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DISCUSSION OF USER DEFINED CUSTOM BIAB CHORDS - NEW FEATURE IDEA or SILLY ?
reason for the post. i was busy on a new song idea this week, and this possible feature popped into my head.
over the years ive noticed certain users wishing to use a chord structure with a series of notes outside of biab's recognised set list of chords and extensions etc.
now i DO realise one could use notation / piano roll...but i got to thinking (and i dont claim to be a chord afficionado) it might be nice if a biab user entering chords in the biab chord sheet could also call on maybe up to 5 user defined chords.
lets call them "X CHORDS". user defined chords.
heres how it might work.
1. user defines notes in up to 5 X chords. X1, X2, X3, X4,X5 which biab stores.
2. in the chord sheet (for midi) when the user enters one of the X chords biab recognises it from the defined user list of notes in that chord , and voila plays those notes in the X chord for the instrument in question.
eg D,X3 or A,X2 kind of idea. these X chords entered in the chord sheet would of course show up in notation / piano roll etc. would this make things easier for certain users in useing special chord sets ?
i dont see how it might work for RT's as i dont know the internal workings of biab.
silly idea or not ?
best
om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 09/08/21 04:34 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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Perhaps an item for the Wish List section?
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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This would be possible for MIDI with the proper programming.
There is already a way to make a new shortcut for existing chords.
In RealTracks, this would not work unless the chord were already defined and artists played on it, or an alias was made to an existing chord.
Except for a few chords we’ve reported, most are supported in BIAB. Would you mind giving us an example of what you want?
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; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt.
i dont claim to be a chord uber theorist...but for newbies another usefull feature in biab might be a user enters the notes in a chord and THEN biab id's the chord.
to save time trolling thru the chord builder.
heres why i suggest this also. sometimes i might spend some time looking in the chord builder and trolling through it to find the chord that best matches the notes in my mind.
lets take the chord notes for example...
F# + B + E + A
(which i'm sure your very familiar with. )
ie a nice chord one might put at the end of a song. where i come from we used to call this a 22nd chord.
dont know why. as i said i'm no uber theorist.
but..wouldnt it be nice to enter these notes into biab, and thus biab responds with its a such and such in the chord builder. this could save lots of time trolling thru the chord builder and extensions.
and would perhaps speed up , for newbies, the chord entry process in the biab chord sheet.
i would like to see this feature in addition to what i posted in my first post.
hope i make some sense.
now shoot me down..lol. cos your way better at this than i.
best
oldmuso
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 09/08/21 12:18 PM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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Do you have the Windows version of BIAB? If so, go to Windows menu, MIDI Chord Detection. Play the notes on your MIDI keyboard and BIAB will tell you the chord, giving you up to four choices in case it’s ambiguous.
This is perhaps my favorite function in BIAB, and it appears most users don’t seem to know about it.
For your example, BIAB calls it F#m11. There's a lesser chance it is a B4/F#. I don't particularly like either name, but then it's just all ascending fourths with F# in the root. The point is, unless it simply cannot form a chord in any traditional way out of the notes you feed it, BIAB will give you some good suggestions. I use this all the time doing transcriptions.
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; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt.
but midi chord detect assumes a midi kbd.
if one is away from home base with no kbd...
a problem. eg in a hotel with a laptop only and biab.
roughing out a song.
thus i feel it would be usefull for both features.
ie user defined chords for the chord sheet and also entering chord notes and biab telling the user what chord to enter in chord sheet as a result.
btw in some circles i might be wrong f#m11 also includes a c# ?
the chord i cited had no c#...
what is interesting is even the net sites seem to disagree on
notes in certain chord shapes it seems.lol
best/respect
om
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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And a G# too. The ninth is implied in an 11th chord.
Four notes in ascending fourths is a pleasing sound but is not a traditionally-constructed chord in Western theory. I’m actually surprised BIAB attempted to name it.
By the way, MIDI Chord Detection does allow you to choose one of its recommendations and enter it into the chord sheet with a single keystroke.
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; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt.
but midi chord detect assumes a midi kbd.
if one is away from home base with no kbd...
a problem. eg in a hotel with a laptop only and biab.
roughing out a song.
................
om
Maybe this will help: https://www.scales-chords.com/chord-finder-guitar-piano.php?notes=E;F%23;A;B&chords=&scales=
Last edited by MarioD; 09/08/21 02:08 PM.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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thanks mario. v interesting.
i'm gonna put a wish list item in also.
best
om
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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It does sound like an interesting idea to have chord detection with a software input instead of a MIDI hardware input. We will pass this along to the development team for consideration.
Best,
Chantelle
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thanks mario. v interesting.
i'm gonna put a wish list item in also.
best
om I just +1 on your wish list. While reading it I realized that you figure out notes on your guitar so here is a couple of guitar programs that I use. One is like the piano one but for guitar because as you know we can't play many full jazz chords on 6 strings. https://www.oolimo.com/guitarchords/findhttps://www.oolimo.com/guitarchords/analyzeI hope these help.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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This may give some ideas: Full Screen Pic
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This might have already been mentioned previously, but RealTracks are pre-recorded and therefore their available chords they'll recognize predefined by what the artist has played, so there wouldn't be an easy way to retroactively add in the custom chords, but for MIDI this is something that could be possible!
Cheers,
Ember
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This would be possible for MIDI with the proper programming.
There is already a way to make a new shortcut for existing chords.
In RealTracks, this would not work unless the chord were already defined and artists played on it, or an alias was made to an existing chord.
Except for a few chords we’ve reported, most are supported in BIAB. Would you mind giving us an example of what you want?
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; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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With all the MidiSuperTracks you should be able to snap them to any chord/scale other than what they were recorded to. With RapidComposer I can drop a MidiSuperTrack phrase into it and it will refit it to any chord/scale, it's high time Biab can be made to do this along with having an option to snap notes in the Piano Roll to chord/scale marked by colors.
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You are sooo right,…Not about chords not being in the list, because all possible chords are in the list. (Save, maybe some chords only used by Debussy or Dave Liebman) But… Today, midi styles play only 7 different chord types (for the bass, that is, for piano, maybe 10). For the real styles it’s sometimes better, sometimes worse. My way of describing it. Band in a box can DISPLAY all chord types, but can only PLAY the basic chord types, largely ignoring alterations or playing them wrongly.  Of course, the algorithm tries to enhance or embellish. Cause most people just write chords that don’t define the proper harmony. They write C7, where C7#11 is required. It’s a trade-off. As users, we should write the chords properly and pgmusic should have their algorithm fixed so chords are played correctly. If they fixed that, you would be happier. Me too.
Biab, Kontakt, Sampletank and lots of nice libraries, from Fluffy audio to Abbey Road drums. Check out these great contemporary Jazz Styles: www.jazzstylezz.com
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A few random related thoughts:
I don't know why the program sometimes does not play a certain chord, particularly an upper extension, but sometimes as simple as playing a major versus dominant seventh (horrors). My point is, I don't think it's because it cannot; I think it's because some algorithm chooses not to. And I'm not including the bass in this comment; Dzjang did excellent research on the limitations there.
If you examine what BIAB exports to Music XML, you learn a few more things. For example, you mentioned 7#11. A 7#11 and 9#11 are both exported as 9#11. For decades, 7#11 was not supported; you could not even enter it, despite its popularity in jazz fakebook charts. Now you can enter it, but it appears to be playing as 9#11.
NC is listed in pgshortc.txt but has never been supported as a keyed abbreviation for No Chord. Instead we use something like C. which works fine but messes up the printed leadsheet.
And then there is the 2 chord. A 2, add2 and add9 are all equated to a 2 chord in BIAB. Look at pgshortc.txt to see this.
In the case of Natural Arrangement, changing what I wrote makes some sense, although we have no idea what that algorithm is.
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; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I am not a Jazz cat, but I agree we should know more about the algorithms used, both for MIDI and RealTracks; when there is a discrepancy between what we entered and what is played, it should be clearly shown by the program; this is the only way to learn music properly
Bernard Rasson
BIAB Audiophile 2021, BIAB Megapak 2015 (for midi-only projects), Cakewalk, Roland XV-5080, Roland Fantom XR, Aria AC60 Nylon Strings Guitar, Almansa Spanish Guitar, Fender Stratocaster Japan, two laptops
Je parle français
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I totally agree with Matt and Bernard.
And that was the reason for this thread, I think. If you want a certain chord, like that F#min11, bass and piano should reflect that very particular choice.
A lot of “modern” jazz cats write very exact chords (Kenny Wheeler writes down every extension, as do Pat Metheny and Joshua Redman). No guess work, cause they want specific harmonies to go with the melody.
I know PGMusic could help us out here. Sure, it would limit the variation for very basic chord charts, but it would add to the experience.
In the New Real Book some standards have alternate changes (as played by Herbie Hancock or Bill Evans). Bob Norton wrote them out for Band in a Box, very detailed and professionally done. Sadly, biab can’t play them properly and you lose the possibility to experiment with harmony and reharmonizations.
Biab, Kontakt, Sampletank and lots of nice libraries, from Fluffy audio to Abbey Road drums. Check out these great contemporary Jazz Styles: www.jazzstylezz.com
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Guys, IMO this is exactly what Scaler does so well. BIAB, by way of its Styles, dictate the specific voicing (including extensions) implied by the chord/scale. This is the algorithm and as indicated, it is less than accurate. Scaler, on the other hand, will harmonize the chord/scale exactly, per instruction by the user, though triads, sevenths, ninths, 11ths and 13ths. Each chord voicing can be specifically set and played. Scaler creates the midi notes and then it is up to the user to direct the midi to the different instruments in the band (by the way, directing the midi to the band is something BIAB is the master)
Having said that, I have to concede that this apparent limitation by BIAB does not mean much to the average user. The product has done quite well for itself and its users for decades just as it is. But yes, a few would be a bit happier if a more intelligent fix was available.
BIAB – 2026, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, Motu Audio Express 6x6 - My SoundCloud.
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