PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BIAB2015 bugs?

... of course there are bugs, but I am wondering if the following specific "anomalies" are bugs.

1) When I highlight - or try to highlight a few chords for cut/paste - highlighting doesn't always seem to work. Case in point: I want to highlight one measure to cut/paste -- can't do it. Seems two measures are required. The workaround is to highlight two measures then scroll back to the first measure. Before I found that this worked, I had keyed in manually many measures (with multiple changes per measure).

It would be "better" if the highlight snap would allow for the resolution/granularity of chords per measure (which is 4 for charts in 4/4 time -- maybe different for other time signatures). Because there may be cases where I'd want to highlight chunks starting and ending at something other than beat 1 and beat 4 respectively. This would also allow for highlighting one measure without the extra step.

2) I looked up how to place "NC" (rests). There was a previous topic very long ago covering this. The way this has been implemented since makes some folks happy. Maybe I'm biased, but it seemed that use of "NC" as a chord symbol was favored as a suggestion to add. How one uses NC is up to them. A red chord symbol which denotes a rest looks wrong for my purposes. Just to check - I saw the printed lead sheet (print preview) doesn't handle these rests in what I would consider a correct way. There's no indication either with a rest symbol, "NC", etc. in the printed version of the leadsheet either.

I'm not too concerned about the lead sheet as I would generally use other software to generate that. However, in practice - I forego use of a lead sheet and read the transposed "what's on the screen" (chord sheet view). This is what is fueling the suggestion that the current implementation is perhaps a "bug" at least to my understanding of notation.

3) Audio Chord wizard is able to handle fractional tempos and is lined up better with source audio than BIAB. BIAB seems to round. Fractional tempos would be better for auditioning the algorithmic generated chords vs. the audio. Or maybe an added control for just a fractional push/pull. At any rate - the same resolution available in the wizard.

4) Where #3 has a limitation in BIAB in terms of lower resolution, this one is where the Audio Chord wizard has lower resolution than BIAB. The chord wizard has a maximum of two chords per measure. Presumably only beats 1-2 and 3-4 in 4/4 time. BIAB has a resolution of 4 chords per measure with further granularity of 8th or 16th note anticipation (negative) offset from each beat. The "whole farm" solution would be to support recognizing chord changes on the preceding 16th or 8th note and have the chord flow to BIAB as a "^^" or "^" if anticipated. However, beyond what it does now - it would be better to allow for up to BIAB's chords per measure (4) as an option to the Audio Chord Wizard. There are different ways to implement this including perhaps a way to tap a measure where you want to analyze all 4 beats which would be a hybrid approach - 2 chords per measure for most unless the user selects "high-res" mode on a given measure where there may be a beat-4 passing chord to throw at the wizard.

... also in the wish list category as the limitation is certainly by design.

5) I noticed soloist solos can, by random chance, repeat a phrase over and over and sometimes a few more overs again. This might be hip sometimes. But sometimes it picks the "hokey" phrase to repeat -- which isn't as hip. I'm wondering if there's a setting for limiting the regurgitation of material within the context of a soloist. Not a huge concern or bug - and I can always re-render (regenerate) until I find something that is only sparingly hokey.

6) Back to "bugs" - I noticed the leadsheet view doesn't always follow the music while playing. Sometimes the red highlight of which measure is playing is off or stuck. When there are soloist with notes I'm following to analyze what was chosen by the artist over different chords is generally how I've encountered this problem. Just loading the RealBand demos with soloist and looking at the lead sheet. Or maybe it's the "notation view" or maybe both. There are situations when the wrong section of music altogether is displayed.

Regression testing can be done by loading up demos with solos and looking at the notation and leadsheet views and ensuring the bouncing ball (red highlight) and music "focus" (portion of the score displayed in the visible screen area) is always correct. The laptop has limited screen size and resolution - so the testing should also include single pages that cannot fit in the window.

7) With limited resolution - the radio control for "Audio" is behind the Mixer/Plugins/Piano/Patches tab section. There are lots of spaces between the "Master", "Bass", "ElecPiano", "Drums", "Guitar", "Strings", "Melody", "Soloist", "Thru" -- and I guess "Audio" is next but is completely obscured. Squishing these closer together without spaces would help them fit. I'm not sure if it matters that the radio buttons would move around according to the instrument name length. They are not really spatially organized relative to anything else.

8) There were some less intuitive parts of the melody maker with workarounds - I may have handled these in an email. I had an entire set of "first impression" notes with questions and observations that was lost "in the fire" of a random blue-screen. I'll have to regenerate some of that later.

9) Part of the "lost in the fire" notes were some missing styles for some of the demos included with BIAB. Mostly realtracks for the jazz waltzes although there were two sets of different missing realtracks. I'll have to regenerate.

... incidentally: a "blue screen" comes after losing your work in a virtual fire and the fire is put out by dousing with water - which is, of course, blue.

Jason

... speaking of water: I'm afraid I'll water down my questions by adding to my list in the same thread -- and before I get the first response. As another "oh yeah":

10) BIAB has these little yellow windows that show up and often have useful information to guide you through a warning, an FYI, or other such subtle "pardon me, I have something you may want to know". Now I find these messages useful particularly when writing down notes that get destroyed in a fire. But fire aside - these notes would be great to cut/paste to place in an email or forum so that it would be easy to search for the same phrase in these messages/errors or get technical support. The bug in this - or problem - is that the windows cannot be touched or they go away. And they already go away. All you can do is capture a screen shot which takes up more space and takes more effort to deal with than the text. Not to mention the affect on the ozone and what not as the dominoes fall no doubt on top of something else more important and philosophical.

... what I remember from the notes I no longer have are the following suggestions:

a) Perhaps add a "console" window where all messages that pop up and go away are also echoed to the console -- which is just a text window -- that you can cut/paste and maybe search if you want to and maybe clear if you want to. Lots of complicated software has this and some folks online say BIAB fits that bill. Might as well join the bandwagon. It would be useful to have all of the messages saved in a place where you could grab them -- the console is one idea and conforms with other software paradigms -- but a log file would be another way. Maybe I haven't found it.

b) Or perhaps allow windows to be clicked on and doing so would instead of hiding it would freeze it so it wouldn't go away allowing to cut/paste the information. With an "X" to remove it. I like this idea less as sometimes I miss windows. I know the timing can be changed -- but I do not want to clutter the space with windows waiting to retire due to a long timeout that ensures I do not miss anything.

c) Other ways ... there are plenty of ways to recapture a missed opportunity to help facilitate communication around what these windows present.

Jason

Hi Jason,

Welcome to the forum

Some of the items you list are definitely wishlist items. Others can be done.

I don't have time to address the full length of your post but I'll start with #1. Other forum members will, most likely, jump in and pick up from where I left off. If they don't, I'll come back to your post as time becomes available to me.


BIAB works on the principle of a 'cell' and the cell contains a maximum of four locations for the placement of chords. From a musical perspective, it's easiest to think of this cell as "one bar".

As you note, if one wants to highlight a single cell, it's necessary to drag the mouse across the two cells and, keeping the mouse button down, drag the mouse back. A single cell is then selected. This is normal behaviour.

I can see the value of being able to copy/paste the individual chords within a cell. That is a 'wishlist' item (the Wishlist forum is found here).

In the meantime, deleting unwanted chords in a copy/paste is simply a matter of using the 'delete' button the keyboard. It's very quick.




In relation to the Lead Sheet, it's possible to add text boxes to this. Such additions are accomplished through the Notation Window.

Go to the "Help" menu and search for "Section Text". You'll then be guided to information relating to these text boxes.

Being able to include "NC" on the chord sheet view is a Wishlist item.

(It's worth noting that the Chord Sheet is where BIAB gets its instructions for generating a backing. In this regard, the Chord Sheet's purpose is to program BIAB's accompaniment. This is why sometimes chords are red and periods and carets are used to accomplish specific behaviours. This is the programming language of BIAB/RB. The Lead Sheet view is what is intended for the musician to follow.)

Regards,
Noel

• latest song: Just A Little After Midnight

11) A file which started as an MP3 - chord wizard created chords - saved as a BIAB SGU (which carries now a WAV - the BIAB copy of the MP3) has its audio corrupted. I haven't "fooled" with the audio track. When I saved the SGU - everything seemed fine. Loading the SGU back seems to have a corrupted audio track. Now the left and right channels are different or shifted in time so that one channel is matching up with the BIAB chart/chords and the other is some other time. It may be difficult to reproduce.

The right track is silent until measure 23, beat 3, and approx. the "and" of beat 3. "23:03:065" 065 is approx -- or the best I could follow. At measure 23, the right channel starts playing the beginning of the tune. Looks like it somehow got shifted vs. the left channel which is "proper".

As everything sounded fine when I saved the file - I'm not sure how I would have inadvertently delayed the right channel of the audio track.

Bug? Deserves more digging.

Jason

Realband will work with fractional tempos. If you need this feature then using the ACW in Realband rather than BIAB will be the way to go.



I assume that you are talking about Realtracks solos rather than midi solos. Because Realtracks are audio recordings of a musician's performance across a number of keys, there is a limitation in the possible permutations of output. Regenerating the solo until you get something that suits is the only option available in BIAB.

In Realband, however, it's possible to highlight a region of a soloist generation and simply regenerate that region. In my opinion, this is one of Realbands real strengths.


In notation view rather than lead sheet view, the notes are highlighted red as they are played.

Again, I am assuming that you are referring to Realtracks. If that's the case, it's important to keep in mind that the notation comes after the creation of the Realtracks. It is a notational interpretation of the musician's performance. Mostly these transcriptions are very accurate. Every once in a while, and especially if the Realtrack is musically complex, the transcription approximates the musician's playing rather than details a note by note summary.

If you use midi solos, the notation is 100% accurate and playback will be followed note-by-note in notation mode.

Regards,
Noel

• latest song: Just A Little After Midnight

RE: point 10 - Yellow/Green Messages -

Open HELP Menu of the top tool bar.

Select 'Display log text file of yellow/green messages'

To make the Audio controls visible, simply click on "Audio" button shown below.



Regards,
Noel

• latest song: Just A Little After Midnight

Noel - for #7, I did exactly that. However, it's still an interface "bug" (lower priority) to have items obscured when there may be an easy fix.

Regardless - thanks for the tips and responses.

For the red highlight issue (during playback, lead sheet "current measure" highlight not following playback) - this is in BIAB. I'm not sure if realband also has the issue.

Thanks, to another user, for the tip on the log file. I'll enable that feature.

Jason

... and #6 - although the accuracy of the transcription for realtracks IS sometimes inaccurate (I haven't audited the notes, but rhythm is sometimes off even though the red highlight seems to highlight at the right spot -- different than the notation). #6 was not pointing this out -- I was ignoring this as I figured it was either an automated transcription process with limitations or manual one with a different set of limitations.

The issue is that my playback in BIAB for lead sheet view (notation view) will maybe have focus on the 1st half of a page including the title when the music has moved on to a part that is no longer on-screen. This doesn't always happen and not always as described. In these cases - I will no longer see the red highlight anywhere. The red highlight is a lesser offender than the fact that the page focus is not showing (at all) the portion of the music which is currently played. I can, therefore, no longer follow along unless I've printed out the music which is not the intended workflow.

Certainly system and operating resources may play a part which is why my experience may not reflect a universal experience.

Hi Jason,

When in Lead Sheet View, the highlighted bar should jump back to the upper left of the screen when a new page is loaded. I'm not sure what would stop this from happening. It's a new one on me.

Is the Lead Sheet View expanded to full window or is it resized?

Also, have you investigated the Notation Window? The notation view there is the one I prefer.

This view is accessed by clicking on the icon labelled #1 as shown below.



Regards,
Noel

• latest song: Walk With Me

As far as I know, the error occurs with the window at whatever size it defaults to.

This is a secondary window not integrated with the BIAB primary window ("Lead Sheet Window").

I tried to create a screencast - but two things went wrong:
a) The screencast software froze (crashed) -- I haven't made one yet so I have no "go to" software for this. Used the first thing I could find that seemed OK.

b) BIAB worked flawlessly on the few demos I pulled. Looked at the same parts that would have gotten stuck before: solo notes or bass line notes. The "flawless" nature is, in this context, something going wrong.

I'll try to see if I can have a proper screen capture sometime.

one new item in doing this:


12) I noticed the demos seem to now have an empty bar after the end of the tune (a measure with no barlines in notation view) followed by a measure with no notes/rests and does have barlines.

What ends up happening is I see the piano stops but some other instruments (like drums/guitar) keep going past the end of the tune. Then there's the sound like someone pulled the plug and there's a strange artifact sound (abrupt end to the over-play section past the end of the tune).

13) Lead sheet for single-staff instruments (such as sax) which are not bass [bass seems to have perhaps special treatment] cuts off notes which are "out of range" for the default staff.

I load the SSAXS Demo (Bossa Alto Sax Solo w/piano bass drums) and open the lead sheet and click on the first "S" which is the sax part.

There are plenty of examples, but measure 37 and 38 show slashes as the treble clef has no notes (the notes are all in the bass clef).

The lead sheet option is set to "Autoset clefs" and is showing just treble clef for this Alto part. This is fine - but what is not fine is that if the notation is only showing one clef -- then it "should" also ignore any clef split and show all notes that are "out of range" for the clef which is selected.

I believe the issue may be in the lack of handling single-staff instruments other than bass in the notation options. Since lead sheet seems to inherit some behavior from the notation settings.

... it turns out some of the larger misses in the transcription I was previously seeing was actually a missing note or two which fell below the "cut line". The transcription "quality" is still not any of the "bugs" (or wishlist items) I have listed (1-13 thus far).

Finally (for #13) although I understand I can adjust the settings to fix any given part -- I do not believe I can modify the settings to work properly for all parts within a song and for each songs' instruments.

Try this...

Follow the #1, #2, #3 on the image below and set the split point to C3 instead of C4. This should put all notation in the treble clef.




Out of curiosity, Jason, what do you want BIAB to do for you? For example... Are you purchasing it primarily as a notation program? Do you want it for enhancing your learning? etc.

Regards,
Noel

• latest song: Walk With Me

I did see this option - the issue I thought about changing the split point is that it would affect the piano part's split. The assumption as the notation options are global for all parts and not context sensitive (sensitive to the currently selected/displaying part).

... but I did walk through the suggestion and received a question (msgbox) which asked if I wanted my settings to apply to both the solo and melody part. Now the solo part is usually a treble clef instrument - so I didn't see a problem if the "global" setting did not have a low split-point forcing all the notes to treble clef. Certainly if there was a bass solo this setting may cause issues. So I selected "no, don't apply this to both melodist and soloist" as I wanted to only apply to the solo part.

What followed was:

Access violation at address 00B271F9 in module 'bbw.exe'. Read of address FF7377A1 at: 00B271F9

Your suggestion, seems to only apply to the solo/melody parts and seems to have further granularity to only select one or the other (or maybe only melody+solo OR only solo and not only melody). So this setting may be sufficient. However, the crash at the moment is preventing testing this feature live to see what happens.

... and maybe the "auto-hand split piano track" would cover the piano part.

The primary use for BIAB is as a practice tool. For this notation issue - I'm wanting to use the notation window to play along with the soloist as a reading exercise. Or sometimes for chord vs. part analysis. I play multiple instruments so I also like to look at the piano and bass parts. As I do not "do drums" - none of the ways that drums may or may not be notated are parts of my usage or scrutiny.

As such - if the notation has to be set back and forth to "properly" display piano vs. bass vs. guitar vs. sax vs. horns (in cases where there are horn section backgrounds) then I would consider this to be a bug.

Since the lead sheet (and notation) window allows for selecting any part (not just melody or solo) it was not apparent that the split would only affect these parts.

... further testing shows that when I select a different part in the notation window (bass or piano or soloist or ...) the split point is changing in a way that generally makes sense. The bass part's split point is high (C6) piano part is lower (C5) soloist is lower still (C4).

What this "leads" me to believe is that the notation window settings are indeed context sensitive (options apply only to the currently selected part). Which is almost a bug in that it does not show on the notation options the fact that one is editing only a single part.

If there are sections of the "Notation Window Options" that apply to only the selected instrument vs. some other specific instrument vs. all instruments - I would think it would be important to indicate which settings affect which instrument(s).

What version of BiaB 2015 are you running (what build)?

Good stuff Jason - thoughtful posts

Z

BIAB 2015 Version number

1) Load BIAB
2) Help -> About Band In A Box

"Band-in-a-Box for Windows Version 2015 (415)"

Note: the "check for updates" feature does not appear to apply to patches as patch 417 does not show as an update. Instead, "check for updates" shows "Band-in-a-Box is up to date."

Regards,
Jason

Try updating to build 417 from the PG Music Web Site

One of the new features (in 416) is crash/debug reports. This may help to track your A/V issue that you mentioned.