BTW...is there anyway change bar colors, or put in notes of some kind, to indicate song parts? (i.e. verse 1, chorus 1, bridge, etc.?)
No, there isn't a way to do that. You could set a part marker to indicate a new song section - click on the bar number to turn it green/blue/etc - though this does affect Realtrack generation by changing substyle (if changing from substyle A to B or B to A) and by generally adding a drum fill before the part marker (which you may want anyway).
MedleyMaker located in the Song Form submenu can label song sections like Intro, Verse 1, Verse 2, Chorus, Bridge or any name desired without affecting the generation of RealTracks or requiring the necessity of Part Markers. MedleyMaker can also easily and quickly move up or down the song sections to re-order the song. MedleyMaker has many additional options and features for structuring a Chord Chart.
MedleyMaker is marketed by PG Music as a single purpose stand alone program integrated into the BIAB program to create a song playlist with transitions between a list of BIAB SGU files of songs. It works with any BIAB created song file. It works with every version and OS of BIAB and is a very stable program that's been around for years.
To see how MedleyMaker is intended to operate watch the first half of this short PG Music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUZ-FOM6IYQThat's how MedleyMaker works normally. However, MedleyMaker will also work from a single BIAB song as well as it does with combined multiple BIAB songs. Using MedleyMaker from a single BIAB song, separate, individual song sections can be saved as songs to list with section labels and create a custom medley playlist from these saved songs.
Three features of MedleyMaker allow a user to label and arrange the order of a project song to experiment with the song's arrangement and songform layout.
* The Medley List displays the Song Title.
* MedleyMaker allows the user to designate the Start and Number of Bars to play of each individual song.
* MedleyMaker allows the user to designate a Transition between songs of Zero so there is no gap between the end of one song and the beginning of the next song making the Chord Chart play as a single, continuous song rather than a group of songs.
Using these three features with a single SGU BIAB Song, a user can create a MedleyMaker Chord Chart where the various song sections are recognized by MedleyMaker as a song. (Intro, Verse 1, Chorus 1, Bridge, Verse 2 and Chorus 2.) by doing the following steps:
. Title the song Intro and save the file to a known location
. Change the song Title to Verse and save the file to a known location
. Change the song Title to Chorus and save the file to a known location
. Change the song Title to Bridge and save the file to a known location
. Change the song Title to the song's actual name and save the file to a known location as you normally do.
Open MedleyMaker
. Insert - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Intro
. Append - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Verse
. Append - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Verse
. Append - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Chorus
. Append - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Bridge
. Append - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Chorus
. Append - Navigate to and select the saved 'Song' Chorus
At this point the user has created a Medley of the BIAB song's sections earlier saved as songs. Continue to customize this Medley as detailed in the Tutorial. Just as in the tutorial, this Medley list can be re-ordered, songs (Sections) can be deleted, modified to change Styles, tempo and key as desired. Also note because MedleyMaker interprets each section song in the list as a separate song with distinct start bars and bar numbers to play, song titles and song files can be used multiple times without issue.
Using the 'Make Medley Now button', Create your custom song arrangement.
MedleyMaker will display and play a custom SGU Chord Chart
Just as in the Tutorial video, if your BIAB program is set to the defaults, the Chord Chart will apply a 2 Bar generation ending to the Chart. This can be disable if desired.
This is a very simple demonstration of the MedleyMaker's capability. It is very powerful and limited only by one's imagination.
For instance:
Each of the saved sections can be edited and customized to expand the user's arrangement selections when in MedleyMaker.
. Intro - The chord chart can be customized using Bar settings to mute/Return to Normal to add dynamics to the intro.
. The Chord Chart can be created to have multiple versions of intro's the user can select and audition in MedleyMaker simply by designating the Start and Number of Bars. For instance.
Intro version 1 - start at bar# 1 for 4 bars
Intro version 2 - start at Bar# 5 for 4 Bars
Intro version 3 - start at Bar# 9 for 8 Bars and so on...
Because each of a song's sections is saved as a song, the BIAB Song can be a diverse in chords, tempo, key and instrument selection and arrangement as the user wishes to apply. Then in MedleyMaker, by selected the correct Start Bar and Number of Bars to play, the user can audition many variations quickly and non-destructively.
Hopes this helps and I suggest that a request be made to PG Staff to create a video Tutorial introducing this unknown feature and demonstrating some of the complex, yet simple programming techniques to all BIAB users.
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