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I downloaded an MP3 of a Karaoke-version of something; ran it through the Auto Chord Wizard; and as usual, the chords it came up with bear no resemblance or relationship to the actual chords of the tune, but that's okay...I replaced them with the correct ones. I go through the tune and tap the F6-key to set the beginning of Bar-1; I go through the rest of the tune and tap F8 on each beat...Okay I'm almost done.

The song has a pickup starting on Beat-4 before the start of Bar-1. So, when the countoff starts I get the 2-bar count-off, and the song starts playing its pickup notes on that 4th beat. Which means that the whole tune is one beat off. It should count off as: "1...3...1.2.3.<start>", but instead, it counts off as: "1...3...1.2.3.4.<start>"

So, how do you get rid of the extra beat in the countoff and get the whole song to shift left one beat so that the pickup hits on '4' and the first-bar of the actual song occurs on '1', and not one beat off? Since it was rendered from the Audio Chord Wizard, I assume that the song is stored on the Audio Track.

The answer I got from the Yahoo group was:
(A: Under Melody/Edit melody it's possible to shift the melody in time. Simply shift it one beat earlier than it currently is.)


That "sort-of" worked. I used that feature and shifted the whole song -500 milliseconds, and that totally removed the pickup notes of the track so that it starts on the downbeat. But what I wanted to do was keep the pickup notes, and just get rid of the 4th-beat of the countoff. Is there a way to do that?

This is similar to the question about "getting rid of the countoff", except I don't want to get rid of the countoff--I just want to shift the audio track one-beat earlier so that the pickup notes start on '4', instead of '1'. (I should think this would be a common occurance.. Think: "The Shadow of Your Smile"...You want the count-off to stop after the 2nd beat of the second bar, so that the melody can start on the upbeat of '2').

I hope that all makes sense....Thanks!

LJ

Last edited by LadyJazzer; 09/25/09 02:28 PM.

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Try going to the Audio menu, Edit Audio and hit the Timeshift Audio button.

You will have to experiment as to how many negative milliSeconds to move the song backwards. A bit of arithmetic can help get it there faster, BPM divided by 60 X 1000

Don't forget the dash for negative sign integer.


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Hi LJ,

The above suggestion of Mac's as to how to convert beats (at any tempo) into milliseconds is a good trick. I use it when I'm adjusting the timing of my reverb and delay. For example, if my tempo is 108 bpm, then 60,000/108 = 555.5 milliseconds (round that up to 556 ms). This means that each beat in a measure (whether it's 3/4 or 4/4) will last for 556 ms.

I wanted to suggest also that if moving backwards doesn't seem to work because you need a bar to move it back into, you can always insert and extra bar at the beginning of the song and then move it back.

All the best,
Noel


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I guess I didn't do a very good job of explaining what I've already tried. I DID go to the Audio menu, Edit Audio and hit the Timeshift Audio button, and shifted the song back -500 milliseconds...(that's NEGATIVE-500) And it DID cause the first downbeat AFTER the pickup-note (on '4') to sync up with the downbeat of the song.

It unfortunately also deleted the pickup note, which I didn't want to do. It appears that timeshifting it backwards will sync it up with the first beat following the countoff. What I'm trying to accomplish is to KEEP the pickup note and shift it backwards so that it overlays the 4th beat of the countoff in the second bar of the countoff. Timeshifting it backwards didn't do anything except cut off the pickup note.

Is there a way to do that?

Thanks...


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Hi LJ,

I've had a bit of a play around with moving audio backwards by 500 ms at a tempo of 120 bpm.

I have found that if I double-click on bar 1 to start the playing, the pickup beat is not heard because playing starts at bar 1. If, however, I use either "Replay" or "Play" buttons to start the song, the pickup note is there and starts on beat 4 of bar 2 of the count-in.

Regards,
Noel


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Try placing a single MIDI note at the same place as your pickup note, on the Melody or Soloist track. Then set its velocity to 1 so it can't be heard. This may trick BIAB into behaving as if there was a pickup to a MIDI track and thus not playing the last of the countin IIRC.

If all else fails you could try Insert of one bar at the very beginning, then declare that bar to be an Intro using the first number box to the right of the Styles window, tell BIAB that the song starts on bar 2.

Then you'd have a countin, three silent beats and your pickup note.

Repeats (chorus) would then have to go from bar 2 to wherever.


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Normally you can set the "Bar One" in the AudioChordWizard, and then it would play correctly. The pickup note would be at the correct point.

I would suggest re-entering the AudioChordWizard, and re-doing a setBarOne, at the correct place.

Alternatively, you can adjust the bar one offset inside BB. This is done by right clicking on the Audio Edit Window, at the location that you would like to be bar one.


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