Hi All, I have a number of melodies that I have created in a Ableton Live. What I would like to do is to import a midi melody into BIAB and then to be able to use it with some of the BIAB styles. I have tried various ways to import but the results are not good.
I may not be understanding your question correctly, but here's my take...
The results are based on the chord progression used. While BIAB has some limited capability to come up with a chord progression based on your melody, the results generally are not that good doing it that way.
If you just have the melodies, you are really going to need to figure out the accompanying chord progression to go along with it.
I import MIDI melodies all the time, but it is into an existing chord progression I entered on the chord grid. Once that's done, it's just a matter of figuring out which style to use.
The problem is not with styles; it's thta the chord progression has to work with the melody.
That being said, if you are having problems with the imported MIDI not being processed correctly by BIAB (notes wrong, durations wrong, etc), then that's another problem we would have to take a look at.
John
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Thanks jford for your prompt reply. I had entered a chord progression before importing the midi melody and it just didn't feel right. When I look at the melody track notes I notice that the time signature s different from the style signature. Some of the loaded midi plays before the Lead-in starts to run. I set a style, enter a chord progression and the go to File > Import > Import Melody from MIDI file.
Thank you Noel for your usual graphically helpful replies. I have used the offset and this does correct that early start problem. However, since the time signature of the imported midi is 6/8 I assumed that if I chose a 6/8 style I thought that the melody track would also show that same signature, but it is still 4/4 and, although the melody does sound OK I looks very odd.
Hi Mario. I tried that. I can set the signature to 3/4 before style load, but it still remains at 3/4 after the 6/8 style is imported. It doesn't seem as if the style signature has any effect on the melody track signature.
The melody midi file I have has a 1/8 note lead-in and then mainly triplet pairs in each 6/8 bar. After import there is no lead-in and the lead-in note fits in the first bar of the melody track.
BIAB does not natively support 6/8 time, and will always display either 3/4 or 4/4. 6/8 is achieved by using tripletized 4/4 time (so every half input cell is one 6/8 bar and you can only change chords every bar), or by using two 3/4 bars to simulate 6/8 time (and then you just adjust the tempo accordingly).
There is an option in import to handle pickup notes; however 6/8 import is always going to be problematic. I haven't done it in a while, so I would have to try it out and see exactly what happens. I do all my input in a notation program (Noteworthy Composer), then export to MIDI, then import the MIDI into BIAB.
If you don't have the problem resolved by the weekend, I'll see what I can find out (unfortunately, as a choir director at church, I'm swamped with Holy Week activities this week). It seems I cracked this nut before, just haven't looked at it in a while.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
Hi Mario. I tried that. I can set the signature to 3/4 before style load, but it still remains at 3/4 after the 6/8 style is imported. It doesn't seem as if the style signature has any effect on the melody track signature.
The melody midi file I have has a 1/8 note lead-in and then mainly triplet pairs in each 6/8 bar. After import there is no lead-in and the lead-in note fits in the first bar of the melody track.
Jonel
Unfortunately that is how BiaB works in that it does not recognize lead ins from imported MIDI or any time signature other than 3/4 and 4/4.
I would take this MIDI track and import it into RealBand. There you can move your lead line so it will match the generated backing tracks. I don't use RB much so some RB expert, and there are many here, will help you.
Good luck
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As John Ford and Mario have indicated, your choice of 6/8 immediately makes this challenging and explains why you are having problems. It's a pity you didn't begin with 4/4 or 3/4! I imagine it would have then been plain sailing for you.
While it's possible to set a time signature in BIAB, ultimately, it is the style that's loaded that determines the time signature of the backing.
To import your created melody into BIAB, my initial feeling is that it may need to be rewritten. If the melody is more along the lines of a Sousa 6/8 march, a 4/4 swing style can be made to work and would be the best option. (See the image below that uses Editable Notation Mode in BIAB set to a swing with a 4/4 time signature.)
With the below image in mind, if you wrote the melody using each beat of 4/4 as 1/8-note triplets, it would read into BIAB fine if a swing style was chosen. When creating such a melody, it's necessary to keep in mind that one bar of 4/4 will contain two bars of translated 6/8.
To test this, simply create a 4-bar melody; save it and import it and see what happens.
I'm getting on quite well with this particular activity, thanks to the help in this forum. One problem that does come up is in the handling of the lead-in notes. This was referred to earlier. I've tried this on a 4/4 time signature for simplicity. The imported music had a 1/4 note lead-in but BIAB simply included this note as the first note of the first bar. I thought I might get around this by telling BIAB to skip the first bar of the midi file and then I could add the lead-in within BIAB, but that screwed up the notes altogether.
I thought I might be able to cut the notation and paste it 1/4 note early in the staff but I don't see that this can be allowed.
I could go back to my original music and generate the midi without the lead-in and the add into BIAB after the import.
You could also time shift the melody using a combination of the "Time Shift" (#4) option and "Delete Beats" (#5) option shown on the image below.
Keep in mind that 120 ticks = one quarter note and that + values move the melody to the right while - values move the melody to the left (from a sheet music perspective).
Noel, your knowledge and your ability to take the time out to provide detailed help astounds me. I might try the second method and document the actual moves I need to make. I tries the easy way and removed the lead-in in Noteworthy and the import to BIAB was simple to reapply.
As you have also found, I have found that the easiest way to deal with pickup notes coming from Noteworthy is to just temporarily add back in the rest of the first measure (as rests) before the pickup note, so it's a complete measure, and them import it. Everything lines up nicely. I can then delete those rests easily (usually by just not saving the Noteworthy file changes).
John
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