PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Inconsistent behavior with guitar tab notation... am I missing a setting?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently using BIAB 2012. I'm getting back into guitar after a bit of a hiatus, and it's helpful for me to use the guitar fretboard window and the notation window with tablature enabled, because it helps me to visualize the notes in different areas of the guitar fretboard.

The feature works amazingly well! The only problem is that I'm encountering some weird behavior that is inconsistent from song to song. Let me explain below, and hopefully somebody can point me to a setting or something I'm just missing.

First, I'll show you the example where it works, then I'll show you an example of where it doesn't.

I started by opening a demo song that comes with BIAB. For reference, it's _GEO_FGF.STY. Sad Country Bal. (88 RS). I open the melody track in the notation window with guitar tablature enabled. If I click on the 5th position on the guitar fretboard, the tablature is updated so that I can play in fifth position.

(I posted the image on Google docs for lack of a better image hosting service):
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4P80i2y2zynVXFJZTRvaExTTjA

Now, if I click on a different position, like position 3, then the tablature automatically updates to reflect that change. You can see that it has me playing the exact same notes but with a different fingering this time.

(Again, the image is on Google docs):
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4P80i2y2zynOGlMZ0kzeEJ1WWs

The difference is subtle, but you can see that the D is now played on the second string instead of the third.

OK. First, let me say: This works brilliantly! Honestly, that's a great feature. It lets me explore all around the fretboard and play the same notes in different places, which is great for practice. I can practice this song today in 5th position and tomorrow in 12th position. This is absolutely a great tool for guitarists!

Now, the problem arises when I open another file. This one is also from PG Music. For reference, it's the ChukRok.sty demo song.

I follow the exact same steps, selecting the melody track in the notation window, and then clicking on different positions on the fretboard, but the tablature never changes. I can click on any fret and the results are always the same... no change.

You can see here that I have clicked on the 5th position, but the tablature is showing me stuff being played on frets 9 through 14! So, something's wrong here.

(Again, the image is on Google docs):
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4P80i2y2zynOEhaT1dRaVN4MTQ

As far as I can tell from looking through all of my settings, everything is configured the same... I think. Honestly, there are so many settings in BIAB that I'm guessing there's an easy fix here, but I'm stumped. Does anybody know how to solve this problem? It would be invaluable to my guitar study to be able to use this auto-position feature on all songs!

Thanks!

Some of the guitar tracks were made using a MIDI guitar and a live player, actually recording the MIDI data. This makes for a more realistic sounding track, give or take the well known problems inherent in MIDI synths trying to be real guitars, etc.

I have a feeling that the demo song you refer to was made that way, which likely means that the string choices are hard coded into the file, simply because the MIDI guitar pickup is necessarily hexaphonic in nature so that the MIDI software will always know which string is associated with a certain note. And that, of course defines the position for that particular performance.


--Mac

Thanks for the feedback, Mac. I think a lot of the new RealTracks with RealCharts were definitely recorded this way, because if you watch the fretboard view, the guitarist seems to be really intelligently choosing his position... it definitely looks like the work of a human playing a MIDI-enabled guitar, not an algorithm trying to calculate positioning.

However, in the particular song I'm having trouble with, that did not seem to be the case, because the track I was looking at in the notation window was actually an organ solo! Definitely not recorded with a guitar.

After a bit of playing around, I found something interesting. Just for fun, I tried using the "transpose" option in the notation window and set it to various settings (-24, -12, 0, 12, 24) to see if maybe the track was just in the wrong octave for a guitar. It turns out that when I set the transpose function to 24, magically, I was able to "fix" the problems I was having when manually selecting a position. It seems to work fine now.

So, problem solved, for the moment.

The only question remaining is: Why?

Does anybody have any idea why the position control seems to work in some cases, but breaks in other cases, requiring the user to manually transpose the track?

If the track has "guitar channels" on it (ie MIDI channels 11 to 16), then they will get displayed on the guitar window on those channels (channel 11 = string 1, channel 12= string 2 etc.).

If the track ** doesn't ** have guitar channels, then they will display at whatever the current fret position is.

If, for learning purposes, you wanted to rechannel a guitar part that had guitar channels, to one that didn't, you could do it as follows.

e.g. assume that a guitar track (RealChart from a Guitar RealTrack) has channels 11 to 16 so will play at that exact location on the fretboard. But instead, you want to see it all played at the 5th position (if possible).

-[main menu] Edit Copy/Tracks, and copy the Guitar MIDI track to the MELODY track,
- [main menu] Melody-Edit-Utilities- Change Channels by, and put in a number like -16 (minus 16). That will rechannel all events by -16, which puts them all on channel 1 (since it won't go lower than channel 1).
- [main menu] Melody-Track Type =GUITAR (that will put tab on the melody notation, and show the melody notation transposed up an octave, which is needed for guitar.


Now, you can play the Melody track, and it will display on the guitar fretboard window, and will display at whatever position you want. Click on the guitar, at the bottom of the fret (ie on the fret #), to change the current position, which is marked by a white box.

Thanks, Mac. That makes perfect sense. I guess it's pretty clear that the organ range and guitar range don't match, so it takes a little bit of intervention on the part of the user to make the notation window happy.

I'm actually working hard towards the goal of having a really solid knowledge of the fretboard (for example, I'm using flashcards to burn CAGED into my memory), but I guess it will take a lot of time and effort before I can effortlessly play any chord or melody in any position. Until that point, I will enjoy the journey!

...and BIAB will be my most powerful learning tool!

I found that taking one pattern at a time and working the you-know-what out of it to be the faster approach.

I worked the C pattern for a week, then the A pattern for a week (while still revisiting the C pattern) etc.

Five weeks that made a huge difference.

There's an upside to my method, too -- you can use whatever pattern(s) you have woodshedded like that immediately when soloing, etc. on the gig.

Was a big, "Aha!" for me when I got into transcribing great guitarists, and realized that there are many whose signature soloing style relies on only one or two of the patterns rather than switching around through all 5. The G pattern is used by quite a few, especially those who keep the Blues idiom close at hand in their jazz soloing. G. Benson is a good example of that. The G and the Blues Penta can be worked simultaneously from within the same four frets, a piece of the Major, then a piece of the minor Penta, then a piece of the Melodic or Harmonic minor, back to a bit of the Penta, etc. -- always looking for places to use the Tension Notes of b5, #5, b9 and the all-important #9, which is the b3 of the minor pentatonic blues scale as well as the flat 3 of the minor scales.

At least, for me, back then I was concentrating on moving from knowledge of Trumpet, then Piano and Organ, over to the Guitar neck, but always bear in mind that there are many different ways to look at and think about these things, everyone must find the method of thinking that works for themselves IMO. For example, a lot go Modal in methodology whereas I tend to view every scale and mode as being made up of their prerequisite pair of Tetrachords.

Finally, do not overlook how many of the greats get a lot of mileage out of the Shells and Tritones, using only two or three notes to make up a chord, whether comping or chord soloing. Another big "Aha!" moment came for me when I figured out that the 5 note can and should be dropped from any chord stack. The 5 makes a chord too "bottom heavy" by creating what the old classical organists called the Resultant, a Ghost Note one octave below the Root at half amplitude. Great for Rock, not so great for Jazz. So investigate the Shells and Tritone usage thoroughly. Tritone is a bargain in that each one represents the 3 and b7 of two chords at the same time.

And be sure to investigate what Peter Gannon posted above, that's info from the creator of Band in a Box there.

Have Fun,


--Mac

Thanks very much, Peter and Mac (and jazzmandan)!

That's all very useful information. I will definitely try out the method that Peter mentioned above for re-channeling tracks with guitar channel information. That seems like an invaluable tool.

By the way, Peter, your Jazz Guitar Master Class is great! I'm working through the chord theory section at the moment.

Brett