As I attempt to get BIAB to understand common song forms, I often use the 'edit list' in the repeats-codas-endings dialog to set repeats and such. However, after saving and restoring (BIAB 2012 latest patch), often the list has lots of 'Unknown or newer repeat types' entries which don't seem to resemble anything I had in the list before saving.

Is this a known issue? (I've tried searching forums and support for the phrase "unknown or newer repeat", and nothing came up. When I searched for just the words, I got every hit in the archives, I think.)

Maybe I'm going about this wrong, so does anyone have a suggestion for these types of repeat:

  • In the ending tag, I want to repeat the tag say 6 times and then end. I can't seem to create a repeat from the start bar of the tag to the end bar of the tag so that it "sticks" or works properly. In some cases, I have an 8-bar tag, so unrolling the repeats makes the lead sheet and chord chart way too long to fit on a page.

  • In the common A1 A2 B A2 form layout, there doesn't seem to be a way to set the 1/2/3 endings so that I don't have to duplicate the second A2 after the B part. Is there a way to have this A1 A2 B A2 form repeat without making the last A2 be an A3 that is identical to A2? (Remember, this is the same A part that has 2 different endings, not two completely different parts.)

  • In one arrangement, I need to have the form play an introductory A1, and then repeat the "A1 A2 B A2" form several times. I imagine the ability to "create" form layouts is is just something that is so unusual it makes no sense for BIAB to consider it.

Overall, I think being able to specify a form such as: "Intro 3[A1 A2 B A2] Coda Tag" and have part markers, repeats, codas and endings combined would help tremendously. Perhaps something like adding more part markers so that clicking thru a marker would bring up in order: "Intro, A, B, BeginRepeat, EndRepeat, Coda, Tag, etc.", and then let the part marker be modified with things like [ A[1,2,3], BR1, ER1, Coda1 ] which would be used to define the form. Likewise, nested repeats (being able to contain a repeat within a repeat) would solve many problems arranging the song form.

Probably suggestions like these are already in the wishlist forums, but without knowing how to search using phrases on this website, I have a hard time finding out.

Finally, I hope these observations/suggestions aren't too offensive to the conventional BIAB users. (I know that BIAB is meant only for playing accompanyment and that most users don't object to "unrolling" all of the leadsheet parts into one long 200-bar part.)