I concur with the above solid advice by John.

About accidentals, yes, set the key signature first. But you can also use the left mouse button in Editable Notation Mode to drag a note up and down in pitch by half-steps. The accidental will be added as needed. Then, if you prefer a different enharmonic accidental (like A# instead of Bb) you can use the Force Accidental as John mentioned.

Also, I would like to add answers to your two specific questions at the end of your post:

First, no, the method of notation entry in BIAB has not changed significantly, to my knowledge, since version 2010.

Second, about the clef, a guitar is a transposing instrument in that it sounds an octave below what is written. Thus you might consider transposing your melody and/or soloist tracks up one octave to compensate, and that might eliminate notes appearing on the bass clef stave. If you need to know how to do that, there are at least two methods and we can help you.

Finally, I have used many notation software programs over three decades, even serving as a beta tester for one, and I absolutely love the initial note entry method in BIAB. As John described, it does have a few things that seem odd at first, but that prove to be tremendously powerful. As a composer and arranger, I enter ALL my songs into BIAB, and then move the MIDI into a notation program or a DAW as needed, which should tell you how much I like BIAB for note entry. PG Music asked a few weeks ago what feature we liked best in BIAB, and notation entry was my choice.

You might tell us what tutorial you used, if it's different from the links John gave.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.