Long time, but casual, BIAB user here. I'm a chord based musician, not a note based one. I'd like to be able to print out a simple chord chart with just big fat letters (no clef lines or guitar fingering). However , I found it's not possible with BIAB, even with all its bells and whistles. Searched the forum and I see it's been a long time gripe. So, any suggestions for a low cost program that would take the output of a BIAB song (not audio) and print this type of chord chart?
Note: I’m not interested in work-arounds like screen shots.
Note2: I found this online, free site that will do this, but I don’t want to hand enter the chords again. www.chordsheet.com
Ralph, a feature to export chord sheets was added to BIAB. I haven't used it and I'm not at a computer now, but someone will give you the instructions. Whether the format of the export will meet your needs, you can decide, but BIAB does have this. I think one way involves Edit, Copy Special to Text and unselecting the meta information. Or maybe it's File, Save Special, Text.
It has also been possible for several years to Print a PDF of just the chords, if that helps.
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.
If I click on the "Notation" button, then the "Print" button and select "OK - Print Chords Only", I get a printed sheet that looks very similar to your example.
Matt: Thanks for the quick reply. I see that File-Save Special-ABC Notation has a format that maybe I can find an external program to print chords from. As far as printing with PDF and getting what I want, I haven't come across that yet. I’ll have to explore more, but since I don't want to ruin New Year's day I'll wait till tomorrow.
Martin: I like big fat chords like you see on the Control-T screen in BIAB. See attached PDF.
Lloyd: That was Martin's example. See my comment above to Martin.
Thanks to all for the help. Make some good music in 2021.
I too would like simple chord chart displays, but can't get what I'm after without extra space or text. My particular example has Section Layers (i.e. V1B, Bridge) in the chord chart. Even if I turn those off in the chord display, they still show up when printing "Chords only". So in this example:
1. There's a huge amount of wasted space between the lines.
2. The Section layer text is under the previous line, rather than right above the line where it belongs. The red arrows indicate where that text should be to stay associated with the measure where it belongs.
I'd be happy just getting rid of the section text as a compromise, and also would love to shrink the space between lines so most charts could fit on one page.
Any suggestions??
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
That looks nicer, but I'm using the section text layer on the chord sheet to help organize the arrangement. So I'd need a way to keep these around but not display them on the printout, and I haven't found a way to do that yet. Would be a two step or duplication process to get what I'm after even if I could hide the section text layer on the printout. I'm confused why there needs to be so much separation of the layer text from the measure its associated with. Not a good design IMHO.
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
BIAB – 2025, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, Motu Audio Express 6x6 - My SoundCloud (Tip: No need to create a SC account to hear music - just hit ESC ).
Interesting feature, but I'd have to massage it to make a decent printed chord chart. Perhaps it can be read into some other programs. I have exported the file as MusicXML and read it into MuseScore, but still requires a good bit of work to put my section labels back in and a few other things.
So I'm gathering that there's no way to get the staffs closer together???? That would solve a big part of my problem. I have "unfolded" arrangements of 170 measures or so, and don't want to have a 3 or 4 page chart with a lot of wasted space.
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
I started with something simple just to illustrate the issue more clearly - loaded demo song for a style. First image is the view in the Notation Window Lead Sheet mode. Second image is just after hitting Print and choosing "Print Chords Only" or Preview/Graphics or Print to PDF.
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
MusicStudent: Thanks for this. Now I can create something closer to what I want by pasting into Word and changing font and size! Don't have to mess around with the complicated BIAB menus.
I'm fine with the bar lines, and they line up better if I check "Fake Sheet Mode" in the lead sheet window. The thing I want to have more control over is the large amount of white space between staffs in the second image. The lead sheet window gets about 50% more measures per page than the print version given the same settings.
I might be able to get close to what I want by just screen capturing the Lead Sheet Window, navigating through the song to get the next page displayed (there's not a "page down" in that mode). Ideally I want these to be PDF charts, but I could live with Jpgs or even stitch them into PDFs if needed. I just like the "native" PDF rasterization capabilities versus bitmaps.
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
MarioD, that helps a LOT in terms of real estate, so probably gives me something functional enough. Thanks much. The best display for my purposes requires showing notes and staff lines, which seems to squish things together enough on the vertical plane to make the section text layer at least not appear as likely to be associated with the line above. I'll probably highlight them just because they are partly obscured by the chords (see yellow highlights...). I do a lot of arranging and playing around with chord progressions in BiaB, so I need something I can then take over to the keyboard and at least know where I am in the arrangement, or give it to someone else to play along.
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
I suppose you know that there's a setting to move the chords closer to the staff. Not sure if it will change the position of the section text. Good luck! LLOYD S
Thanks - I had set that at a couple of points, but something (me or a "reset" or template) must have set it back. Looks like that lowers it enough to not obscure the section text. That gets me where I want to be - thanks!!
Chuck Wiggins
BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface
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We've been hard at it to bring you the latest and greatest in this 9th installment of our popular XPro Styles PAK series! Included are 75 styles spanning the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres (25 styles each) that fans have come to expect, as well as 25 styles in this volume's wildcard genre: funk & R&B!
If you're itching to get a sneak peek at what's included in XPro Styles PAK 9, here is a small helping of what you can look forward to: Funky R&B Horns, Upbeat Celtic Rock, Jazz Fusion Salsa, Gentle Indie Folk, Cool '60s Soul, Funky '70s R&B, Smooth Jazz Hip Hop, Acoustic Rockabilly Swing, Funky Reggae Dub, Dreamy Retro Latin Jazz, Retro Soul-Rock Fusion, and much more!
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Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: Using VST3 Plugins
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