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I need to create transposed lead sheets for several musicians in a class. I have entered the chords and Concert pitch melody into biab - found a suitable style & can play the whole song.

I can use the 'options' to transpose for various instruments (Eb / Bb).

What I want to be able to do now is to print those leadsheets off so that I can hand them out in the class - Turn off the melody line & just play the backing to go along with the soloist.

I have tried to use the file > print feature - but it does not allow me to print a single chorus AND the coda (Tag). Biab also wont let me set only 1 chorus (it switches off the Tag if I do that). I also notice that it does not seem to show repeat marks where the chorus wraps around.

So - how do I setup biab to print the intro, 1st chorus and the tag? ... if necessary, I'll use a pen on the printouts to add repeat marks - but I need to get the music back out first.

Regards

Chris

I do this all the time, but it's been a while, and it seemed so easy.

I'd contact support with an example you can email back and forth.

As you may know, the answers to your questions can be found in Help in fairly good detail. Here's what I do:

If I have trouble with repeats, I just use unfold to one big chorus. It's a choice in the Edit menu.

There's a box right on the main screen where it shows the key. Let's say the concert key is in C and you want a Bb part. Just change the key to D, go to the Notation screen, and click print. You can make some changes in appearance there. I usually put in which part it is in the composer block. When you are done printing, go back to the chords screen and click undo transpose in the edit menu. Just repeat the process for whatever key you need.

I've never tried to print just part of a song, but maybe you could do that by using the Soloist track. Maybe someone else will jump in here for that.

Remember that you are not locked into just one file. You can change the melody and/or soloist and save the song each time you make changes. When you are satisfied that you have what you need, you can go back and delete any extra files.

Stan

I have never really looked at this feature so I know nothing about it, but is this a way to play notes in from a keyboard and it will print sheet music??

Hi Mac,

Thanks - I was using print preview - and 'print to PDF'.

The best that I have managed to do here is set biab to 2 chorus for the piece - and then print leaving the default 'whole song' option set.

This prints out the whole piece - with the melody line shown on the first chorus and the chords only over the second chorus. I didnt see the traditional 'thick bar, thin bar, two dots' repeat marks - just double bar lines and the bar count switching to (2)..... but at least it is all there.

If I select the '1st chorus' option on the print dialog - I dont get the Tag - so that does not help.

Not perfect - but a whole lot quicker & neater than doing it all by hand.

Regards

Chris

Hi Eddie,

I play Saxophone - so cannot get biab to 'capture' what I play - Have to enter notation manually. However, I have seen a friend do just that - play the piece on a midi connected keyboard, capture it in biab - tweek a few notes around to fix the mistakes - play it to check and then print it out.

Any number that you have captured in biab can be printed out (you only get the notes if you have a melody line).

Regards

Chris

Chris,

I use BIAB to create leadsheets a lot, but had a lot of frustration early on because there are several variables that have to be set correctly to get the result you need, and the settings are not always where you expect them to be.

My standard layout is:

4 bar introduction
32 bar chorus, played four times
a tag ending

From the Lead Sheet Window I hit the Opt. button, and make sure that "Fadesheet include ending bars" is ticked.

Back at the Lead Sheet Window I hit the Print button, and chose the "Whole Song" radio-button.

I now hit the "OK -Preview/Graphics" button to check how my leadsheet looks, and I tweak the number of staves per page to get if necessary. Sometimes there's a single orphaned stave on a second page, and it's possible to squeeze it all into one page.

I'm not sure how many of these settings are saved with the individual MGU file, and how many with the BIAB settings which persist when BIAB is shut down and re-started.

What would be handy when compiling a library of leadsheets for a band would be a way of automating the production of Concert, Bb and Eb copies (for example), but I haven't worked out a way of doing this (yet?).

If this doesn't work for you, get back to me - I may have missed out an essential step somewhere.

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the response,

The problem I have with 'whole song' is that it will print every chorus - which amounts to lots of paper (both to be printed & to be shuffled around stands / lost / mixed up, etc. Many of my pieces are like yours - effectively 'Jazz standards' - 4 bar intro, 32 to 36 bar chorus - where I have the melody over the 1st chorus and then leave all the repeats for solos and a 4 to 8 bar coda / tag at the end (usually coming 2 bars before the end of the chorus. (I just 'processed 4 of these from a real book' - I cannot have been the only person to do this on biab!)

What I would really like to do is

1)Capture my (concert) transposition
2)Print that with the intro, 1st chorus & tag - with repeat marks showing around each chorus and a nice 'coda mark' referencing out to the tag. ... all on one single page
3)Change the option setting to transpose for Tenor and repeat 2 (having made a note that this is Bb)
4)Repeat for Alto Sax

A 'one shot' transpose & print for all would be nice - but I doubt that many would use it & it is useful to be able to enter different text to appear in each print (Bb transposition - for example). I sometimes also need Bass versions for when I get a Bari sax player or Trombone.

As it is - I currently define 2 chorus - and get a 2 page leadsheet (first chorus with melody, second without leading sraight into the coda. I print that out, mark in the correct repeats & coda marks & then scan it to provide me with a 'usable master'

I cant find 'Fadesheet to include ending bars' in any of the options - but have found that unchecking 'Staves per page auto-set' does preserve the number of stages per page between prints & biab sessions (to avoid 1 bar on a second page as you mention). The settings do NOT appear to save with the MGU.

I do realise that biab is essentially an accompaniment / backing system - not a notation system - hence the limit of 255 bars & lack of articulation, etc but I cant justify buying Sibelius or Finale too (let alone have time to learn how to use them).

Regards

Chris

Chris, lots of us make typos. It's "Fakesheet" and it will print as Michael described.

But even when you print that correctly it still looks bad in most cases. There's several little tricks some of us use for this. For me the biggest problem with Biab Fakecharts is the 1st/2nd ending lines and numbers and the DS/Coda signs. They are way too small and many times overwrite the chord symbols and therefore look like crap. After spending a lot of time trying to massage the system to fix that it occurred to me I was trying too hard. All we're talking about visually is staff lines with chords on a page. What I came up with is enter the chords not as the song actually is supposed to play but simply how they appear on the page, period. Just look at any one page chart and what do you see visually? 7 or 9 staff lines with chords above them. Just enter those chords in that order and ignore any repeats, symbols or words. Then I print it and simply write in the lines for the 1st/2nd endings, the DS and Coda symbols. With most songs that takes what, 1-2 minutes to enter the chords like that? Then it might take you another 2 minutes to write in those endings and symbols. Stop busting our heads about "fixing" Biab's more complex print functions. Yes, it's clunky and funky looking in many cases but it prints the basic staff lines with the melody and chord symbols great. Time to move on and just get our work done.

This of course requires a separate Biab file just for the chart because the song certainly won't play correctly. It doesn't see a 1st ending or a repeat, it just blows through those changes to the end.

Hope this make sense.

Bob

Here's something else I just learned a couple days ago, I wrote about it here:

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=378322&an=0&page=0#Post378322

Look at my post near the end talking about using the Snip tool and a graphics pen to edit a PDF file.

Bob

Bob & Jim,

Yes - many thanks ... I think that I came to the same conclusion overnight.

- Get biab to do the 'hard work' (transposing & printing all the chords / notes legibly) and then add the annotations by hand.

My previous plan of printing 2 chorus didnt work anyway as I was still getting 2 pages when I really only needed 1 & it jumped to the Coda part way through the 2nd chorus.

The most obvious workaround is exactly what you both suggest - now that I have the number captured, make a copy and just have 1 chorus + the coda for printing & annotation purposes

Thanks Again

Chris