PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Can't generate chords without 7ths.

as a cowboy chord guitarist and veteran of years in 60s pop bands and folk bands i've never ever noticed jazz chords turning up unwanted in BIAB folk and pop styles. maybe its because i've set the preferences the way i like - no embellishments and simple arrangements. this thread started out with a genuine problem in BIAB - a key change where the RealTracks players used 7ths the way live musicians would do seeing a B chord in the key of A. for my three chord songs i use the root, sub dominant and dominant chords - and if i don't like the dominant seventh in some places i don't use it. thread drift seems to suggest that BIAB won't do as it's told completely out of context of the original post.

Have you tried creating a song with a chord change in Biab? Did you download the examples I posted earlier? Others did and were able to duplicate what I'm seeing. I have my preferences set for no embellishments and simple arrangements too. I've followed every step everyone suggested in this thread. There was either no change or it made the problem worse. I'll be 50 in a few weeks. I've been playing rhythm and lead guitar in country, oldies, and rock bands since I was 13 as well as recording all these years as well. Not sure what any of that matters, but since we have the tape measures out . . .



No, nothing has drifted, you just don't understand what you are reading or you do and are just being snarky. The problem is still the same ... BiaB is adding different chords than what are entered even if you set preferences to ignore embellishments and tell BiaB you are changing keys so it won't use "7ths the way live musicians would do seeing a B chord in the key of A." as you say. Technically BiaB shouldn't be interpreting a B in the key of A because the key is being set to B. You can do that by going in to the bar settings at the point of the key change.

Only if you're a pretentious douche with no feeling for the piece you are playing or you are told to for creative purposes would you ever go in to the second half of a traditional country song playing jazz 7th's. If the program can't recognize a key change has been set and the fact no embellishment settings are set then it needs to be fixed.

That and the fact that tech support demanded I show proof of purchase before helping in any way and once I did they stopped communicating with me. That's not right no matter how you slice it. Especially for such an expensive product.

Thanks for the input Bob.

I'm not disputing that an improvement could be made, but Andrew is as good as it gets for company tech support, and his post #638969 seemed like a pretty thorough analysis of your song to me. Apparently the overall key is used for this decision but not modulations within the song, and that could be a Wishlist item for future development.

Remember we have all kinds of readers here including young people.

I fully agree with this statement
I know lot of people at PGMusic are Jazz Cats but not all customers are
best regards,
Bernard

as a reply to Shane the problem of 7ths instead of a normal major triad occurs when you change the key. that is acknowledged and Andrew explained why and it seems quite right to want it fixed. however, some posts did seem to suggest that it occurs without a key change and that in entering chords whilst the key remains the same, people get 7ths or 'jazz chords' when they want simple majors.

when i create a country or pop BIAB song - i admittedly stay in the same key - i don't get 'jazz chords'. and even in my three chord songs i can easily avoid the 7th on chords such as G in the key of C and D in the key of G.

so i was sharing my experience that 'jazz chords' are not a problem for me using the settings i do in BIAB. if people do get problems after changing the key, Andrew has made some suggestions - i hope i made some sensible ones too such as generating the whole song in A then opening in RealBand and transposing the ending up 2 semitones.

the drift i referred to was the suggestion that 'jazz chords' occur and you can't avoid them. apologies if anyone thought i doubted the validity of the original post referring to the key change.

<< I've followed every step everyone suggested in this thread. There was either no change or it made the problem worse.>>
<< I appreciate the input and I will try the things Ian and Charlie suggested. >>

<< The swabbie one plays fine until you start to get in to the key change. It's painful after that. >>
<< The reason that this is happening is a combination of these two things (A) Band-in-a-Box generates the file based on the original key of your song. (B) RealTracks artists play what is natural for them to play for a chord in that style of music, so seeing a B chord in the key of A, many RealTracks will play the b7. >>

I reviewed where some of the suggestions have been attempted but didn't see any remarks to why the Song Medley Feature failed. Other than the fact that Medley Maker will not start a Medley in 3/4 time, using the Song Medley Feature: Tools| Song Form| --- Song Medley Maker will do exactly what you're asking BIAB to do. It can't 'not change' nor can it 'make it worse'.

The Song Medley Feature interprets and plays each of your song sections for what they are if you follow every step I detailed on 1/11/21; Individual BIAB song SGU files. The Song Medley Feature combines individual songs and creates transitions between them by creating a temporary SGU chart that can be saved and rendered to audio. The Song Medley Feature will play each song exactly as each individual 'song' is written - in the proper key signature, tempo, feel, genre, and chord progression. BIAB 'sees' and interpret the transition section of your song and you can manually change that transition to your specifications or you can manually create the transition and BIAB will ignore making an automatic transition by setting the transition period to (0).

It's established in other comments in this thread that your song will play the correct chords in any key up to the point the song modulates. So if you generate and save as a song, the Chord Chart in the key of -A- with no modulation programmed, all of the chords play correctly without the 7th. Then, if you generate and save as a song, the Chord Chart in the key of -B- with no modulation programmed, all of the chords play correctly without the 7th, it is a simple matter to program the transition from your choice of the multiple options to choose from, and have the BIAB Song Medley Feature play the two songs as the performance you're attempting to achieve. It's a simple matter to complete the Song Medley program instructions so that:

Song Medley will play the bars up to the transition of song 1 in -A- to the transition bar in the song.
Song Medley will Transition as programmed.
Song Medley will play the bars following the transition of song 2 in -B- to the end of the song.

It's also a simple process to start the song in 4/4 and transition to 3/4 for the actual song and have the transition be a small gap of silence to be edited and cut out after rendering the song to audio.

Ya, I am afraid this thread has lost me. It appears to conclude that BAIB can not play triads. Or that BIAB only plays a dominate chords over the fifth. That can't be true. I get that about modulation. Heck I have troubles with that also, so any suggestions for improvements are welcome. And I also understand that some selected RTs are more avartgarde and will stray from the chord sheet. But there are plenty of simple RTs which stick to triads when told to.

"Ya, I am afraid this thread has lost me. It appears to conclude that BAIB can not play triads. Or that BIAB only plays a dominate chords over the fifth. That can't be true. I get that about modulation. Heck I have troubles with that also, so any suggestions for improvements are welcome. And I also understand that some selected RTs are more avantgarde and will stray from the chord sheet. But there are plenty of simple RTs which stick to triads when told to."

The original problem as I understand, is the songs starts in key of A, transitions to key of B after the transition real tracks are playing 7ths vice the intended plain old major chord. The OP suggests that a key change should not make the real tracks change how they are playing the chords, which is reasonable expectation. Many others have given him some suggested ways to get the result he is looking for. Then it got into a little tiff.

maybe its me that caused the 'little tiff'. the thread drift i referred to earlier is the mistaken view that BIAB can't play simple major chords as entered - just dominant sevenths and 'jazz chords' - exactly the reason MusicStudent refers to as to why he's lost track of the thread. glad to get confirmation that its not just me that read that into the posts above.

the original problem is understood and explained by Andrew - and a fix would be welcomed. all i set out to do is say that the way i use BIAB, the program plays the chords i want - not 'jazz chords' - which is what i think Bernard Rasson wants too - so it is possible.

we haven't heard from shane if any of the workarounds suggested by several people - including Andrew - have solved the problem.

does that mean we should put the "tape measures" away..?

Hey everyone. Thanks for the replies.

Yes the thread has veered off course a little. It's normal for threads of any length like this. I'm a bit to blame because I interjected my frustration with tech support. I contacted them about this and after 5 emails back and forth about where I bought it, when, and finally demanding I provide proof of purchase, they vanished. Never addressed the problem, nothing. So yeah, I'm a bit frustrated and feel a little screwed over to be honest. But it's time to move on because there's nothing I can do about it now.

To steer the thread back on course, here is an explanation of the problem I'm seeing and here is a link to the song files I posted before so you can open it and hear what's happening for yourself. You have to be logged in to the forum to see the files and download them.

Here's what is happening:

I was doing a 3/4 song (Silver Bells) starting in the key of A with a key change to B. Biab played all the chords as expected without adding in any 7th's until the song got to the key change. After the key change to B almost all of the chords are embellished with 7th's turning this well known Christmas song in to some kind of warped out of tune sounding blues tune. If you choose a midi only style it does not do this. It only does it when using all Realtracks.

I've performed all the Simple Arrangement and Force Simple Arrangement settings. I set a key change at the bar where it changes so Biab knows the key has changed. I've performed all the steps suggested throughout this thread. Nothing works. No matter what I do with any Realtrack style it always ignores settings and adds in complex chords that I didn't enter.

So thanks again for all the replies. At this point it seems the easiest course of action is to just do it twice in different keys and export the tracks in to my DAW and cut/paste/splice the song together. I have to say I messed with this a little and man, the Audiophile version sounds really really good! I was shocked because when just listening through Biab it doesn't sound near as good as when I export the tracks in to my DAW. I would have been thrilled with my purchase if not for this hiccup I ran in to with my very first song. LOL!

Thanks again everyone.

Has anyone had any luck with successfully getting this to work? Still haven't heard back from tech support.

Thanks.

yes and no. BIAB can play songs with basic major triads and 'non jazz chords'. but if you reread Andrew's explanation of why you get B7 in the song you originally posted about, you'll see exactly why you get the seventh after the key change.

Andrew's explanation makes sense and he has agreed a fix is needed so no one will get the key change to work using RealTracks as Andrew described. however, if you use an all midi style as opposed to RealTracks you might get standard major triads but you'll need to experiment.

above you'll find numerous workarounds including the one you've adopted.

Yes.

<< Andrew's explanation makes sense and he has agreed a fix is needed so no one will get the key change to work using RealTracks as Andrew described.>>

However, using the Medley Maker tool will play the B chord without the 7th because it follows Andrew's explanation the SGU file follows the key signature thus the Medley Maker will give you the modulation you desire due to it interprets the modulated section of the current song as another song, not as a section of the current SGU in A.

So, your statement:
<<At this point it seems the easiest course of action is to just do it twice in different keys and export the tracks in to my DAW and cut/paste/splice the song together.>> is correct except there's no need for a DAW. BIAB is designed to easily and efficiently do this very task with the Medley Maker. Medley Maker creates a unique and separate MGU stitching the two songs together, creating a transition you can edit to be the F#... chord you want and this MGU file will play the modulated section in B without the 7th's.

Medley Maker allows the user to select what bars to play from each song. Since you are playing a Medley of the same song but in two different keys, you select the appropriate bars of each song to begin and end so they only play the bars in the specific key of that section.

Medley Maker does require that a medley must start in 4/4 time but here again, select any 4/4 Style at the correct tempo, save it as a song and start your medley with a few bars of this song and edit it out after you render the Medley Maker MGU file to audio.

1.) 4/4 song - 2 bars Transition 0
2.) 3/4 song in A - bars 1-51 Transition 1
3.) 3/4 song in B - bars 53-88 Transition 0

The Medley Maker will insert the bar 52 transition and input two chords. Edit the transition bar to F#...

Hi Bob thanks for replying. I apologize, I missed Andrew's reply. I'll go back and read it.

Thanks again everyone for your input. It is appreciated.

Oh, my. Andrew did a very thorough reply, and yes, you need to read it.

Hi Andrew,

Somehow I missed your reply and only just saw it after Bob brought it to my attention. Thank you for taking the time to reply. Using BiaB as a VST in my DAW works really well too. I'm better at editing tracks in it. Less of a learning curve if you know what I mean. The sound quality of the RealTracks that I've tried so far are excellent when working with them in my DAW.

Thanks again.