PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Adding a Melody

I managed to enter chord names to a simple song (Twinkle Twinkle), in the chord sheet window. Have a decent Style to go with it. Just doing this to get my feet wet in the program.

Now, just to learn, I want to put in the melody, using my Clavinova. I disabled the band, so there's no background noise when I record, made sure the midi driver (Clavinova) is highlighted, found that in the Opt. window. I push the Record button, then start (or whatever it says) and play the music but it doesn't record, I'm getting no sound. The notes are in the notation view-but what a mess it is.

I don't know if I've given enough information and this probably sounds totally nuts but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

clav,

Are the notes in the notation view after you're done recording? I'm assuming you're recording MIDI data to the melody track. Do you know whether the style you're using is a "Real" style or a midi style? When you're recording, do you hear any of the melody while you're playing? When you say you "disabled the band", exactly what did you do? You should be able to record WHILE "the band" plays - no need to disable them - unless you are trying to record audio (but since you say that notes are in the notation view, I'm assuming you're recording MIDI). Sorry to hit you with so many questions, but to figure out what you're trying to do, need more info.

Bruce

Not sure why you don't hear sound, but here are some tips that may help you to figure things out:

**Not a good idea to try to play in a Melody without the backing tracks playing along, as the timing of what you play is most likely going to get ahead of, or behind the beat of Band in a Box, which can indeed lead to some rather weird looking notation. The machine does not know nor care about "when" you play a note, so it does not attempt to correct those notes played slightly ahead of, or behind, the beat. It will just dutifully atempt to notate whatever it receives as best it can. That would lead to lots of tied notes, notes that should be on beat 1 of a bar being somewhere on beat 4 of the previous bar, etc. You should play and record any Melody track along with the autoaccompaniment in order to keep the timing to the music.

**If, when you are done Recording MIDI, and have notes on the Melody track, but cannot hear them, remember that the recording is done via the THRU Track and then the program transfers it to the Melody Track after you accept the "Keep Recording".

The MIDI Patch sound that you have selected on the Thru track so that you can hear what you recorded while playing may not be the same Patch and sound that is selected for the Melody track where it ends up. Select Melody Track at top and make sure its Radio Button is indicated in front if the Trackname, then take a look at the MIDI instrument selection dropdown to see if the Melody is the same instrument used for Recording, maybe the GM 001 Grand Piano. If it isn't, try changing it to the instrument you want in the GM dropdown patch selection.

**If you can view notes on the Melody track after recording, but cannot hear them, yet when you push GENPLAY you see those notes being highlighted in the Notation View window while the accompaniment is playing, this inidcates that you are halfway there, as you have the notes and their values as MIDI data. Check the Patch selection for the MIDI on the Melody track while the song is playing back, select another instrument and see if that forces the Melody Track to have sound.

**Of course, if you could not hear your keyboard playing as your Recorded the track, that may have something to do with it. Can't imagine trying to record a track while not being able to hear what I'm playing, but sometimes folks try to do that when new to the program. Something else is not right in a setting somewhere if you can't hear what you are playing while recording.


--Mac

I was sort of wondering if the "band" he can hear is all Real Tracks (audio), and maybe he doesn't have his MIDI set up correctly. Hope the OP will give us some more info.

Bruce

Shouldn't matter if all realtracks or not, recording MIDI to Thru track should work the same for both.


--Mac