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I was using the Audio Chord Wizard to make an arrangement of two songs that have the same problem. Take it to the Limit and Surrender. The first is in three/four, and after setting bar one and changing the time meter it lays out pretty good, but there is an irregular bar or some kind of thing going on where the tempo comes in just a little before. Like, a bar of 5/8 or maybe just an indeterminate bar, bird's eye, fermata. The song continues after this event with the same tempo, but the downbeat is falling on a different beat. If I set "one" after that, everything to the right of the new downbeat should line up, with the same tempo, but I can't get it to work. I tried inserting a bar then changing the meter for that one bar.

I had the same problem on Surrender by Cheap Trick. The chord wizard did a great job placing the bar lines but right after the instrumental interlude/bridge beat one was displaced by an eighth note. I was reading the manual and it said to insert a bar and then change the meter for that one bar. I had the last bar of the interlude set to 7/8, then I tried to tap the next downbeat, but it erased all the barlines to the right. This might be a glitch in 2008 BIAB, or it might be that my computer is old and can't handle it. Or, maybe there is a way to get it to work that is not obvious from reading the manual.

Any help would be appreciated.

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When you "tap the next downbeat" the ACW begins to recalculate the barlines, trying to keep ahead of the song playing.
Did you continue to hit the F8 key to set a few bars so the ACW had something to work with?
Hitting it once told it you wanted to change what it had done, and it may have been waiting for a second (or third) tap so it had something to calculate with. Especially after making time signature change to account for timing.

Also, 2008 version is a little dated for us users to check with, maybe an update will have a fix involved, or it is possible that an older system doesn't have the resources to allow the ACW to calculate ahead in realtime ..
what are the computer specs?


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The best way to handle a song with a Bar count change like that is to use the ACW only up to the point where that bar starts. Leave the following stuff for after you export to BiaB and theh use manual Bar Settings to make a bar or two that equals the right tempo and count for that inserted bar, sometimes needing to use the Insert Bar(s) command smartly, then keep on going for the rest of the chords, straightening that out if need be. Often, I can use Copy and Paste of the chords before the oddball bar to finish the rest of the song rather quickly.

There may be a way to do the whole thing in ACW, but this has been my method or possibly its a workaround. All I know is that I got-R-done like this.


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Or, maybe there is a way to get it to work that is not obvious from reading the manual.

What manual? Is there an audio cord wizard manual?

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Hello Crash,

Those tunes don't have any obvious bar irregularities or time signature changes. Maybe the tempo tracking started drifting a little out over time. You shouldn't have to insert a barline manually for these songs I don't think. If you insert a bar and you haven't modified any of the inferred (green) barlines past that point, perhaps it will try to reconcile your change with the remainder of the song using a less likely possibility.

I think the best solution is to simply start fresh from the beginning of the song, and tap the barlines as accurately as you can from the start. It *should* only require a couple or a few taps at the start of the song, but you can continue tapping throughout or whever it seems to drift a bit, perhaps due to a slight change in tempo, anticipation, etc. Try to get your first tap at 'bar 1', that is after any silence or intro bars that might be at the beginning of the song. With recent builds, your first F8 tap is considered to be the start of the song - it isn't required that you use a different keystroke (F6) to set bar 1. If you miss bar 1 the first time you play the song, just rewind and try again until you get it. Also, for Take it to the limit, try setting it to 3/4 manually before tapping the barlines.

Also, make sure you have installed the latest update patch for your version. There have been significant improvements to the program since the first release (better detection of barlines and tempos) which have been included in some Band-in-a-Box patches. The latest version is 2.3, and you can check your version in Help | About Audio Chord Wizard.

Last edited by Andrew - PG Music; 01/19/10 11:55 AM.

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Thanks for all of the tips. I tried tapping the song all the way through. One time it added hundreds of green bar lines after my last tap at the end of the song. It looked like the way the cards fly when you win at digital solitaire. There probably aren't actual meter changes in the songs I mentioned, but it seems like there are tempo fluctuations and I was trying to line it up so the midi would sync with the original audio, so you could drop the audio in or out at any point and it would still match. That is probably not a good use for the ACW, but I thought that the tempo maps were supposed to do that. Not quite there yet.

Still, it is a good way to set up the arrangements, figure out how many bars, the average tempo, where the different phrases and sections start or stop.

So, I am going to focus on using the ACW for what it was designed to do.

And thanks again for all the helpful tips and advice.

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hi Andrew

i have actually reported this problem to PG Support earlier this week. I have a audio that is a 3/4. it is straight forward nothing funny in the beat. i import it in to A wizard then set time sig. and set bar 1 then actually click on the correct time on screen not using F8. It is more accurate. on the chord wizard screen it is spot on then i send to BIAB it only plays the count in and the 1st bar right the it speeds up not following the clicks i made in chord wizard. tempo was 100 beats /sec in wizard but in BIAB 100 jumps to 133 beats / sec.
your support people also tried this and found that it is a problem in the software and they said they will have to send a patch to fix this

i use it on 4/4 and it has supper results so i know i am using the click method correctly

how long will this take to fix if i may ask.or am i doing somthing wrong

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