Originally Posted By: Appoggiatura

...I think the problem is when I make a 4 beat measure a two beat measure, BiaB gets rid of beats 3 & 4 instead of 1 & 2 which makes the count for the first two measures 1-2-(3)-(4), 1-2-3-4 instead of (1)-(2)-3-4, 1-2-3-4, if you understand what I mean.

What am I doing wrong???

Thanks in advance for any insight or help you can offer!!


I have some projects that start with pickup notes before the first measure. Horace Silver's Lonely Woman is my latest example. So how do I handle that?

I know that every BIAB song can have a two bar count-in from the drums. Yet all other instruments don't start playing until beat one of measure one. To get around this fact I change the song length and arrangement to treat measure 2 as the first measure/bar of the song, and use the actual first measure together with the chord settings dialog to have my melody instrument only (the other instruments rest in measure 1) play the pickup notes on say beats 3 and four as in your situation.

A rule of thumb for me is to avoid changing the number of beats in the early measures of a tune. While the software allows it and that capability helps users in projects with odd time signatures, it's too complex a manipulation for this user and hard for me to predict and control the results.

Alternatively: If my melody track is midi-based, I pull that into my DAW and add edit the midi track to add the pickup notes in the correct beats before the first measure.

This is what I do when I have pick-up notes to deal with, yet there other approaches no doubt and the experts here will chime in here soon I suspect. They always do. :-)

Bruce Hook - Soprano, Alto and Tenor Saxes
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