Previous Thread
Index
Next Thread
Print Thread
Go To
#445206 12/14/17 09:07 PM
Beginners Forum
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
L
Apprentice
OP Offline
Apprentice
L
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
1. Is it possible to edit chords in notation view? It says in the manual that it is, but I can't figure it out.


2. I have a song that I imported from an ABC file. How can I move all the notes down by one octave? (keeping in the same key, of course)


3. Can band in the box be used to make something like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1U-z2T0bw&list=PL9VT98VjmJzoSbARWIPxeA5J_h2TbaMpv&index=3

Thank you

Beginners Forum
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 12,580
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 12,580
1. I don't believe it is possible to edit the chord symbol (i.e. Gm7b5) in notation view; however, it is possible to change what it looks like (font-wise) and it is possible to edit the actual notes that appear on the notation staff that make up chords. The chord letter will not change by changing the notes, however. You'll need to go back to the chord grid. And any changes made to chords note-wise on anything other than the melody and soloist track will get regenerated unless you freeze the track after making your changes.

2. Assuming your imported ABC file is on either the melody or soloist track, then you just need to transpose down an octave. There are some hot keys to do that:

  • Ctrl+Alt+1 Transpose Melody down one octave
  • Ctrl+Alt+2 Transpose Melody up one octave
  • Ctrl+Alt+3 Transpose Soloist down one octave
  • Ctrl+Alt+4 Transpose Soloist up one octave


Also, under the "Melody" menu, there is a selection under "Edit Melody Track" to Transpose. Likewise under the "Soloist" menu.

3. And absolutely you can make something like that; however, you will need to have the chord progression do do so (easily obtained in music books or on the web or even interpreted from an imported MIDI file). BIAB, however, will not just take your melody and make a good accompaniment based on the melody (it has an option to try, but it doesn't work very well). Just enter the chords, select an appropriate style from the many available, and you've got your accompaniment from which you can play along on the instrument of your choice.


John

Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD
Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA

BB2024/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK

http://www.sus4chord.com
Beginners Forum
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
L
Apprentice
OP Offline
Apprentice
L
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
Thanks. Your tip about right-clicking *(on the other thread) works great for inserting or deleting bars. I also found that right clicking in notation view gives you an option for adding a chord.

I've got the transposing working now--thanks.

Another question:
After I selected a style for an imported midi file, a message in a yellow box in the lower right corner of the screen popped up. t said something like "100% of the chords are complex, you can improve this by..."


The box disappeared before I could finish reading it, and I don't know how to make it reappear. This program can be quite frustrating!

Beginners Forum
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 25,800
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 25,800
There is a log of these messages. Go to the Help menu, Utilities, Display Log Text File of Yellow/Green Messages

The message was about the Natural Arrangement feature of BIAB, new last year in version 2017. Here's what it says in Help Index, Natural Arrangement (All Songs):

Natural Arrangements (re-interpret complex chords)

If you give a pro musician a complicated chord progression with fancy extensions like C7b9b13 or Gm11, the musician may reinterpret these rather than playing them exactly as written. This can achieve a much better sounding arrangement because the musician has freedom to choose from similar chord extensions. You can get Band-in-a-Box to do the same thing with this option for all tracks in all songs. (Note: To set this feature for all tracks in the current song, use the option in the Song Settings dialog. To set this for specific track(s) in the current song, right-click on the track radio button, go to Track Settings | Set Natural Arrangement, and select an option.)





BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
Beginners Forum
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 25,800
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 25,800
About your first question, could you cite the page in the manual where it says that, please? I agree with John and perhaps it's an error.

For the second question, there are often different ways to do things in BIAB. In this case, you could also go to Options, Preferences, Channels and change the number in the Melody row, second column, from 0 to -1 to sound down an octave, or to 1 to sound up an octave, without changing the notation.


BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
Beginners Forum
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Originally Posted By: Lesley55
Is it possible to edit chords in notation view? It says in the manual that it is, but I can't figure it out.


When I want to change chords in notation view, the two ways that I do it are...

1. right-click the mouse above the staff on the chord (or the space where chords are located) choose "Edit chord" from the right-click menu.

2. left-click on the chord and press CTRL+F2

Regards,
Noel




MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024
Beginners Forum
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
L
Apprentice
OP Offline
Apprentice
L
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
About your first question, could you cite the page in the manual where it says that, please? I agree with John and perhaps it's an error.




First paragraph on page 212 of the 2018 pdf manual, under the topic "Standard Notation Window".

"The standard notation window can be used for notation display and the entry of chords and lyrics."

Beginners Forum
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Originally Posted By: Noel96
Originally Posted By: Lesley55
Is it possible to edit chords in notation view? It says in the manual that it is, but I can't figure it out.


When I want to change chords in notation view, the two ways that I do it are...

1. right-click the mouse above the staff on the chord (or the space where chords are located) choose "Edit chord" from the right-click menu.

2. left-click on the chord and press CTRL+F2

Regards,
Noel


Lesley,

Thank you for the additional information about page 212.

I wasn't aware that the above two processes that I gave had been modified so that one now only needs locate the beat cursor and type a chord. That's a nice addition to the program! Thanks!

To add a little more information for you, in case it's useful...

If you want to enter a chord on beats 1 and 2, position the beat cursor between beats 1 and 3 and type the chords separated by a comma.

For example....

1. click on beat 1 of the bar (this will locate the beat cursor)

2. type c,am <enter>

3. this will put C on beat 1 and Am on beat 2.

Regards,
Noel




MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024
Beginners Forum
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
L
Apprentice
OP Offline
Apprentice
L
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
Originally Posted By: Noel96


Lesley,

Thank you for the additional information about page 212.

I wasn't aware that the above two processes that I gave had been modified so that one now only needs locate the beat cursor and type a chord. That's a nice addition to the program! Thanks!

To add a little more information for you, in case it's useful...

If you want to enter a chord on beats 1 and 2, position the beat cursor between beats 1 and 3 and type the chords separated by a comma.

For example....

1. click on beat 1 of the bar (this will locate the beat cursor)

2. type c,am <enter>

3. this will put C on beat 1 and Am on beat 2.

Regards,
Noel





Thinks for this. Is the beat cursor the yellow vertical bar?
I found I can edit notes in notation view, but not add new ones.

Another unrelated question:
Often with, say, 4 by 4 timing the first bar has only one beat, and the last bar has only 3 beats. How can I make BIAB do that? And how can I make the last bar look like a last bar (thick and thin lines at the end of a bar).

I'm just trying to figure out the program by entering a 16 bar folk song with chords. Quite a learning curve!

Most of the styles seem to be for anything but folk or Celtic. I guess I need to buy more styles. But I can't seem to figure out what styles are in each package. It would be nice if they grouped the styles in packages according to genre, so you didn't have to buy a lot of styles you will never use.


Edit : "This Road" is lovely. Is the accompaniment a "style" ?

Last edited by Lesley55; 12/15/17 09:24 PM.
Beginners Forum
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Originally Posted By: Lesley55
Thank for this. Is the beat cursor the yellow vertical bar?
I found I can edit notes in notation view, but not add new ones.

Yes. The yellow vertical bar is the cursor that progesses with the beats.

In relation to adding notation when in Notation View, it's necessary to switch to Editable Notation Mode. This is the option shown on the image below as '2'.



Originally Posted By: Lesley55
Another unrelated question:
Often with, say, 4 by 4 timing the first bar has only one beat, and the last bar has only 3 beats. How can I make BIAB do that? And how can I make the last bar look like a last bar (thick and thin lines at the end of a bar).

The "(first bar) + (last bar) = (whole bar)" scenario is a convenient notational technique. It is not how songs are performed. Rather, it simply summarises the performance and collects repetitive sections into a single 'once through' with repeats.

Using the above it's possible to summarise (for example) a 96 bar performance into the repetition of 6 lots of 16 bars. Thus the musician is can play the entire song from a mere 16 bars of notation with repetition.

A long time ago, I decided to stop using BIAB from a notation perspective and to use it from a performance perspective.

Thus, for me, a song that requires 96 bars would be laid out as a single chorus that's 96 bars long. That way, I have complete control over every aspect of how the the 96 bars are performed. Using copy and paste, it doesn't take too much time to set out a song as a 'once through' performance.

Have a look at the below song of mine on Vimeo. It's a video of how the chord sheet progresses as the song plays. This is what I mean by a 'once through' performance.


CAN YOU IMAGINE
https://vimeo.com/143978481


Thanks for having a listen to "This Road". I appreciate the comments. I'll go back through my song's creation and see if I used a style (I don't usually). I'll put my thoughts about styles and how I find instruments in a subsequent post in this thread.


MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024
Beginners Forum
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
L
Apprentice
OP Offline
Apprentice
L
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 146
Terrific song, and arrangement! Were you playing the violin, too?

I don't write songs, or sing or play guitar (I used to play guitar a bit) but I am learning to play the chromatic harmonica, and I want to make accompaniments that show the notes--I particularly like having the current note turn red during play--it just seems so neat to be able to do that. I find that when I go to the "fake sheet" mode and play a song that doesn't fit on one page, the notation doesn't change pages smoothly, but lags, or has part of one page on top of another. So until I can sort that out I'm sticking to songs I can fit on one page of notation.

Thanks so much for your help!

Last edited by Lesley55; 12/16/17 08:06 AM.
Beginners Forum
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Veteran
Offline
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 18,838
Hi again, Lesley.

Thanks for your comments on "Can You Imagine".

In relation to "This Road", I did use a style as the starting place for this song. The style was _PJONPBA.STY.

As I started playing around, though, I tried out various Realtracks and Realdrums to get what I eventually ended up with.

RealTracks Picker makes it easy to begin isolating suitable instruments. My process is...

1. Click on the "Tempo" heading column. This sorts the instruments by tempo.

This tempo is what the instruments were recorded at and so it represents the best tempo choice for a song if you want to get the best sound from a Realtrack.

As a general principle, if a Realtrack is used at a tempo that's more than 10 bpm slower or more than 15 bpm faster than its recording tempo, audio artifacts are produced when the Realtrack is generated and these mar the quality of the final sound.

2. Once sorted by tempo, scroll down/up to find the Realtracks that are closest to my song's tempo.

Also.... if the song is an even tempo (say, rock, latin, etc.), look for RTs that have EV present in the "Feel" column in Realtrack Picker. If the song is swing based, look for RTs that have SW in the "Feel" column.

For example...

Since "This Road" is a rock ballad with a tempo of 85 bpm, I looked at the RTs that had a recording tempo of 80 - 90 bpm and that had EV present in the "Feel" column.

3. I use the Band/Solo audition button in the picker window to audition each track. If I find one I like, I then insert it in the song and generate the song to see how it sounds.

Hope these brief thoughts offer some useful information.

Regards,
Noel

P.S. All the instruments in "This Road" were from BIAB. all I played were the choral voices.


MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Go To

Link Copied to Clipboard
ChatPG

Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.

ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.

PG Music News
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 Review: 4.75 out of 5 Stars!

If you're looking for a in-depth review of the newest Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows version, you'll definitely find it with Sound-Guy's latest review, Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows Review: Incredible new capabilities to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs.

A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."

"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."

"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."

Happy Easter! Holiday Hours...

2024 is well underway - it's already Easter Weekend!

Our Customer Service hours this weekend are:

Friday, March 29: 8-4
Saturday, March 30: 8-4
Sunday, March 31: closed

Regular hours resume Monday, April 1st - no joke!

Convenient Ways to Listen to Band-in-a-Box® Songs Created by Program Users!

The User Showcase Forum is an excellent place to share your Band-in-a-Box® songs and listen to songs other program users are creating!

There are other places you can listen to these songs too! Visit our User Showcase page to sort by genre, artist (forum name), song title, and date - each listing will direct you to the forum post for that song.

If you'd rather listen to these songs in one place, head to our Band-in-a-Box® Radio, where you'll have the option to select the genre playlist for your listening pleasure. This page has SoundCloud built in, so it won't redirect you. We've also added the link to the Artists SoundCloud page here, and a link to their forum post.

We hope you find some inspiration from this amazing collection of User Showcase Songs!

Congratulations to the 2023 User Showcase Award Winners!

We've just announced the 2023 User Showcase Award Winners!

There are 45 winners, each receiving a Band-in-a-Box 2024 UltraPAK! Read the official announcement to see if you've won.

Our User Showcase Forum receives more than 50 posts per day, with people sharing their Band-in-a-Box songs and providing feedback for other songs posted.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed!

Video: Volume Automation in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows®

We've created a video to help you learn more about the Volume Automation options in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows.

Band-in-a-Box® 2024: Volume Automation

www.pgmusic.com/manuals/bbw2024full/chapter11.htm#volume-automation

Video: Audio Input Monitoring with Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows®

We've created this short video to explain Audio Input Monitoring within Band-in-a-Box® 2024, and included some tips & troubleshooting details too!

Band-in-a-Box® 2024: Audio Input Monitoring

3:17: Tips
5:10: Troubleshooting

www.pgmusic.com/manuals/bbw2024full/chapter11.htm#audio-input-monitoring

Video: Enhanced Melodists in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows®!

We've enhanced the Melodists feature included in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows!

Access the Melodist feature by pressing F7 in the program to open the new MultiPicker Library and locate the [Melodist] tab.

You can now generate a melody on any track in the program - very handy! Plus, you select how much of the melody you want generated - specify a range, or apply it to the whole track.

See the Melodist in action with our video, Band-in-a-Box® 2024: The Melodist Window.

Learn even more about the enhancements to the Melodist feature in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows at www.pgmusic.com/manuals/bbw2024upgrade/chapter3.htm#enhanced-melodist

Forum Statistics
Forums66
Topics81,400
Posts732,555
Members38,443
Most Online2,537
Jan 19th, 2020
Newest Members
danielsk, Mark Morgan, zagrajbarke, Ernest J, Izzy
38,442 Registered Users
Top Posters(30 Days)
MarioD 199
Al-David 132
DC Ron 116
rsdean 84
dcuny 83
Today's Birthdays
(charlie), WobblyGstring
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5