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kelso Offline OP
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Hi - I'm entering chords and melody from printed music in BIAB. The song is primarily in 3/4. There are a few measures here and there that are in 4/4. So I pick a 3/4 style, and when I need to change to 4/4 I hit F5 and change the # Beats This Bar to 4, and , while the "4" sticks in the F5 dialog, BIAB completely ignore it. The visible metronome just keeps on 1 2 3 1 2 3, the time sig in the Lead Sheet View shows no change, and of course the actual play of the music remains at 4/4.

BUT, if I change the Beats This Bar to 2, BIAB does exactly that. I hear it, the metronome counts it correctly, and the LSV changes the time sig to 2/4. So I guess my work-around is to insert 2 bars at 2/4 for every written bar of 4/4. But then I need to change the note durations etc. in those bars and it starts to get ugly, especially for anyone reading the lead sheet.

So - can anyone tell me how to get BIAB to do just what I want - to have the meter and time sig and the LSV follow the printed music? Is there a cleaner way than the ugly workaround I described?

Thanks for any help.


kelso

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Originally Posted By: kelso
So I pick a 3/4 style,

To use a combination of 4/4 and 3/4 in the same BIAB song, you must start with a 4/4 style. Then use F5 (bar settings) to change the number of beats per bar as needed, including sometimes in the first bar.


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Tring to use a 3/4 style in 4/4 can or may be problematic simply because a 3/4 style HAS NO DATA FOR THE 4TH BEAT in it.

A 4/4 style can be used in 3/4, as it has data on beat 4 and when switching to 3 beats, all that has to happen is that the 4th beat data is ignored.

Try using a 4/4 style throughout, even though it is 3/4 for most of it. This can work very well indeed with Realtracks styles, BTW.


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kelso Offline OP
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Thanks for the insight. With a little experimenting with a "new" song and not changing the style but changing the "# beats this bar", the rules seem to be something like this...

Start with a 4/4 style. Change "# beats this bar" in some bar to 1, 2, 3, or 4 - all works fine. Plays correctly, meter changes shows correctly.

Start with a 3/4 style. Change "# beats this bar" in some bar to 1, 2, 3, or 4 - all works fine EXCEPT 4/4 which plays as 3/4 and meter shows 3/4. For "# beats this bar" of 1, 2, 3 - plays correctly, meter changes show correctly.

I'll try Mac's suggestion, or try another song.


kelso

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1) Start the song with the 4/4 style that you want to change to in the middle of the song

2) On BiaB cell #1, press F5 and change to the 3/4 style - you may or may not have to change the number of beats in the measure - I've seen different versions of BiaB work either way

Insights and incites by Notes


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kelso Offline OP
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Thanks Bob - That's just what I did and is OK notation wise, I'll worry about musicality later. Since I had a melody started, that gets all messed up with changes in beats this bar. One lesson for me (again!) is to get the chords and timing just right for entering the melody.


kelso

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You're welcome. We learned that trick while compiling fake disks.


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