Just got the announcement. Have read the forums back for several days, but haven’t seen whether the 255-bar limit has now been broken. Has it?

Richard

I've not seen any mention of it, if that's was changed it would be splashed all over the place I think.

Bob

Just tried to make a song 260 bars and it stops at 255 so I would say the answer is a big NO

That test was done on the 64bit version

*sad face*

I kinda thought that was much of the POINT.

Richard, I'm not defending the 255 bar limit. But I think the explanation is that this is part of the file structure for songs that was set 30 years ago and would be difficult to change at this point.

For those who don't recognize the number, 255 measures up to 2 to the 8th, a binary number that must have been chosen as the limit at the time when space in a record stored on a computer was at a premium. Or, it could be expressed in a two-character hexadecimal number coded in assembly language. [I was teaching programming].

Since those early days we have progressed from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit and now to 64-bit software. This 255 measure limit wasn't changed at those other times, either, so I have to conclude it's integral to the design of the program and will require a major rewrite to fix. Please note, I'm only speculating here.

and you have songs with more than 255 bars?wow!Id lose the willto live at half that. Could you not have 2 choruses,one at allmost max and one tagged to an ending?
Wendy

Wendy,

The maximum 255 bar limit shows itself in strange ways. For instance, when the program plays RealTracks, RealDrums or UserTracks at half, double or triple speed playback will unexpectedly stop early. It's possible these features will not work correctly after only 85 bars.

Jim is correct. With different time bases, it is easier to trigger the 255-bar limit than it used to be.

The reason I have wanted more than 255 bars was when I tried to assemble a non stop medley of songs that plays without a pause. The jukebox has limitations that make this difficult to achieve. I realize this is a rare requirement but I wanted to play a background of songs that changes seamlessly from style to style.

Tony

Might be the reason all style names are still in 8.3 format. That is going WAY back.

When I started using BiaB it was a DOS program -- definitely 8 bit. The app has grown exponentially since then, but the 255 bar limit remains.

Sometimes when compiling my Norton Music Fake 'Disks' I have run into that 255 bar limit. Often not because the song has so many different parts in it, or because of the arrangement. Verse two might have a couple of extra bars in it so verse one can't be repeated, or weird repeat schemes in the music that repeat from different bars each time it repeats and so on.

I wrote EXPANDED styles to get around the 4 chord per bar limitation in BiaB. All EXPANDED styles will allow you to put 8 chords in a 4/4 measure (or 6 chords in a 3/4 measure), and will also allow you to put a chord both on the beat and the upbeat before that same beat. You can do this by EXPANDING the Band-in-a-Box song (edit menu) and the Norton Music EXPANDED style will play correctly in that mode. Unfortunately that drops the song to a 127 bar limit.

And sometimes the only way to do a 5/4 song and have the chords fall on the beats properly is to use one BiaB cell for a 3/4 measure and the next cell for a 2/4 measure. Like EXPANDED styles, it takes two BiaB cells in the matrix to make one bar of music thus reducing the limit to 127 bars.

And yes, Medleys. While playing at an adult singles club, I was asked to do 20 minutes of music for "mixer" theme dances, twice a night. I made medleys by doing individual songs in BiaB, exporting them as MIDI files, and combining them in a MIDI Sequencer. The same thing could be done in a DAW with Real Tracks, but it would be more difficult, but not impossible, to get the transitions between the songs to go smoothly.

Don't get me wrong, BiaB is a great tool. I write aftermarket styles for BiaB at http://www.nortonmusic.com and I have done "for hire" work writing styles for other software and hardware auto-accompaniment devices. BiaB is the best of the lot and has the most musical output by far. It does have its limitations though, fewer and/or different ones from the competition, and there are work-arounds for a lot of them.

I would like to see the 255 limit at least doubled.

I'd also like to see the ability to build any chord you can imagine, perhaps with a dialog box with check boxes for all the intervals so you could build a chord with a minor 3rd and a suspended 4th plus a major 7th - or anything unusual that might show up in a Thelonius Monk or Sun Ra song.

And I'd like to see the MIDI resolution go from 120ppq to at least 240ppq.

I don't know if we will ever see these enhancements though. But I still love BiaB and it's still the best of the lot.

Insights and incites by Notes

Oh, man. Now you've gone too far! (grin)

Bob, as far as the MIDI resolution, I thought that could be changed as high as 920. This was made possible maybe three years back, to provide better compatibility with DAWs. Is that not what you need?

The way at the moment is use multiple vst1 starts on bar 1, vst2 starts on bar 256, vst1 you enable count-in and disable ending, vst2 you disable count-in and enable ending.
You can also use multiple vst's for style changes giving more control over style change levels.

musocity... Now that is an interesting workaround!

So I would load each VST on a seperate track and start the 2nd VST on Track 2 at bar 256, if I correctly understand how you do it?

Thanks for the tip!

On Plugin 1 have an extra bar and un-check ending
On Plugin 2 un-check count-in
In the DAW the change is on bar 33 so you set the volume automation to turn off on bar 33 on Plugin 1 this allows fine adjustment so you get a seamless join.
Plugin 2 is set to sync start on bar 34.
The DAW has a 2 bar count-in offset so you have 2 count-in bars before bar 1.
I have the same part marker on bar 33 of Plugin 1 as I have on bar 1 of Plugin 2 so it will play a fill going into a post fill.
You need an extra bar on Plugin 1 because it cuts notes off too soon so you don't get a seamless join, it was mention to PG a few times but it looks like they haven't got around to it yet.

Watch: https://www.dropbox.com/s/afmd6c08dmlaxd5/BBPlugi-Over-255-Bars.mp4?dl=0

Zoom++