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Hello

I put a song together couple weeks ago and transposed it from D to Eb and saved it. Today I want to go back to D and it wont transpose. In fact it sounds out of tune. It's like there are two sets of instruments playing - 2x bass, 2x drums etc. When I go to mute any instrument the instrument still plays. Like I've turned one off but not both. Very weird! I've unfozen the song but nothing changes, it wont transpose back to D.

Does BIAB only transpose once?

Paul,

Did you try regenerating after unfreezing to see if that made a difference?

Regards,
Noel

Yes. Whenever I transpose up or down it sound awful, like it's out of tune. Think I'm going to have to start again if I want to play it in D.

Paul,

Given that you're hearing instruments even when "Mute" is activated sounds like you might have a rendered Audio file attached to the song. Try muting "Audio" and see if that helps.

Noel

Yes mute "audio" lessons the volume but the music is still there. I have no idea whats happened. Is there a way to fix this?

Do you have a way to post the song file so we can try it?

I'm off now, its late, back tomorrow.

Thanks guys!

Any ideas guys?

Okay, here we go, song is downloaded and playing first time while I type this.

First thing I notice is that while the song is in Eb, the Keysig dropdown is set to Db.

Still, it plays okay the first time and is heard in Eb as the chords on the grid indicate. (setting the keysig to Db, however, would make a notation chart that would be a needlessly hard read.)

Okay, so we have a basic I, vi, VI, V tune here.

I'm letting it play clean thru to the end at bar 134, just to be certain nothing's going on that shouldn't be.

Song played and sounded great right thru to the two bar ending.

First thing I'm going to do is correct the Keysig. So I use the keysig dropdown to select Eb instead of the savedas Db. When the prompt comes up asking to change the notation to suit the key, I say, "No" because we only want to change the keysig entry to match the chords.

Hit Gen/Play again, and the song still plays fine.

I notice that all tracks are FROZEN.

If you want to change the key, then, you must first UNfreeze all tracks, then change the key, then hit GenPlay in order to have that happen. If you don't unfreeze ALL the frozen tracks, you may have only regenerated *some* of the tracks to the new key, leaving the Frozen tracks still plodding along in the previous key, which would be rather nonmusical.

So now onto changing the kehy from Eb to D.

Since all tracks have been Frozen in this songfile, I need to unfreeze all tracks. This is best done by rightclicking on the "Combo" track button and selecting, "Unfreeze all tracks" command.

Frozen tracks are easy to spot, there will be a "snowflake" next to any frozen trackname, the asterisk or ( * ) symbol.

After I Unfroze the tracks, the asterisk is now not at each trackname, indicating that I am free to change key, edit, or otherwise invoke changes on those tracks.

So I use the keysig dropdown to select tranpsose to D from the Eb.

This time, when prompted, I say, "Yes" in order to have the chordnames and notation change to the newly selected key.

I hit Gen/Play and your song is now merrily punching it out in the key of D.

File is fine.


--Mac

Hi Paul,

Since the file is fine for Mac, Noel is probably right that there is some rendered audio file 'attached' to the song (and that audio file wasn't included in your download link). Check in the folder that you have your song (.MGU) saved in, and see if there are any audio files (.wav, .wma, .m4a) that have the same or similar name as your .MGU.

I can verify that the linked song plays fine (in Eb). If you do NOT unfreeze and change the key signature from Db to C, and say Yes, then nothing changes sound-wise - it keeps playing in Eb, although the chords look as if they are in D. Freaky...

The rest has been covered above.

OK here's how I'm doing it. I open the song and play. Sounds OK. I then stop and unfreeze all tracks and transpose the worksheet to from Eb to D and thats when it goes to pot. Sounds aweful. Only on this song, other songs transpose OK. Here's a before and after.

This may be due to the fact that your songfile is saved in Db, but the song is not in Db.

Notice that you changed it to C, but it comes out in D...

Reread what I wrote above and follow the steps exactly and see what happens then.

If an Audio track is playing along, try going into the folder using Windows Explorer where this song file is stored and look for an Audio track (.wav, .wma or .mp3) that has the exact same name prefix as the .sgu file. Change the name of that Audio file by adding one character to it, or simply remove the file to another location. If you no longer want or need the Audio file, just delete it. Do this with Band in a Box completely closed down, then reopen the song in BB and check operation.

BUT BE SURE TO FIRST CHANGE THE KEY SIGNATURE TO Eb, following the dirctions above, then Save the song in that corrected situation before proceeding.

--Mac

Paul,

In addition to Mac's comments, I notice that with your transposed song, the tracks are still frozen. This suggests to me the possibility that they did not unfreeze prior to the transpose.

When you initially unfroze them, did you try the "right-click on Combo and Unfreeze all tracks" procedure? The process would be: (a) unfreeze all tracks; (b) transpose; (c) regenerate.

When I tried your song file, I had no problems at all with unfreezing and transposing.

Regards,
Noel

What they said. Just chiming in to confirm that the file plays fine on my system even though I transposed it to several keys...after UNfreezing the tracks, since they arrived frozen.

Also, as has been mentioned...I OFTEN forget to change the key signature when creating a file. I just type in the chords..save the whole shebang but later realize I have the wrong key signature.

As noted, just change the key signature to conform to the actual key and when you are asked if you want to change the chords...say NO....then SAVE the file again.

You will end up with the original chord changes and a correct key signature.

Hope you get this sorted out.

Best,
Jim

Thanks guys I will go through whats been said and report back. The only thing I have done is to export song to wave [individual tracks] so I could edit in my DAW. These audio files were saved in a different folder so I'm not sure how any audio can attach itself to this BIAB song?

I'll come back soon!

Thanks again.

Any audio with the same name in the folder will play along also. So if your file is love and you have and audio file called love BOTH will play. Move or delete the audio files so the folder has just the file ending in mgu or sgu.