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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Hi there,
I'm actually trying to find out if Band in a Box is capable of generating/suggesting a chord progression. Is it possible to import a melody in midi format, and then have this software suggest a chord progression in the same key? If not, do you guys know of any other software that could accomplish this task?
thanks a lot
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Good question ... awaiting the answers of the more seasoned users of BIAB. I've never attempted this and am indeed curious if that's possible. Of course, there are always the help files to find out. Will check later on.
Cheers,
Mike
Cheers, Mike My Music * Asus ROG Strix G15CF 32 GB DDR4 4TB HDD + 1 TB SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Win 11 AKAI EIE PRO Sound Interface. BIAB/RB 2024 UltraPak Build - Latest
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Expert
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The short answer is yes. You would load a midi file (which goes to the melody track) and press Shift-F5 (or use the Reharmonist button).
However, you would probably need to remove most of the midi tracks such as bass and drums. Basically you want to go to Edit|Copy/Move Tracks and move, or delete, all the tracks except your melody. Then the ReHarmonist can do it job properly.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Journeyman
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agree with pwarren - I do this all the time when I have a melody and want to create chords to go with it. I don't always like what it comes up with and will sometimes have to go back and manually change things, but it's a good start.
the ideal way to do this would be to create a midi file of the melody and the 3rd above the melody. that would create the chord structure for BIAB to identify for you. if you don't choose the 3rd, then it could either be major or minor and BIAB will choose whichever it "thinks" is best for the chord progression.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Expert
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Here's a link to a more detailed description. Creating Chords from Melody.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Thanks a lot for your quick responses. Yes, i tried it with a very simple melody, and the result was horrible. It's probably not the strongest part of the software.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Expert
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Did you try several times with different styles? I've used the reharmonist before and it gave mixed results. Some progressions were strange some were good. I personally wouldn't be quick to write it off.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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well, the one I tried , was a simple hymn, so the closest style I found was "easy listening pop" or something like that. I tried another few, and those were even worse. I set the key in Gm, but it keeps assigning the first and some more fundamental chords to Am!!! I wasn't expecting miracles, but I thought it would do a better job than this. Not a biggie, it's still a great software.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Am is the ii of the key of Gminor...
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Am is the ii of the key of Gminor...
I have a master degree in Music theory and composition. I think i know the chord structure of most standard western scales! I just wanted to know how advance biab was in suggesting chords based on a melody. That's all!!! Thanks anyways
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Well, then you'd know that you were very likely looking at a 2-5-1 opening in a minor key.
But I have to ask why someone with a Master's in Music Theory would even bother -- or need -- with the automatic harmonization to melody feature in the first place.
And if your project needs simpler chording, BiaB has settings for that as well.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Just an outside chance, but might you have a version of BIAB older than version 2010? Only 2010 now has the capability of entering chords when a transposition is in effect, and having them not flip into concert key. Is it possible you set a transposition for a Bb instrument?
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Quote:
Well, then you'd know that you were very likely looking at a 2-5-1 opening in a minor key.
But I have to ask why someone with a Master's in Music Theory would even bother -- or need -- with the automatic harmonization to melody feature in the first place.
--Mac
Mac, you're making absolutely no sense at all! That was totally I could be looking at this feature for a lot of different reasons. I could be someone who is working for a high school, or a music lab or anything like that who's looking for softwares to install on a computers for students. I could be a teacher who's teaching keyboard lessons to kids , ....etc...I never said i needed this for myself, or did I ???? Please understand, i'm not asking for music theory lessons from you. That particular hymn that I'm talking about, has no 2-5-1 openning at all. I don't think if you understand what i'm talking about. Never mind!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Quote:
Just an outside chance, but might you have a version of BIAB older than version 2010? Only 2010 now has the capability of entering chords when a transposition is in effect, and having them not flip into concert key. Is it possible you set a transposition for a Bb instrument?
Hey Matt,
Actually, that wasn't the case. I use Finale (notation software) to write scores. To test this feature in Biab, I opened a session in Finale, created a piano track (non transposing instrument), and wrote a simple melody. I picked the Gm key. It was only one track. No double notes, no harmony...just one voice. When I imported that melody in Biab, I saw exactly the same notation. It was not transposed. I tried different styles, different settings..etc, but still it would spit out more wrong chords...Again, it's not a problem, may be this feature will be enhanced in the near future. At this point, I don't think if I'll consider suggesting Biab, for people who strictly need auto harmonization and such...
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Apprentice
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Apprentice
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Quote:
Am is the ii of the key of Gminor...
Spoken like a modal jazz guy!
Modal jazzers tend to think of minor as DORIAN minor, hence Am rather than A dim or half-dim seventh! Mac, you'd get a red "incorrect" check mark for that in music theory class (unless it was a jazz school)! 
BIAB is great at generating logically flowing functional harmony, but that can (and usually is) on the bland side. We really need to write interesting, spicy harmonic progressions on our own! 
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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And in the key of Gm melodic...
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
I use Finale (notation software) to write scores. To test this feature in Biab, I opened a session in Finale, created a piano track (non transposing instrument), and wrote a simple melody. I picked the Gm key. It was only one track. No double notes, no harmony...just one voice. When I imported that melody in Biab, I saw exactly the same notation. It was not transposed. I tried different styles, different settings..etc, but still it would spit out more wrong chords...Again, it's not a problem, may be this feature will be enhanced in the near future. At this point, I don't think if I'll consider suggesting Biab, for people who strictly need auto harmonization and such...
You're talking a single note line, right? No bass note, no harmony? How in the world could any person much less a computer program come up with meaningful chords based on that? I guarantee you if you gave that line to me, Mac, my friend who literally escaped the communists and is a graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory, another friend who's out of Berkelee and lets say a killer bluegrass player and anybody else you might want to add would come up with wildly different chords if all we had to work with is a single note line and a key sig. If we're all blues players we might come up with different blues tunes but if everybody is from different musical backgrounds we're going to be all over the place.
Seriously, think about it for a minute. A single note in the key of Gm? I know you can pick a style and you are thinking that Biab should at least pick some chords that follow the form of that style. Are we to assume no accidentals or is the line strictly out of the Gm scale? If there's an E note somewhere in bar 5 is that supposed to be a Gm6, Bb-5, Am or a quick passing note over a Cm? That E note could be out of a Gbm7 too. You could easily have those chords in lots of tunes in Gm because there's no way to know if the single note in the melody is an accidental passing tone or a root. How many basic 3 chord rock and roll or country tunes have all kinds of accidentals in the melody? Tons. If the melody of a basic country song has a very common augmented fifth happening, usually the chord is still written as a simple major triad, maybe a dom 7th but a computer program is going to try to put the #5 in there every time but how can it know it's a #5 without the bass? Now what about a moving bass line? Maybe that part of the song could have the passing #5 in the melody and a third in the bass, what's the program supposed to do with that note then?
Experienced players can certainly come up with more or less interesting chords from an original single note line and key signature but man, would they be anything like what you think they should or could be? Who knows.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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There is a setting, "Jazz Down the Chords" that might help if you are looking for classical or simpler harmonies with the chord reharmonizer.
However -- and I'm sure that you know this -- there exists many differing combinations that will work with the same melody. I think that is all the reharmonizer is capable of coming up with at this time. It isn't smart enough to know that you are wanting, say, only classical chord theory to apply, or that your chosen genre is a hymn that has certain rules governing the underlying harmony.
It is what it is, and it can indeed be quite useful in certain situations.
If you want to try to use it in a fashion that it is not designed to be used in, or get it to do a job that it is not designed to do, ie nail an existing chord change for an existing hymn, and then knock it because it cannot do that, you are correct in that there is nothing more that need be said.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Spoken like a modal jazz guy!
I sat orchestral classical Trumpet sections for years, man.
Quote:
Modal jazzers tend to think of minor as DORIAN minor, hence Am rather than A dim or half-dim seventh! Mac, you'd get a red "incorrect" check mark for that in music theory class (unless it was a jazz school)!
I also took and passed all the classical music theory classes, university level, while still in high school. I know the differences. That was not my point at all. Perhaps I could have worded it better, plus there's that thing about reading words in a forum and not being able to have anything else, like facial expressions, word or syllabic accentuations, the things that impart the rest of communication, that leads people to take things typed on a forum all out of proportion. We've seen that before here and likely will see it again.
This one took my comment as if I was making a personal attack or saying that the person didn't know music theory. Well, if you'v efollowed my writings then by now you likely know that if that is what I wanted to say, that is what I would have said and I would have said it such that there would and could be no doubt as to what I meant. All I was doing was making a single one-phrase lighthearted comment about the situation. Poking a jab at the BiaB machine, as it were.
And here comes the rant, complete with the "Masters in Music Theory" line...
Hey.
I don't care.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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The purpose of the reharmonist is not to generate the chords YOU think it should it's to generate chords it wants based on the parameters set in the program. My teacher made me do this by the hour. Write a melody and generate chords based on stiff rules. Then I would also have to create 4 part counter point to this line. The reharmonist gets you to look outside the box.
This aside.
You are new here. If you take a look around you'll find us a pretty helpful and friendly bunch. Don't S... in your own nest.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows Special Offers End Tomorrow (January 15th, 2026) at 11:59 PM PST!
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