Exported midi harmony tracks from melody track have two empty bars added at beginning. Is there any way to prevent this? In ‘Preferences’ / ‘Midi File Options’ have ‘Include 2 bars lead-in’ unchecked. Non-harmony midi tracks do not have these extra bars added.
Procedure I’m following is:
Load .MGU file Solo the Melody track Click on ‘Harmony’ / ‘Midi Melody Harmony’ Select required harmony and click ‘OK’ Click on ‘File’ / ‘Save Special’ / ‘Save Song as Midi File’ Load file into DAW (Reaper in my case)
Midi then loads as separate melody and harmony tracks, but with the previously-mentioned two empty bars added at beginning of each track.
I've only used the Harmony editor a couple of times over the years (although, now that I use Synth V for vocals, I need to get back into working with it as it's an excellent way to get some vocal harmony up and running). I've looked through everything I know about the Harmony editor and it seems like this might be a bug. I don't know this side of BIAB well enough to be certain of that, though.
I'll pass this information on to the developers and send the link to your post.
Thanks for your help. Is it best for me to mark it as 'Resolved' as bug might be involved and therefore no need for other users to have to be involved?
I suggest leaving the thread unresolved. That way others who have a deeper understanding of the Harmony Editor than I do might pop in and offer thoughts. Notes Norton and John Ford spring to mind. Both of them have a lot of experience with BIAB and MIDI and my understanding pales in comparison to theirs.
Allan, I’m not claiming to know that harmony feature well, but I’m just double-checking that you know BIAB exports all songs with two bars up front by default, and I thought this occurs even if the count-in is muted (though I don’t use that option and haven’t tested it today). In other words, I would have expected that behavior and I’m very surprised to read after 31 years that there is any way to avoid the two bars added. So, thank you.
I’m following this thread because the inconsistency you’ve described should be explained or fixed.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Hope I haven't misunderstood your post. Curious in that I’m wondering if my BIAB settings are set in some fortuitous way as midi (apart from harmony) does export without any empty bars added to it on my setup. This applies however export is carried out – ‘Drop Box’, ‘Save Special’ or dragging to DAW.
Thanks for this suggestion, which should have cleared it up. Unfortunately, when loading file into RB, the melody track - which should also contain the harmonies - shows and plays only the melody. No sign of the harmonies elsewhere on track listing.
From what little I know about it, harmonies are on Midi channels 11 and 12. Melody track is set to play channels 1 to 16, so should play them if present.
Used RB to add the same harmonies and saved the Midi files. Two empty bars are added to the start of each saved midi track, so not quite sure where I am with this!
There is, of course, an easy workround in that I only have to delete the two unwanted empty bars. Was hoping the process could be made a little slicker by not having to do this!
I just created a file using a MIDI only style, then recorded a melody with my keyboard. I added a harmony and everything played back fine in BIAB. I exported to MIDI (setting the options to exclude the 2-bar lead-in), then loaded that MIDI into RealBand.
What resulted was the accompaniment started on the first bar, but both the melody and the harmony started two beats later. This is definitely a bug, where the melody and harmony export does not honor the 2-bar lead-in setting.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
Thanks for doing this. When things don't work in expected manner I usually think it is my fault - one of the hazards of being what is politely known as 'elderly'!
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