will already be answered there, for those FAQ entries are taken from these very forums over the years. Why wait for forum replies, get the info you need and continue getting your work accomplished.

--Mac

Thanks for the info Mac

I have tried finding answers in the manual ... and tried to follow them.

When the manual gives you an instruction or command to follow, and the command's not actually there, it's a little confusing.

I used the FAQ for BB2014 for Windows up there.

I think you must be using either an older version or perhaps a Mac version.

Go to the FAQ page for your version of BB and Search "harmony" for the commands needed to do it with your particular version of bb.

--Mac

Hi Danna,

I have BIAB 2014 and the button you are after is present in my Leadsheet Options (see below).

Some of questions spring to mind. What version of BIAB do you have? Is it the latest build? It might be time to try returning to factory settings (save your present settings before you do, though).

Regards,
Noel

2014 Build 379

Did the reset to factory settings.

Hi Danna

There is a Build 380 version upgrade available
You can reach it here

You should probably consider the RealBand update also

By all means, hit the Update page and download and install Build 380.

My BB2014 Build 380 looks exactly like the shot Trev uploaded above, the button's there.

There is a hotlink at the bottom of my posts that will take you directly to the Support Page, scroll down for the Updates.

--Mac

Downloaded / installed update 380.

I'll list my steps as maybe you can spot something wrong.

1. Open midi file ( C scale )
2. Go to notation view
3. Harmony - Melody Harmony (select)
4. From dropdown I chose 45 Generic 3 Pt + Mel
5. OK
Notation does not show but I can hear harmony when played.

6. Harmony - Convert Harmony to Melody track
7. OK on dialog "This permanently writes"
New notes now show in notation

8. Click lead sheet (all notes showing)
9. Click "Opt" and wind up with dialog

Originally Posted By: Danna

Must be some other setting I do not have correct.

Downloaded / installed update 380.

Lead sheet options dialog has not changed, same as above.

Hi Danna
In BiaB program, please go to Help drop-down menu, and double-check the Build #?

Attached picture 2014-02-02_13-54-24.jpg

I did follow your exact steps above, letter for letter, and got this display:

Attached picture 2014-02-02_14-05-08.jpg

Thanks ... no idea what to look for now.

Can you advise what folder that BiaB is installed in

e.g. C:\bb

or a Program Files folder?

(Tip: Right-click on the desktop icon and select properties to quickly identify the folder)

C:\bb

Thanks for your efforts ... but I've got to call it a night.

I was thinking this particular control might be stored in a RES or DLL file, and your BiaB program was calling an older version which hadn't been updated somehow. However, this particular control is definitely part of the main program BBW.exe

Hi Danna,

I have been playing around with BIAB and, from what I've discovered, I suspect that your problem has arisen because you have loaded in a MIDI file via the "File" menu and the Melody track has automatically been set to "Multi(16)-channel".

The easiest way around this is to use the "Import melody from MIDI file" by following the #1, #2, #3 in the image below.

To import this Melody, you'll need to know which track it has been assigned to by your notation software (it's probably channel 1).

After you select your MIDI file, the below dialogue box will pop up. Make sure that all channels other than the one that the melody is on are unchecked. Click OK

Now you need to set the Melody track-type to Single Channel by following the #1, #2, #3 below.

Once this is done, the Lead Sheet Options should be working properly.

Hope this helps,
Noel

Yes, if she's using an imported MIDI file instead of a bb songfile, well, that is an entirely different situation.

Originally Posted By: Noel96

Hi Danna,

I have been playing around with BIAB and, from what I've discovered, I suspect that your problem has arisen because you have loaded in a MIDI file via the "File" menu and the Melody track has automatically been set to "Multi(16)-channel".

You are correct on both your assumptions above.

Noel, your pictorials are very helpful ... and thanks so much for taking the time to figure this out for me.

Harmony now showing and I can print harmony on separate track/staves as I hoped.

I do not know how I would have ever found this in the manual (if it's even there)

Thanks for digging deep !

Noel
Really excellent detective work on your part. Pat yourself on the back!
Thanks for your efforts
Trev