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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Is it possible to import just the Chordsymbols (Changes) from Sibelius 7.1 into BiaB 2012.5?
The Sibelius-Files which I want to import are Lead-Sheets (just melody & chordsybols, no chords).
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Sorry, no. You can save the Sibelius melody as a MIDI file and load that into BIAB, but chord symbols are not part of the MIDI standard.
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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Thanks Mat for answering.
OK. Right, chord symbols are not part of the midi data. But I thought, maybe their is another kind of transfer posible, because BiaB is so heavy chord symbol oriented.
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There are several. RealBand reads BIAB files of course. MuseScore, a free and simple notation program, reads BIAB files including chord info.
What you are looking for is support for Music XML. If BIAB could export to that, you could transfer chord info to a growing range of programs. If BIAB could import Music XML, it could read scores exported from Sibelius.
Add your voice to the Wishlist. PG Music is aware of Music XML but more expressions of interest in supporting it can't hurt.
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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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You can import a MIDI file into Band in a Box and use the "Import Chords from MIDI file" command found under the File menu.
Since MIDI data contains each note name and its octave in each beat, this Chord Wizard works remarkably well, likely a bit better than the Audio Chord Wizard can do, but every once in a while you may encounter a few chords that are mis-identified due to complexities such as the note on a Melody line or other places that can add extensions to the chord chosen. Just Edit those chords accordingly if you encounter that.
--Mac
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I thought about mentioning that feature but did not, since the OP mentioned he had "lead sheets - melodies and chord symbols". Mac, would BIAB be able to read that?
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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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A simple Lead Sheet, where there would only be a Melody line and no real note stack, the wizard couldn't find a chord because there would be no chord to find.
In that case, since he already has the chords inside Sibelius, he could simply print out the chart from Sibelius, then open BB and manually type in those chords from the printed sheet.
--Mac
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Thanks. So you would concur that the OP cannot do what he asked, and he should make a post in the Wishlist?
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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Thanks to Matt and Mac to dig deeper in that. Antwort auf:
I thought about mentioning that feature but did not, since the OP mentioned he had "lead sheets - melodies and chord symbols". Mac, would BIAB be able to read that?
Sometimes in a Leadsheet there are harmony changes without any melody. And if there is only one note in the melody, how BiaB could know wether it´s the fundamental, third, fifth or any tension of the chord?
Maybe an import and export function of XML would be the best solution.
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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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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The request for XML data recognition in BB has been a Wishlist item off and on for at least several years. Add your name to the fray.
As for a program being able to identify chords with only Melody line information, well, what can happen is that you will quickly find out just how many different chord changes will work with that Melody - and likely none of them will be the chord changes that were assigned to the original sheet.
--Mac
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Antwort auf:
As for a program being able to identify chords with only Melody line information, well, what can happen is that you will quickly find out just how many different chord changes will work with that Melody - and likely none of them will be the chord changes that were assigned to the original sheet.
--Mac
I always try to keep the chord changes without clashes with the melody. Lets say, if I have the fundamental of a chord as an important melody note, I would never use a MA7 chord type but and major triad with an added sixth.
Or if the fifth is an important melody note adding tension b13 in the harmony becomes also a critical situation.
What I am trying to say is, for me in the least cases it's a normal Dm7 G7 CMA7.
So when I am importing from Sibelius, regarding the changes, I want to have a 1:1 copy.
Funny - to integrate the XML Import/Export function to Sibelius it took them also years. :-)
Is PG Music present at the Music Fair in Frankfurt this year?
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I'm a beta tester for another music software package and their interpretation of Music XML hasn't been right for years. Apparently it is not easy to implement it.
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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Quote:
You can import a MIDI file into Band in a Box and use the "Import Chords from MIDI file" command found under the File menu.
Since MIDI data contains each note name and its octave in each beat, this Chord Wizard works remarkably well, likely a bit better than the Audio Chord Wizard can do, but every once in a while you may encounter a few chords that are mis-identified due to complexities such as the note on a Melody line or other places that can add extensions to the chord chosen. Just Edit those chords accordingly if you encounter that.
--Mac
Hi Mac,
It is very interesting that you say this, particularly when I am finding that of late BB is not doing a very good job with interpreting chords from some midi charts. I stress that I have previously found that it does a good job but I was beginning to wonder if any programming changes had been made to this handy function. The only other thing I can think of is that BB does seem to rely a lot on the bass part and when you have the bass playing riffs, which is very common in some forms of popular music, it comes up with quite strange suggestions. I tried a lot of different combinations with the other tracks but BB kept coming up with the same really weird interpretations of the chord progression.
I do a lot of midi importing into BB from Sibelius 7.1.3 Build 77, from Overture 4.1.5 and from freely available midi files, and BB has usually done a good job even with walking bass parts. I was just wondering if anyone else had notice anything similar to my recent experiences.
Grah Jive Talk
"Don't worry baby, they'll swing their arses off."
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People have talked about this forever. Lots of programs have midi based chord detection and it's the same with everyone. Midi is simply computer commands. If the midi file has bass, guitar, piano and horns and you look at any one instant in the timeline on that chart, musicians themselves would have a hard time agreeing on what that chord should be. Say the actual chord should be a G7 but the guitar happens to have a Db in it and one of the horns has a Bb for a quick 16th note. Do you want the whole band to play the b5#9? Probably not, it's just that the guitar and one horn happened to throw those notes in there briefly as passing tones. This happens all the time in bands and of course with midi the more instruments, the worse it gets. Sometimes you can mute some instruments like the bass if it's playing lots of harmonies and get a better result or cut the horns and guitar and just try using the piano to do midi chord detection.
Remember it's just a dumb computer algo and it's easy to fool, a human musician knows what it is but the computer is just seeing what's there and attempting to apply some "smarts" to it based on the key sig. Oh, that's another thing, your midi file has to have the proper key sig or that will throw the midi detection off too. Lots of files are set to the default C because the author never bothered to set it properly.
Bob
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MIDI files that contain certain timing element issues, such as the Bass "leading" the beat, or perhaps "laying back" on the beat can easily confuse the wizard, as it is looking for events that happen more or less ON the beat. For example, I have some rather nice jazz MIDI files with walking bass and that can be problematic.
Other MIDI files, the creator may have paid no attention whatsoever to Tempo setting, Key Signature setting and may not have even played with the MIDI metronome, or if Step Entered from say PianoRoll view without regard to time, bars, etc. leaving a mess that may sound wonderful but has little real resemblance to music when the notation is viewed. It can be very difficult to try to edit and correct such files sometimes. They are typically worth what you paid for them.
If you want to see if something has changed in the wizard's operation, simple enough to accomplish, try loading a very simple MIDI file and see what it comes up with.
--Mac
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Hi Mac,
it is so easy and fast inputting the changes manually into BiaB that for me the only alternative would be a 1:1 import from Sibelius without having to "repair" the changes.
I would vote for an XML Import/Export function.
Last edited by cudo; 01/24/13 12:07 AM.
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Well, cudo, I vote for it also! Matter of fact, I'm on the Wishlist Forum from at least several versions ago, voting for the request to add XML capabilites to Band in a Box.
But I also have to get my work done every day.
So when I have found a way to do so, a "workaround" -- I share my methods with others, so that at least they might be able to find a way to get things done until such time as we might get our wish.
--Mac
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Cudo, I usually enter leadsheets in BIAB where I can check them by hearing them. Then, if I need professional-looking notation, I take what I can into the notation program and continue from there. Thus I am more interested in XML export from BIAB, but having XML import would also be fabulous.
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; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Ditto to every one of Matt's comments. The MuseScore feature mentioned earlier seems to hold promise. MuseScore opens BiaB files for notation editing. No export or import -- it just opens .mgu directly. Sadly, the result is buggy and incomplete; it's still unusable, the last I looked. If Music XML is difficult to implement, I have wondered whether PGMusic could ever co-operate with the MuseScore outfit to help them finish that work, which seems to have lost all momentum now. MuseScore is not Sibelius, but it's not bad, and the interoperability could be helpful to all sides.
Larry
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