PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Song Master Pro

This intrigued me as I didn't know of a method.
I did find this, on th'InterWeb though.
The FF introduces metadata,
the 01 is "text event",
len is the number of characters payload and
the rest is the text string. I imagine the " marks are not actually part of the string.

At present I have absolutely no idea if this is a universal convention.

How about abc text files? will they work?
Biab can export and import chords from abc files. However I don't know if it covers all details needed (variations of chords, time positions within the bar etc). It is very easy to test, populate biab with chords on the finest level and with the most complicated chords available then save special abc. And redo with open special abc etc, Also open and modify the text file to see if the changes loads correctly. But maybe it is very buggy, there were a lot of problems importing abc files when it was launched some years ago so I stopped using it.

No the chord names are not transferred to any other program. Currently in my workflow once the Chord Names have been added to the Bar Markers, to allow me to visually see the chord names in the timeline, there is nothing else they can do. They are only text and while Reaper does allow me to list in table form these text markers: by (Chord name - Bar Number) I don't see a way to print them.

Back to the original topic, I had a project today that caused me to use and learn much more about Song Master Pro, and I can say I am far more impressed with it than before.

Song Master Pro identified the chords better than any other resource I have ever used, and I've tried a lot. This may be the first program I would trust with the task.

It's a small thing, but so valuable, to have the tempo identified with accuracy to the tenth of a BPM. The song I was studying turned out to be a steady 115.2 bpm. Why they recorded or released it like that, I have no clue, but it means that I cannot get BIAB rendered tracks to match it exactly. At least with this knowledge, I can make precise tempo adjustments in my DAW. [I really wish BIAB would support non-integer tempos; it's something I've requested for several years and if nothing else, it would make it possible to change tempos within a bar smoothly.]

The first thing I had to do was pitch shift the song, into the key I wanted to perform it on horn. I have several programs that do this, but it's nice to stay in the same tool awhile. Not only does it adjust the pitch in terms of half-steps, but also in cents. I raised the pitch 13 cents to where I wanted it. [Some out there will claim that you can't hear such small adjustments, but I can, and I've proven it to disbelieving engineers].

I then used the Mix, Extract Stems. It works very well, and I think has more power than any of the Spleeter variations. This made .WAV files for Drums, Bass, Piano, Guitar, and what they call The Rest for sounds other than those named. Each of these can be saved, muted or soloed, and adjusted by volume. This may be the most helpful tool I've ever used to decipher a song. [Then BIAB can take over.]

I had some trouble with extracting MIDI and making use of it, but it does appear it can be done once I figure out a couple of nuances. For example, I can take an audio bass, turn it into MIDI, move it to a DAW, and assign a Bass (or other) virtual instrument. I can also view that MIDI in music notation form in my DAW or in my dedicated notation program (as Mario mentioned).

We have all grown up with BIAB having to explain to new users how MIDI is not Audio, and Audio is not MIDI.

But the world is changing.

ps I love the GUI. Everything is where I would have guessed. What a pleasure.

Thanks for paving the way Matt. This sounds interesting. I am interested in getting stems. I may give it a try.

Sound interesting. I usually have to learn entire repertoires quickly, and I've used Transcribe! as a transcribing aid for years. I also bought Decoda, from Zplane, but it has many limitations and it looks like won't be further developed.

The lack of a chord chart export feature in Songmaster pro is an important con for me, though. On the other hand, how does it manage tempo and time signature changes?

Any news on the "exporting chords" feature?

I've just tried the demo. It handles tempo changes and time signature changes very well.

Also, really intuitive and smooth, and it's REALLY good figuring out the chords. Very impressed, so far.

Transcribe: yes. I use this often, but today I only had it open so I could play a note on the piano keyboard. I didn’t need any other functions.

ps the Stems in Song Master Pro include a Vocal track. I didn’t list it because my song had no vocals.

I finally decided to buy the program after trying the demo for a while, I've tried (and used) several similar programs in the past and this is, by far, the best one, so thanks for bringing it here.

I contacted the developer about this and other FR, and he said me that he had just iust implemented the option to view a song as a song sheet (similar to a lead sheet format) as well as exporting it as a professional looking pdf. Both features will be in the next update

He also said that he is going to start working on an additional export feature (probably MusicXML) immediately.

Great.

That’s great news. Thanks!

And yes, the developer is very accommodating and reachable.

there is a new player involved in this...

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=799238#Post799238

Not surprised. They seem to be coming fast and furious now. Thanks for the tip.

Free and runs from your computer, not the cloud. How neat is that?! Thanks for sharing the news DrDan. If I may ask, how did you find out about the Audacity AI plugins?

The spleeter algorithm, used in most of those programs and webs has always been open source and free to use:
https://github.com/deezer/spleeter

There's also a graphical implementation for windows, really easy to use and also 100% free:
https://makenweb.com/SpleeterGUI

But Song Master goes much further than that, is the perfect program for working musicians who need to learn / transcribe lots of songs quickly, in the most efficient way.

BIAB puts the chord (spelling in as a Marker field)
Reaper can read the markers and put them in the marker field.

Studio One has to process imported MIDI notes or Audio to recognized chord spelling and put them in the Chord track. It can then drive MIDI and/or Audio track tuning via the chord track.

IFAIK Cubase also can recognize chord spelling from MIDI data or Audio data to load into its chord track for use with MIDI tracks.

IFAIK Cakewalk and Logic currently do not have chord tracks.

Music XML can spell 33 types per chord for chord charts.
So, I would say the best options for now is:
Options 1: Output a MIDI file:
- MIDI block chords for systems that recognize the chords +
- Chord names as a marker in the MIDI file for systems that recognize the markers and put them in a marker track
Option 2: Output a Music XML file:
- Music XML if you're workflow involves notation.

A new version has just been released, Iv'e been using the beta version for the last weeks and the new features are really impressive:
https://aurallysound.com/pages/release-notes-pro

Simply put, it's the perfect transcribing assistant and song learning app out there.

John, the developer, is also very open minded to new suggestions and appreciates bug reports. In fact, several of the ideas on this thread (and many more) have been implemented on the new version.

Hot Damn, this is really good news. I have kept my eye on this and am now even more excited to see the updates. With these revisions this app is distinquishing itseft from others which makes the cost feasible. Thanks for the follow up here.

Dan

Great news.
I just made a quick test for one song.
It seems that Biab imports the overall chords and structure ok I had to set the BB song bar offset to 1 in the XML import menu (default was 2).

I just made a very quick test with one single song it seems to get the "basic" chords in but missing the qualifier ie Bm comes in as B and G7 as G etc, but I have not analyzed it in detail. It looks like it is in the import function, if I open the XML with MuseScore4 the chord qualifiers are shown there.

Looks like a powerful update. You are correct, the developer listens. I suggested exporting the tempo map, and here it is.

My browser flagged the download because not many have yet downloaded it.

I did a double-take with I saw the update is only 112 MB. That's less than one RealTrack.