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I just checked and the rendered files are. Avi. I did not choose that. That is just the way they turned out
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OK, so you are saving as a video. That is the first bit of important information we needed. So you are clicking on the Save As button and clicking on Save As Video, correct? This will save as a chord sheet video and it will be an .AVI file, which is standard video file format (contains both video and audio data).

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Which leads to this question: How to do play them outside BIAB? I just click on the errant file/song and it opened and played in what appears to be the same place as on my youtube.com studio

You need to understand that Band-in-a-Box saved an AVI file somewhere on your computer. This is a standard video file that various programs can play. Windows Media Player is a common one on windows. The first thing you need to know is where it is saved. In Band-in-a-Box, in the "Make Chord sheet video" dialog, click on Show Video. This will open a Windows Explorer window showing the video file that you saved.

The second thing you need to know is how to play the file to test it. I suggest that you close Band-in-a-Box just to make sure there isn't some conflict with audio drivers or some such thing. Now right-click on the file xxxxx.avi (but you may not see the .avi file extension if your Windows settings are to hide known file extensions) and select Open With and select Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player should open and play the video.

You need to determine if this file sounds exactly the same as the song sounds when you play it in Band-in-a-Box. It SHOULD, and if it does NOT you can ignore the Youtube completely at this point, and try to figure out why it doesn't sound the same. I.E. does it have the same "harsh" sound you've been referring to.

Andrew
PG Music Inc.