Originally Posted by Matt Finley
I had a nice exchange with the developer.
...
He asked what format an exported chord chart should be if he added that feature. I told him I would get back to him, because I didn’t remember if BIAB accepts chord charts or that’s something I read in the Wishlist.
...
I was thinking about this. I'm not aware of a standard exchange protocol for chord charts. If the primary purpose of this is for BiaB users get chords identified by SongMaster in an existing music file and then get them into BiaB as easily as possible, maybe something along the lines of a text file (easier to create than a PDF or Music XML file) structured like a BiaB song sheet (assumes 4 bars per line):

Key: Xx
Tempo: nnn
Bar:Beat:Chord, Bar:Beat:Chord, etc.

Example: a 12 bar blues in C

Key: C
Tempo: 80
Time Sig: 4/4
1:1:C, 2:1:C, 3:1:C, 4:1:C
5:1:F, 6:1:F, 7:1:C, 8:1:C
9:1:G, 10:1:F, 11:1:C, 12:1:G

For a bar with a chord on beats 2, 3 or 4, you would just note the beat in the second digit.

More likely, you could also do something like the following, where only chord changes are noted (again, the same 12 bar blues progression)

Key:C
Tempo: 80
Time Sig: 4/4
1:1:C
5:1:F, 7:1:C
9:1:G, 10:1:F, 11:1:C, 12:1:G

This is less cluttered and makes it obvious which bars in BiaB need chord entries.

I would open the chord.txt file in one window next to the BiaB window and manually enter the chords in BiaB.

One question is: what is the bar:beat resolution for chord change detection in SongMaster. Four beats per bar for a 3/4 or 4/4 time sig? Two beats for a 2/2? Eight for a 6/8? Or is it higher than that, like 8 for a 4/4 time sig. Versus BiaB pushes and microchords.

You could also use the text file to enter chords into any DAW that has a chord track, like Studio One. I would still like the idea of 4 bars per line to limit the width of the text file window and avoid any potential need to scroll horizontally.

Thoughts?

Last edited by TheMaartian; 10/17/23 07:30 AM.
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