Hello,

I am a WIN 10 user with Aleton Live 10. The BIAB feature that makes me want to use BIAB is the fact that I can type/write the name of the chords and it gives me a replay of my creation. I don't want to use the "Real Tracks" feature. I want to drag the all chords that I've put together into ABLETON as MIDI files. NOT WAV/AUDIO files. That way I can then use any VSTs such as Massive, Serum etc etc... with my midi files. Can I do such a thing if I buy BIAB ?

Thank you very much.

The short answer is yes you can.

After you enter your chords you select a suitable music style and this style can be only RealTracks, only Midi or mixed. There are plenty of midi only styles available in the MegaPak edition and upwards.

If you are only interested in midi you probably don't need anything more than the MegaPak version which has more than 2000 midi styles.

You can export a midi file with separate tracks for each instrument from BIAB or use the BIAB plug for Ableton.

Regards
Tim

Tim thank you very much for your answer !!

In fact ALL I want is entering (typing/writing) my chords. I like that the fact that BIAB behaves like a real sheet music (score) as I'm very familiar with reading / writing music that way. I want then the series of chords in question RAW, NO music style, NO Real Tracks. NOTHING. I simply want to drag and drop the "sequence" of chords: yes I would be using BIAB as a VST plugin. I know that BIAB has tons of features (and using it just for that may seem very basic) but for me I want this simplicity of being able to type in the name of the chords (and then being able to listen to them) then drop them in ABLETON because it would speed up considerably my workflow compared to entering midi notes one by one in ABLETON. So I hope this very basic feature does exist... could your confirm before I press the "buy" button ?

Many thanks again for your help.

Oliver
Lys K Music

Far as I know 'chords' are not part of the MIDI standards yet (even with MIDI2)


I don't think you can actually drag the chords.
You can drag the tracks, but then the DAW has to analyze/recognize the chords from those tracks.
Once the DAW knows the chords you can do whatever you want, but I don't think you can drag chords themselves between BiaB and a DAW.

If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will be along shortly to correct me.

Oliver, I'm not sure even YOU know what you're asking. I don't say that to be mean, but to emphasize what Band In A Box does.
When you create a song in BIAB, either using Real Tracks or MIDI, it takes the chords and then generates a five-part backing track.
So, each chord symbol you put in the window, if you're only using MIDI, will automatically generate a drum pattern, a bass pattern, a guitar pattern, a piano pattern, and a string pattern. Actual instruments may and will vary depending on the style you chose.
So, if I'm doing a simple 12 bar blues song, I may have C/C/C/C/F/F/C/C/G/F/C/C. Just putting the chords into Ableton doesn't accomplish anything as far as Band In A Box is concerned because BIAB is going to create a five-part accompaniment to go along with that chord progression. Pick any blues style from the Style Picker, especially one suited for blues, and that's what you're going to get. Take the same chord progression and pick a Klezmer style if you want, it doesn't matter.

Your comment of "I want then the series of chords in question RAW, NO music style, NO Real Tracks. NOTHING." and then "I want this simplicity of being able to type in the name of the chords (and then being able to listen to them)" are directly incompatible with each other.

So, what we need to know is this. If you type a chord progression, say the blues progression above, into BIAB, what do you want to hear? Do you want to hear drums, bass, piano, guitar and strings (or approriate instruments), or do you just want to hear nothing?

Every song, no matter what it is, has a 'style.' It could be as simplistic as a simple strummed guitar for each beat the chord falls on, with nothing else but that guitar, or it could be a fully orchestrated piece of music by John Williams (which is far beyond the scope of Band In A Box). No matter which you choose, it still has a STYLE.
Now, you can simply choose not to buy any Real Tracks, that's available, but I'll tell you, if you're making your own songs, especially for demo songs, RTs are invaluable. Unless you are a multi-instrumentalist and can play all your own parts, they really add a certain je ne sais quoi to a song. Even some of the most sophisticated VSTis can't compare to a real live player.
But, that is neither here nor there until we find out exactly what YOU want from BIAB, and right now, to me, I don't think you know what you're looking for, or you do, but you're not expressing it correctly.

Why don't you give us a run down on what you want to hear.
I want to go WAAAaaay back in time to Band In A Box 9, which is ages old. This version predates Real Drums and Real Tracks. The following video goes over available styles in that version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=47&v=zW-v9n-XrWM&feature=emb_logo

Here's a video from Band In A Box 7, which again predates Real Drums or RealTracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=XveLIVrqgRU&feature=emb_logo

All Band In A Box versions allow you to input your chord progression, but they MUST output something, and that something depends on the style that you choose.

If you don't want ANY style, then I suggest that writing the chords in Ableton, if you can, and going that way. If you can't do that, then maybe a different sequencer for you?

Hi Oliver,

Standard midi is polyphonic (multiple notes at once) and is therefore quite capable of representing chords. With BIAB it all depends on which musical instruments are used in the style. The user types the chords into BIAB and the style interprets the chords for the different instruments. (It is a bit different for drums). This is the same way that improvising musicians and composers often formally work.

If for example, one of the instruments in the style is a strummed guitar then the midi track for that guitar will represent chords because that is what the BIAB virtual musician is creating. If the musical instrument is something like a trumpet which only plays one note at a time that is what will be in the midi track. Musical instruments like a piano will often have a combination of chords and individual notes. What you hear is what you get for each instrument on any given midi track. You will only need to import one midi track for the chosen chord generating instrument into Ableton.

If you just wants chords, choose a midi style with say a straight strummed guitar (ACBALLAD.STY is one example). You can look at what BIAB is generating for any instrument using the notation or fake sheet window or the piano roll window.
If you just want one chord per bar you would need to look for a style with an instrument doing just that or you can customise an existing style to give you what you want. In my experience customising a style is a bit of a pain but you would only need to do it once.

You should be able to tighten up the timing of your chords by first selecting options in BIAB such as "Force Song To Simple Arrangement(non embellished) in the Song Setting option screen. In Abelton you should also be able to quantitize the imported midi track to make all the notes in the chord line up neatly. It will still be "music" but it will sound very mechanical.


Regards
Tim

I want to thank you all, Tim and Gary, for your precious help understanding how BIAB works. I had said "drag the chords" instead of "drag the tracks". Obviously ! It was my mistake. I will watch the videos in question and make sure that this is the right software for what I want to achieve.

Oliver
Lys K Music

First: Everything in BIAB comes with a style. There are 1000s. From very simple, one block triad chord per bar or per beat, to the most complex of jazz comping.

Second: There are far cheaper and easier options available to simply create midi chord progressions to load into your DAW.

Based on what you have said here, I would suggest you do a bit more homework before you push any buttons. Check out a program called Scaler, also Mr chords as a starting point for ideas.

Hi Oliver and welcome.

Once thing to be mindful of is are you looking for 'plain' chords that accompany a song in a simple format, or embellished chords that represent a range specific musical styles (pop, rock, jazz, Latin, country etc).

BiaB does offer the choice of thousands of different styles. Other programs may offer more or less variety.

Even the entry level 'Pro' pack offers 750+ MIDI styles.

If you do go for a BiaB purchase, my recommendation is to go for the highest pack that your budget allows.

(PG Music also offer an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee.)

Oliver,
I think that Band In A Box IS what you're looking for. I would suggest purchase of the MegaPak. It will have some RealTracks, but you don't need to use them. It has all of the MIDI styles, and not quite all of the MIDI SuperTracks, but you may not need those anyway.

Since BIAB has switched to RealDrums and RealTracks, they are often the preferred way of using the program, but the MegaPak gives you the most MIDI without a whole bunch of Real anything.

For additional MIDI styles, I highly recommend Bob 'Notes' Norton, who creates MIDI based styles for BIAB. You can find his website here: http://www.nortonmusic.com/

Hi Oliver,
I got to thinking a bit more about what you are wanting to do.

You mention that you are familiar with music notation. I assume that you are also familiar with the fact that chords come in many variations. There are three note chords, four note chords, five note chords etc. It is not uncommon for notes to be left out of a chord when playing it and there are various ways chords can be constructed known as inversions. A cord like Gm7 can therefore be interpreted in many different ways by a composer or a musician. With BIAB the composer/musician is a style.

I got to thinking that it was unlikely that there would be an existing style in BIAB that would be simple enough to do exactly what you want so I had a go at creating one. I arbitrarily chose to use a 4 note chord. Below you can see my results from the chord sheet using this JUSCHORD.STY that I created (It only has one instrument track - a guitar)
I then exported the midi file that was generated and opened it in a notation program that I use called MuseScore.

It all seems to work OK but it may not be exactly what you want. If you need something more sophisticated you may need to get help from someone who has a lot more experience with creating styles than I do. Gary suggested Bob Norton. He has a good reputation.

I have packed everything including the demo song with the chords, the style files, the exported midi file and an MP3 recording of what you would hear in BIAB when you hit the play button. This should give you something to play around with before buying anything to see if it basically does what you want.

You can use the following link to download the zip file from my drop box. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pb76nxxon2q62cw/AAB1s7nQTYRF2xdUNNRQPQpaa?dl=0

The download button is on the right at the top. It is a bit hard to see.

Regards
Tim

Just my opinion, but I try never to mix sharps and flats in a chord. In your example, for both the Cdim and Ab13, I would have written Gb instead of F#. Also, notes for a Cdim7 are being shown, and the G# as spelled here should have been called Ab. You can control some of these enharmonic choices by the key signature, and manually change an accidental in Editable Notation Mode when needed.

I didn't suggest BIAB would not do what is being described, I just question recommending BIAB for this purpose. Do you guys really think this is wise?

Creating midi chord progressions for transfer to your DAW has got some very solid players out there for which this is really all the program does. On the other hand, this is not the primary or even secondary design intent of BIAB. Ya it does it, but others do this better and cheaper based on their intended design. I recommended the OP look at a couple other programs but perhaps you guys have sold it for him.

dan

Hi Matt,

What I was doing was a proof of concept to try and see if this idea would work. This exercise has absolutely nothing to do with writing nice or "technically correct" music notation. Even the chord sequence that I used makes absolutely no musical sense. In any case the chord interpretations were those produced by the MuseScore software when it read the midi file, not by me.

Regards
Tim

Hi Dan,

I would agree totally with what you are saying. Always look for the cheapest and easiest solution to a problem.

But in this case the OP came onto a biab forum and asked if this could be done with biab. My initial answer was yes it could but after some thought and some other postings that expressed doubt, I thought I should do some tests to prove (or disprove) what I had previously stated.

Tim

Understood Tim.
But while I got you, here is my problem with BIAB chords which your demo illustrates.

If I want to represent a C chord, I want a triad of three notes. If I want to extend that chord to four notes I specify a CMaj7 or C7. In either case I want that chord to be in root position. Then if I want to voice an inversion I specific which inversion. In other words, I want complete control of the voicing for the chord I specify. BIAB does not do that.

Well at least not without advanced training.

I suspect your example demo failed to put the chords in root position since you used a guitar style track??



Dan

Thanks, I thought that might be the case. I am curious that MuseScore decided not to change the BIAB chords, yet provide the odd enharmonic notes, especially in the G# chord. I don't have experience changing the key signature in MuseScore to see if it would 'clean up' these annoyances. Could I just verify you exported the BIAB file as MIDI, and not as Music XML? Also, do you know MuseScore is the only notation program (so far, I think) that can read native BIAB SGU and MGU files? Might be worth a few minutes to test those formats.

Hi Dan,

Based on my recent experience, if you wanted to create triads or anything else that takes your fancy, I believe that you would need to create an additional style for each type of chord interpretation. I have very little experience in creating styles but it looks to me as though almost anything is possible if you know what you are doing. That is the reason that I suggested the OP seek the assistance of someone more experienced in style creation if he wants to go down this BIAB track. To be perfectly honest I don't fully understand what he is trying to achieve as an end product but I believe we are all entitled to pursue the creative process in any way we see fit.

Personally I only use BIAB in a very basic way. i.e. enter some chords, look for a suitable style and tweak a few things to get what I want. I usually just use BIAB to create practice backing tracks or some rhythm backing for live recordings. Pretty ordinary stuff. I usually import the BIAB audio tracks into Reaper using the BIAB plug-in.


Regards
Tim

Hi Matt,

Yes I exported the BIAB file as midi and not as Music XML. I then imported the midi file into MuseScore. When I opened the midi file in MuseScore I got the the notation without the chord symbols.

When I opened the BIAB SGU file in MuseScore, I got the chord symbols without any notation so I had to cut and paste the two together to give me a MuseScore file with both notation and symbols.

There is a an option in the MuseScore tools menu called Respell Pitches which seems to clean the notation up a bit.

Regards
Tim

All worthwhile input, and of course absolutely no criticism is involved or directed, and I completely understand that this is simply for experimental purposes - but when I saw the G# chord with all those flats, I thought, yikes! how do I sight read that?

Same here. I was going to post a comment but Matt said exactly what I was going to say.

Buman1,
+++ Chordpulse +++ is a small Windows program that uses the Windows midi sound engine for instrument sounds while performing playback and can export your compositions as a standard midi file.

+++ ChordPulse video +++

Later on in this thread, the OP came back and said he meant to say 'drag the tracks.' I seriously believe he is looking for exactly what BIAB can do, which is to generate a backing track based on a chord progression.

Dan, you said "Creating midi chord progressions for transfer to your DAW has got some very solid players out there for which this is really all the program does. On the other hand, this is not the primary or even secondary design intent of BIAB."
I think that's incorrect. I would be willing to guess that most people move their BIAB files over to a DAW, whether it's PowerTracks Pro Audio, RealBand, or in my case, Cakewalk X3 (outdated, I know, but it does what I want it to do).

A DAW gives you so much more flexibility in working with tracks, especially if you're mixing MIDI and Audio before converting everything to audio. Now, I'm not really familiar with Ableton, and the videos I looked at describing it weren't very helpful. But, moving BIAB tracks to a DAW, IMHO, is really the best way to work. One of the reasons that BIAB is now a plugin for most DAWs. Think about that one for a second!

The OP may want to use it all in MIDI, which is his choice. He's got more freedom for editing, some of the sound libraries out there today are light years away from the old Soundblaster cards and even a synth from 15 years ago, like my Korg PA800 is. So, I can see the allure of working in purely MIDI, if you can do the editing.

G