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Getting to grips with my new copy of BIAB 2013, I have been working on Gerry Mulligan's "Four Brothers", starting from a copy prepared by a friend on an older version of BIAB (the datestamp on the file is 28/12/2005).

The fourth bar of the melody consists of six crotchet triplets (quarter note triplets to those of a North American persuasion), and these are correctly displayed by BIAB 2013 when first opened.

If I then generate and play the file, or export it as an MP3, the notation is changed to a pair of quavers (8th notes) and a crotchet (quarter note) followed by a further pair of quavers and a crotchet.

The MP3 file sounds correct, but the melody part in Notation mode and the melody leadsheet are wrong.

Strangely, the offending bar appears correctly in Editable Notation Mode.

Any suggestions as to how I can get these different modes in step with one another?

Last edited by foxylady; 01/13/13 04:13 PM.
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Yes.

First, it may be a situation where you are in Even notation and might need to switch that to Swing notation using the Opts. button when in Editable Notation View. In case it isn't clear, Even notation will show two subdivision dotted vertical lines over each beat, while Swing will show three.

It appears that your songfile is not actually playing the Triplets at the right time and that can often be cleared up manually in Editable Notation mode by RightClicking on each note, one at a time, and taking a look at the place where the note starts and also the note duration value. Here we can manually change the time the note is initiated by the Beat number and MIDI tick value for fractions of a beat. Duration is in the same basic format. Editing each note to play when you want it to play is something I find I have to do with certain Melodies on the Melody Track. But once done, I hit Save and there it stays.


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Thanks, Mac.

The Triplet Resolution (Swing) box is ticked, and there are three vertical dotted lines in Editable Notation for each crotchet (1/8 note).

These triplets are being played correctly by BIAB, and are rendered correctly in a rendered file (WAV or MP3), it's just that the Notation Window and the Leadsheet show them incorrectly. The same phrase appears three times in the piece, and the situation is the same each time.

I'll have a look at the start and duration details, and see if tweaking them makes the notation more stable.

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Hi,

Here's a link to a post that might also give some insight.

Regards,
Noel


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Thanks Noel.

In the thread following the post you mentioned, Peter Gannon said he'd have this problem fixed in the next version.

What is puzzling me is that the Notation mode presentation is correct (and matches the Editable mode version) until the piece is "Generated", or rendered to MP3. You would think that the arithmetic for determining notation wouldn't be affected by this.

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Check your Notation View opts. to see if "Clean Notation" has been set to false.

It should be checkmarked.


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I've gone to Opt=>Preferences=>Notation, and I get a Window entitled "Notation Window Options", but can't find anything labelled "Clean Notation".

There is a box marked "Detect Fine Resolution Notation", which is already checked. Is this the one you meant?

Playing (instruments) has displaced playing (computers) for the last few days. I have yet to experiment with note durations.

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Clean Notation is not in a menu; it is one of the checkboxes in the Editable Notation mode, after Note, Rest and Mono. The box is called simply "Clean". If you hover over it, the tool tip says Clean Notation.


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OK, got it!

The "Clean" box was already checked, and changing this makes no displayed notes - correctly displayed as quarter-note triplets in Editable Notation, but becoming 1/8 1/8 1/4 1/8 1/8 1/4 in the Notation and leadsheet views AFTER forced regeneration. When the song is played, the triplets come through correctly.

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I have tried adjusting the lengths of these notes, but they still turn out wrongly in the Notation and Leadsheet views once (re)generation has been requested.

The onset and duration of these notes is:

beat 1, tick 0
beat 1, tick 80
beat 2, tick 40
beat 3, tick 0
beat 3. tick 80
beat 4, tick 40

and all durations are set at 64 ticks. I've tried adjusting them all by stages up to 80 ticks, but this makes no difference.

As the timings all seem to be arithmetically accurate, I'm not sure where to go from here.

In case there's something very strange about this (admittedly old) file, I'll try creating an entirely new song in BIAB 2013 and see if this behaves in the same way.

Michael

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Hi Michael,

I find that BIAB notation has limitations with the proper display of triplets. Sometimes I get lucky and manage to massage the notes into giving me what I want, other times I am not so lucky. Getting a solution is hardest when an EV style has been used as the base style. When SW styles are used, triplets are much easier to display properly because the styles are themselves triplet-based.

Have you tried setting the resolution of individual notes using the following method?


  • Go to either editable notation mode or staff roll notation mode.
  • Position the black bar (1) on the beat you want to work with and then right-click.
  • The resolution of the beat can then be set individually for bass and treble staves (2). For triplets, "3" seems to work best. This allows EV styles with 4 subdivisions per beat to have individually selected beats set to 3 subdivisions.

As you've already pointed out, BIAB plays the notes correctly. It's the display that's not correct. If the issue is the display, because you need to music to look right for others to use, then download a copy of MuseScore. It's a freeware notation program that can load MGU and SGU files. There are some good Youtube clips on how to use it.

Regards,
Noel


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Thanks, Noel.

I hadn't come across this feature, so checked it out with high hopes! Unfortunately, the Treble Clef resolution was already set at 3 for each of the six notes in the offending bar, so that didn't help.

Creating triplets in a completely new file seems to work OK, with Editable and non-editable Notation modes staying in step after generation. I noticed that each of the notes in the new file started 7 ticks later than the times I noted above, but starting the triplets later in my version of "Five Brothers" didn't fix the fault.

I can't help feeling that this is a bug rather than a feature, because the Editable and Non-editable show the same notation on the staff when the file is first opened, and only get out of step after generation.

Obviously, I can work around the presentational aspects simply by producing the lead-sheet on a newly-opened file.

I've tried MuseScore in the past (see the thread "Chords displaced on leadsheet"), to work around another presentation problem, but it couldn't cope with a 3/4 piece, which is what I was having trouble with.

As I managed to get quarter-note triplets to survive (re)generation in a completely new test file, I may just have to bite the bullet and enter "Five Brothers" as a completely new file. Frustrating, though!

Michael

Last edited by foxylady; 01/17/13 03:22 PM.
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Try deleting the offending notes in Notation Edit view and then redo them where you want them to be. I've found that to work for me.


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Michael,

Quote:

As I managed to get quarter-note triplets to survive (re)generation in a completely new test file, I may just have to bite the bullet and enter "Five Brothers" as a completely new file. Frustrating, though!




When you mentioned "regeneration", it sparked another idea that might be worth trying out ...

In version 2012, PG Music introduced a new feature that causes the tick off-set to be automatically set whenever a song is generated. This feature is style-dependent. Here's an article I posted last year about this.

... link to article on tick off-set

What I found bothersome then was that even though I set it back to zero and saved the song, every time the song was regenerated, the tick off-set would reset (despite my wanting it to stay at zero). In 2013, the automatic, non-saveable tick off-set still exists. This means that whenever you regenerate, the value of the tick off-set will be changed automatically.

This could well be impacting on your triplets. Try going into Opts when in Chord Sheet view and setting it to zero and see what happens to the score.

Regards,
Noel


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Eureka!

When I first load the offending file, the Tick Offset in Notation Window Options (Opt.=>Preferences=>Notation) is set to 0. The first time I re-generated the file the Tick Offset changed to -14, and the triplets no longer appeared correctly.

I tried again, and got a value of -13 - in both instances I'd stopped the song from playing before the end, so there appears to be some dynamic adjustment to the tick offset as the song is played.

Going back to preferences from Chord Sheet view seems to restore the default Tick Offset of 0. [PS: not every time!].

The Style I'm using is _JGTFRFS FastJazz w/ FreeCompGuit (190RS).

Many thanks, Noel, I had already found a way of ensuring that the notation would come out the way I wanted it ("print" it to PDF immediately after opening the file, and before generating the sound-track), but you've given me an understanding of what's going on. I have a tiresome personality trait - learned and nurtured at school (just the day before yesterday...) - I have to know "why?" when I'm told to do something a certain way, not just "what?", and I waste a lot of time gnawing like a dog at a resistant bone until I can work it out.

With your help, I'm now able to get back to playing my guitar again!

Michael

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Hi Michael,

I'm glad to hear that you got it all going!

I've sent the URL for this thread to PG Music Support so that they can add the information to their database in case it's needed in the future. As your thread has shown, it's something that's very difficult to track down without knowing some of the subtleties underlying the program.

Enjoy your guitar!
Noel


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