PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows More than 4 chords per measure

Although PG Music did thankfully include a way to expand their MIDI styles a decade after I invented EXPANDED styles, I think you will find that the Norton Music EXPANDED styles will work much better than expanding any 'normal'. Why? They were written to be EXPANDED and to sound right when EXPANDED. Of course I'm biased, I wrote them myself. But you can judge for yourself by listening to the free EXPANDED mp3 demos at http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html

No, you don't need to buy my styles, but you might want to. Almost all the people who do buy my styles come back for more. That's a good sign.

Notes

Peter,

Thanks a lot for the great product, which I first bought in the DOS version, before there was Windows. Also, I think it is great that you, the creator of BIAB and CEO of PGMusic, participate in these forums, interacting directly with users.

Regarding the problem under discussion, isn't it about time that this limitation of BIAB be fixed? One should not have to jump through hoops and do complicated workarounds to make it work, and it should work in RealTracks as well.

There have been so many complaints about this limitation for years. Wouldn't it be a good idea to work on fixing it as a major goal for now? (Hopefully in an update for BIAB 2012?) Every year there are now 1001 more Real Tracks, more features, etc., but I think that fixing a serious limitation like that would be more important than any of those.

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Yes, as is pointed out above, you can achieve this effect by doubling the tempo (increase by 100%), and then reducing tempo by 50% on the next bar.

You can do this for any MIDI style, and all you need is an expanded version of the style.

You can easily make the expanded style, via a menu command in the StyleMaker (this was introduced about 3 years ago). This works for any MIDI style (not for RealTracks styles though)

For example, if you have MyStyle, and you want an expanded version of it:

1. Open the stylemaker (Ctrl-Shift-F9 or press the StyleMaker button
2. Choose Stylemaker Menu Option Style-Expand Style
- that's it, you then save the style as MyStyleX or whatever.

Then, on any bar that you want 8 chords,

1. change to MyStyleX
2. Increase tempo by 100%

on the next bar
1. Change style back to MyStyle
2. Decrease tempo by 50%

(this only works for MIDI style)

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It is not that it is common to have songs with eight chord changes per 4/4 bar, throughout the song. In fact, I cannot think of one.

However, it is not so uncommon that in a particular measure of the song, one might need more than four chords in that measure.

Passing chords, for example. On beat four of a song, there might be eighth note chord changes, two chords in that beat, followed by a new chord in beat 1 of the next measure.

Or, there could be an important part of a song, where there are quarter note triplets on beat three and four, a new chord for each (could also be considered passing chords), I. E. three chords evenly spaced over two beats. One should be able to do that without complex workarounds, and also with RealTracks.

I hope you didn't think I was arguing with you sir. I certainly am only trying to learn. Thank you for your help.

One song would be "Sophisticated Lady". For the melody only, bars 2 and 4. Bar 2: Dbm7/Gb7, Cm7/F7, Bm7/E7, Bbm7/Eb7. Bar 4: Am7b5/D7b9, Abmb5/Db7b9, Gm7b5/C7b9, F#m7b5/B7b9. There are more subs than this example for those measures. Later, Ray

14/2/2010 I posted the following suggestionon how to enter 5 chords in one 4/4 bar.


Re: More than one chord change per beat? [Re: raymb1]
#262386 - 14/02/10 03:32 AM

If you want to add a quater note triplet chord movement, you can change that half of a 4/4 bar to a 3/4 bar and the remainder to a 2/2 bar. Do not forget to change the tempo of the 3/4 bar so that 3/4 equals 2/4 tempo-wise. E.g. you want to use a triple chord movment Dm7 up to Fm7 (Dm7, D#m7, Em7 >Fm7), the Dm7, D#m7, Em7 is the triplet, change that part of the bar to a 3/4 bar.

Good Luck!
Tonnie

I fully agree with you, John. In fact, while composing a Christmas chorus in a contemporary Christian style I ran into this problem. I struggled with pushes, expanded styles, bar/tempo tweaking...just could not get there from here. I finally gave up on the chord progression and dropped the gloss altogether...sounded lame, too lame. I didn't perform the song; it sits on the shelf until next Christmas, maybe.

A lot of contemporary Christian music (following pop culture nowadays [whatever happened to pop culture borrowing from the church...sigh...?]) has very deliberate syncopated chord progression inserted at specific locations in the song for emphasis. It would be where a push would ordinarily be considered, but it's not a push. Its hard to describe; in fact, I would be hard pressed to point out an example by simply hearing it, but once attempting to implement it in BIAB, the problem becomes obvious.

About the chorus, I will probably ditch BIAB, switch over to RealBand (thank God for RealBand!), and head to my studio. I would have to admit that RealBand is becoming essential in producing my end products; BIAB alone isn't cutting it.

On the other hand, let me say that BIAB is still an absolutely amazing tool!

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Wow, on a reread, I wonder why I would ditch BIAB, but still call it an amazing tool?! Using BIAB alone without having to use RealBand is what I mean. I also will have to record live to provide instrumentation that creates the glosses that I need. I was also responding to John Ford's post specifically, BTW.

I think BiaB is the best at what it does. Sometimes I swear it's magic.

However, I think BiaB needs a re-write. It needs one to work well with Win7 and beyond anyway.

I know PG Music is concerned about backwards compatibility with their songs and styles, and I applaud them for that, but if a style modification is necessary, a file conversion app would work. PG has done this once before and Microsoft has done this as well. They are MIDI enhancements as I love MIDI and it is the core of the program itself.

I've entered most of these in the wishlist:

In addition to allowing at least 2 chords per beat (8 chords per 4/4 measure) I suggest:

1) Resolution of at least 240ppq preferably user selected to 960ppq and this includes the StyleMaker

2) Support for multiple synths, at least 16

3) More than 5 instruments, 7 would be nice, more would be better

4) Variable length endings up to 8 or 12 bars selectable in the StyleMaker

5) Chord entry dialog box that would include check boxes (not radio buttons) for all the scale tones from root through 13 with another trio of radio buttons to the right of each scale tone to natural, flat or sharp that tone (natural being the default). That way you could do diminished triads, major 9 omit 3, minor 3 add 4, and any chord the user wants. We often run into chords in fake books than cannot be entered in BiaB.

6) Long and short rolls in the StyleMaker and a way to assign either to the playback grid

7) An option to switch sub-styles without adding a roll

8) A way to assign patterns in the style maker so that if one is chosen, complementary patterns would also be chosen. For example, if a drum roll with quarter note triplets was selected, a bass line with quarter note triplets could automatically also be chosen. Another example, if a drum roll with a rest on the 4th beat was chosen, patterns written to complement this drum roll with either a rest or held note on that same beat would be chosen.

9) Have the details that go into the Style Picker Window built into the style itself instead of an ls3 file and include a dialog box to enter the information

10) Long file names for the styles

11) Have the default volumes on all parts return after each song - so if a style changes the volume, it will return to the default when the song is done

12) Have the pitch bend, and continuous controllers return to a user set default after each song so if the previous style left them altered, the next song would return to the default

13) Add riff based patterns to the bass style

14) Fix the 2 and 1 beat styles so that a relative weight of 9 works on them. Right now if I do 4 different beats on the 1 beat row with a "fill" bar mask and a different note pattern for each beat, BiaB will mix them up when playing back (pattern for beat 1 might end up on beat 2, 3 or 4, etc.)

15) Increase the number of columns in the StyleMaker from 30 to 32, after all it is a multiple of 4 and 8 measures of single beat patterns would fit in there perfectly

16) Support for accelerando and ritardando with a resolution of at least one beat per tempo change (preferably more)

17) Native support for uncommon time signatures like 6/8, 5/4, 7/8, etc. without having to kludge a work-around in BiaB's grid.

18) A button that directs the user to Norton Music's Style Demo Page (hey! a guy can dream, can't he? <wink/grin>)

Many of these suggestions have been in place in my old pre Win95 copy of Master Tracks Pro (sequencer). If these things were standard in the 8.3 filename days, IMHO it's about time PG Music updated the core MIDI section of BiaB to include them.

MIDI can be just as expressive as the Real Track right out of the box (without further editing), but as long as the MIDI section of BiaB is stuck in the Windows 3.1 days it will stay the way it is. Right now, I have to export everything to a sequencer and take the very good output of BiaB and edit to turn it into something excellent.

Now I admit, I'm on the outside looking in so what seems possible to me may be terribly impractical in reality.

))) However, I think BiaB needs a re-write. It needs one to work well with Win7 and beyond anyway

FYI, Band-in-a-Box already works well with Windows 7 now, and also works with "beyond" (Windows 8 beta).

That's good to know Peter. Thanks.

I'm still using XP but one of my machines is getting flaky so I'll be getting a Win7 laptop.

Since you don't write in the registry, could I just move the entire BiaB folder to the Programs folder of Win7?

Notes

Bob, don't put it Program Files (either one, if 64 bit OS) because of Windows permissions. Any other folder is fine.

Thanks. So I can put it in C:\BB with no problem.

That's the problem with my ThinkPad computers, they last about 8 years before they start going weird on me so I get behind on a lot of software - of course that is a blessing as well!!!

The ThinkPad I bought years ago (it is still a pre-lenovo IBM machine and still says "Designed For XP" on it) didn't get past the splash screen about a month ago. Turned off and on again and it booted. Once could be a fluke so I watched but didn't worry about it. Then a week ago it did it again. I keep full backups via a Ghost Disk Image but that won't do me much good if I can't replace the HD, and it's probably old technology ATA not SATA or whatever the alphabet soup is.

So I ran the diagnostics on the motherboard and hard drive and everything passed (PC Doctor comes with ThinkPads). The HD was fragmented so I de-fragged, and it's booted every time since then. So I'll be keeping an eye on it. In the meantime I duplicated the most important data files on an external drive.

It's my secondary computer, so if it goes belly-up, I'll get a Win7 computer for my main workhorse, and demote the Lenovo ThinkPad I'm typing on now to do those secondary tasks.

It'd be nice to have a shiny new computer, but I keep them until they die. I'd rather spend the money on musical toys like guitars, saxophones, wind synthesizer modules, and so on.

Notes

Go on Bob splah out on a few new windows 7 machines,
as according to this website you can well afford it!!

http://www.manta.com/g/mm0ym3d/robert-norton



Martin

You'll have to work a lot harder though Bob before you catch up with PGmusic.

From the same site

"Pg Music Inc is a private company categorized under Computer Services and located in Victoria, BC, Canada. Our records show it was established in 1989 and incorporated in . Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $2,330,880 and employs a staff of approximately 21. Companies like Pg Music Inc usually offer: Adaptive Software Development, Abc Computer Repair, Computer Software Development, Collaborative Software Development and Agile Software Development With Scrum.

Now back to budget how I am going to spend MY $350 per week meagre amount compared to you rich guys!!



Martin

>>> It'd be nice to have a shiny new computer, but I keep them until they die. I'd rather spend the money on musical toys like guitars, saxophones, wind synthesizer modules, and so on.

Keeping your main PC until it 'dies', and making it a lower priority than musical 'toys' seems like a bad idea to me Bob. Don't you make your living from PC based music?

You point out in your messages that you have 'tried' audio, loops, RealTracks etc. but gave up. Most people that are getting great results with audio are using modern PC's. If you tried RealTracks on that old laptop, of course you'd have problems and annoyances, because that laptop has a tiny hard drive, slow CPU, low RAM, single core etc. etc.

If I was forced to use a 10 year old laptop, I might be saying "MIDI is great, audio sucks!" too...