Following the SongMasterPro thread, there are issues with importing and exporting MusicXML to an from various programs. I have to say thet that doesn't surprise me at all, because MusicXML is pretty convoluted (IMHO) due at least in part to trying to merge both music markup and the convolutions of MIDI into one structure.
The question & thoughts...
Out of curiosity, has anyone tried something like the xml tidy program on this and does it help? If not, I may explore and see if it does.
I tried it quickly once, but the MusicXML I tried points for the DTD to www.musicxml.org (404), whilst I think it should now point to w3.org, so then I just left it.
I frequently use tidy to sanitise HTML and some XML, but have yet to try it in earnest on MusicXML. It may just report lots of non-compliances
Edit: The "Hello, World" example on W3 points to musicxml.org, so maybe it's still just broken.
Edit 2: Apparently it doesn't have to resolve, "it's just a string". Tidy presently doesn't recognise it. That said, the schema for MusicXML 3.1 "contains an invalid "<xs:import" URI that needed patching in 2020, and MusicXML 4.0 needs exactly the same patch today. The Musescore file a parsed with xmllint validates correctly.
Last edited by Gordon Scott; 04/03/2403:41 AM.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
I don't know if the full Music XML schema has been published in one consolidated location, so all of the declarations, attributes and tags etc could be 'learned' by parsing it through an application.
I agree that trying to develop a markup language capable of combining so many different music disciplines into one system, is probably challenging.
I'm presuming that 'tidy' and 'xmllint' are Linux items. They sure sound like they are.
Bottom line is that of course it's important that the Music XML support in BIAB works correctly.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Professional & Windows 11, Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors
I'm presuming that 'tidy' and 'xmllint' are Linux items. They sure sound like they are.
That hadn't occurred to me. Tidy is W3C and originally checked/tidied only HTML. It's available on pretty much every platform. xmllint is derived from the concept of the lint program originally used to verify C programs, but later derivatives now used to verify many different languages.
As I use them, they are both command-line programs, so maybe will not have been known to put GUI users. xmllint may be a unix/linux tool, though there are Windows versions around. I know not how well they work. In principle they're both pretty much text-processing only, though xmllint may want to open schema files from the Internet.
IIRC there's a GUI Lint, but I find the command line version quicker to use than I imagine a GUI would be. There's an option for it in VisualStudio.
In principle the schema is publicly accessible and should be on musicxml.org or w3.org. It can be downloaded from the latter and should(!) be accessible from either or both, but presently may not be. I suspect most parsers and builders have local copies for performance and robustness. It's supposed to be accessible at the URI in the DOCTYPE statement, but that's musicxml.org/dtds/partwise.dtd and it's not there. partwise.dtd is also now deprecated. (See how messy this all is?).
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Professional & Windows 11, Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors
Gordon, thanks for all your work on this. I do intend to get into it with some depth using the programs I have. I was very disappointed there wasn't seamless reading of the complete chord info from Song Master Pro.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
One would like to think that's definitive, but that's exactly the same tutorial with the "Hello, World" example referring to the broken musicxml.org for the deprecated musicxml.dtd. Sigh.
Originally Posted by Matt Finley
I was very disappointed there wasn't seamless reading of the complete chord info from Song Master Pro.
Yes it's a shame. It's very easy to generate faulty XML, though, and it's very easy to parse some XML successfully and other XML wrongly.
I haven't done much work yet; I seem to have spent much of my time trying to find out precisely how/where one should access the schema. What tools do you use, please?
I was following the SongMasterPro thread because I was thinking to get it, even though it seems to go rather excessive when identifying chords in jazz. I guess I should just do it.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
I use several programs. I'll give more detail when I have more time, but I just now ran a quick test. I exported a big band score to Music XML from Presonus Notion 6, my notation program. BIAB imported only the root and, where present, the root and the slash root. No major, minor, 7, etc nor upper extensions.
Musescore 4 imported the same file and gave me all the correct chords. There was one annoying error: if there were two chords per measure, Musescore showed them both in the first beat, one above the other. But I could at least see the right chords and fix them into the correct place.
So, just from this dead simple 30-second test, I know there is at least one serious problem importing Music XML into BIAB.
By the way, I said this in some thread on the subject, but I've found Musescore to be the most helpful in reading Music XML. Some programs just crash if there is an error in the code. Musescore acts like a compiler; and it will give you an error message where one is detected.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
I had to experiment with the BIAB load special settings: ”BB song bar offset” and ”Number of bars in XML to skip” in order for the chords to align correctly in BIAB. It seems to depend on if there is a non complete bar at the beginning of the song. The setting that worked for me was ”BB song bar offset=2”, ”Number of bars in XML to skip=1” and the first bar was only 1 beat (in the original song from SongMaster Pro via MuseScore). The file that I tested had chords spread over various beats 1,2,3,4 and they seemed to align correctly. It will miss the first bar with only one beat.
---EDIT It seems to work fine with the default settings as well ie ”BB song bar offset=2”, ”Number of bars in XML to skip=0”. Only thing is that the 3 first beats will get an C chord since my song only begin with one beat in the first bar.
Last edited by shlind; 04/04/2402:40 AM.
BIAB 2026, Studio One 7 Pro, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
Yes all chord extensions m, sus, 7, etc. But this was after I imported the SongMaster Pro MusicXML file into MuseScore and within there I copied it over again to a new empty score in MuseScore and from there I exported it as a new MusicXML which I then loaded into BIAB it worked fine. But I had to copy over the imported score into a new score and from there export a new MusicXML (see posting in SongMaster Pro thread).
Yes all chord extensions m, sus, 7, etc. But this was after I imported the SongMaster Pro MusicXML file into MuseScore and within there I copied it over again to a new empty score in MuseScore and from there I exported it as a new MusicXML which I then loaded into BIAB it worked fine. But I had to copy over the imported score into a new score and from there export a new MusicXML (see posting in SongMaster Pro thread).
Yes it is heavy! I got it to 5 steps (ie 3 extra steps compared from importing it directly into BIAB). Export from SongMaster Pro, Import to MuseScore, Copy score to new score within MuseScore, Export from MuseScore, Import into BIAB (it might be faster to type the chords in manually). The screen shots were only to show that it works loading an MusicXML into BIAB if the file is in a specific format (But it might be useful when trying to analyze what is going wrong when importing to BIAB, it is quite easy to compare the two XML files and see what differs from the one that is working compared to the one that is not working).
BIAB 2026, Studio One 7 Pro, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®
With your version 2026 for Windows Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!
This Free Bonus PAK includes:
The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK:
-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
Android Band-in-a-Box® App (included)
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Join Tobin as he takes you on a tour of the new user interface in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®! This modern GUI redesign offers a sleek new look with updated toolbars, refreshed windows, and a smoother workflow. The brand-new side toolbar puts track selection, the MultiPicker Library, and other essential tools right at your fingertips. Plus, our upgraded Multi-View lets you layer multiple windows without overlap, giving you a highly flexible workspace. Many windows—including Tracks, Piano Roll, and more—have been redesigned for improved usability and a cleaner, more intuitive interface, and more!
Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Windows Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Windows & Mac Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
Here’s just a small sampling of what you can look forward to in XPro Styles PAK 10: Soft indie folk worship songs, bumpin’ country boogies, gospel praise breaks, hard rockin’ pop, funky disco grooves, smooth Latin jazz pop, bossa nova fusion, western swing, alternative hip-hop, cool country funk, and much more!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 10 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Introducing Xtra Styles PAK 21 – Now Available for Windows Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Windows & Mac Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We're excited to bring you our latest Xtra Styles PAK installment—the all new Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher)!
Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 21 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 21 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
Here’s just a small sampling of what you can look forward to in XPro Styles PAK 10: Soft indie folk worship songs, bumpin’ country boogies, gospel praise breaks, hard rockin’ pop, funky disco grooves, smooth Latin jazz pop, bossa nova fusion, western swing, alternative hip-hop, cool country funk, and much more!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 10 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Introducing Xtra Styles PAK 21 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We're excited to bring you our latest Xtra Styles PAK installment—the all new Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher)!
Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 21 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 21 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
One of our representatives will be happy to help you over the phone. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday, and 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST Saturday. We are closed Sunday. You can also send us your questions via email.
One of our representatives will be happy to help you on our Live Chat or by email. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday; 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST (GMT -8) Saturday; Closed Sunday.
The Musescore file a parsed with xmllint validates correctly.
Dansk
Deutsch - Windows
Español
Français - Windows
Italiano - Windows
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Svenskt
русский
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Korean