With Band-in-a-Box® 2016 we added some great Chord Sheet enhancements that included Layers, chord display options, customizable color options, mouse-over indicators, changing the number of columns that are displayed, and more!

Have you had a chance to customize your Band-in-a-Box® Chord Sheet yet? Share your new look with us! Post your Band-in-a-Box® song video ("Save as Video"), or take a screen shot and add it to your post.

We explain and demonstrate this new feature in our Band-in-a-Box® 2016 for Windows New Feature Video, here: http://www.pgmusic.com/?vid=iKUE4vSfISc&t=1323

A full list of the new Chord Sheet enhancements:
  • "Layers" added. Layers are optional rows of information shown above each bar.
    · Bar Lyrics layer is for editable bar-based lyrics (up to 255 characters per bar) that are loaded and saved with the song.
    · Section Text layer is for editable text (up to 255 characters per bar) that is loaded and saved with the song.
    · Section Text and Bar Lyrics layers will attempt to intelligently separate your lyrics into different bars.
    · Bar Settings layer shows information about any changes that occur for that bar, as set in the Bar Settings dialog (e.g. tempo changes, key changes, etc.).
    · Additional Chord Display layer shows the chords using an alternative mode of showing root notes. There are 4 modes: Roman Numeral, Nashville Notation, Solfeggio Notation, and Fixed Do (Italy/Europe).
    · All layers can be customized with font and color.
  • Now you see the chord where you are typing it. Previously, chords wouldn’t appear until you hit the Enter key, and sometimes wouldn’t appear at all if you made a typo.
  • Colors for all elements on the Chord Sheet can be customized.
  • Mouse-over indication shows which bar, cell, or part marker you are currently hovering your mouse over.
  • You can now select a region of bars by just using the keyboard.
  • There is now a Superscript option (separate settings for the chords and the Additional Chord Display layer).
  • The number of columns can be customized.
  • The "Extra space between columns (pixels)" option allows you to choose a border thickness between columns.
  • The "New line for every section" option previously required that each section was at least 2 bars long, but now there is a ‘minimum section’ setting.
  • The "Show bar lines" option displays a bar line next to each bar number.
  • The "Show bar numbers" option lets you choose how often bar numbers should display: never, always, only at part markers, or only at new rows.
  • The "Use substyle colors for bar #s, etc." option controls the color of the optional bar lines, bar numbers, and section letters.
  • The "Gray out chords beyond time signature" setting grays out chords that won't play in the song.
  • The "Display ‘2’ as ‘sus2’" and "Display ‘sus’ as ‘sus4’" settings will show suspended chords more explicitly: ‘sus’ implies ‘sus4,’ and ‘2’ implies ‘sus2,’ but you might want to see the full extension name.
  • All of the settings and colors can be saved and loaded as a .csc file.

Callie
Marketing Representative
PG Music Inc.