does BIAB play different chords if you enter Adim and Adim7? And as noted above you can change your preferences. what sounds right? which is all that matters. luckily its not something that arises for three chord wonders like me!
oh, and with midi you can make any chord you like as long as you freeze the track and edit the notes.
does BIAB play different chords if you enter Adim and Adim7? And as noted above you can change your preferences. what sounds right?
Manual says:
"There are two types of diminished chords, diminished triads (Cdim5) and diminished 7ths (Cdim7). [A preferences setting] controls if Cdim will represent Cdim5 or Cdim7."
so it still comes down to which sounds right..........and if you have the choice you can decide. mind you with RealTracks its probably a bit academic anyway - you get what was played.
OK, I fired up BIAB and tried stuff, and this is what that display setting does:
If you say "dim = dim7", and you type dim5, it will be display as dim5 and dim7 will display as dim.
If you say "dim = dim5", and you type dim5, it will be display as dim and dim7 will display as dim7.
So if you have a mixture of these chords, toggling the setting will show either dims and dim7s, or dim5s and dims; you cannot see both dim5 and dim7 chords labelled as such, you have to choose.
If you prefer to see your four-note diminished chords labelled as dim7s, you have to say "dim = dim5" or BIAB will obnoxiously hide any 7s you type in. But then, if you just type "dim" you get a dim5.
(Seems to me they could have just let you use either dim or dim7 as synonyms for dim7, and required the 5 for dim5, but I guess fans of dim5s would object, so we get this wonderful flexibility.)
I believe a dim chord is by definition a dim5 (and a flatted 5 at that). Here's the thing: I have never seen 'dim5' anywhere outside of BIAB.
If you want a dim7, you have to write dim7. So in my opinion the correct way to set it in BIAB display settings is to say dim=dim5. It looks like you agree.
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I believe a dim chord is by definition a dim5 (and a flatted 5 at that). Here's the thing: I have never seen 'dim5' anywhere outside of BIAB. If you want a dim7, you have to write dim7. So in my opinion the correct way to set it in BIAB display settings is to say dim=dim5. It looks like you agree.
I guess. It certainly is a confusing thing to have to remember, and I would really rather not have preferences like that.
I would let "dim" mean "diminished triad", with "dim7" meaning the obvious and "dim5" eliminated. This may inconvenience those who say "diminished" to refer to 4-note chords and so would prefer to use "dim" for them, but so it goes. Courting this type of confusion to try to please everyone is nuts.
When we consider adding the seventh to the dim triad, we have both a 1 b3 b5 b7 ( generally named minor7b5 or half diminished) as well as a 1 b3 b5 bb7, the full diminished chord. This is what should be distinguished in this discussion. And after all these years here, I still don't get how BIAB handles these.
The manuals are surprisingly undefinitive, but if I bring up Chord Builder and click the little dot, this menu pops up, showing that BIAB regards dim7 as meaning fully diminished.
I just ran a number of experiments using different MIDI styles and each and every style correctly played and notated Cdim, Cdim7, and Cm7b5. I inputted the chords as Cdim, Cdim7, and Cm7b5. So it appears as the chords are correct on the MIDI side of BiaB.
I surmise that on the RT side what you get is what the performer played. I have played a dim7 chord in place of the sheet music's dim chord many times, as long as it doesn't interfere with the melody.
Note that I have never seen a dim5 anywhere, but that may be because I input all of my chords myself. YMMV
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I was just about to talk about the RT's and chords. There was a long discussion about why doesn't Biab play exactly correct chords and of course the person was mostly using RT instruments. I did a test using a piano midi song and threw every complex chord that was mentioned and MIDI played each one perfectly and even used different voicings in different parts of the chart according to the style. The RT's? Not so much and I think it's because of the file size restriction.
Each separate chord has to be recorded as audio and if you include every possible chord extension it would probably triple or even quadruple a chording instruments RT file size. The reason is it's not just the chord by itself as a quarter note hold or whatever. It will be part of a 2-4 bar phrase and those would really add up.
As a guitar player I have always played dim or dim7 the same way and depending on where I am on the neck it could be any of the 4 "names" possible (since they are all the same chord anyway and the 4 note version). Usually depends on what is before and after it which decides how I want to play it if I am looking for the ascending or descending bass line or whatever.
Last edited by etcjoe; 11/30/2102:42 AM.
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