I frequently have a problem with synchronising BiaB to song generated from a midi file that want to use for backing. My creation process to Open Special and load the midi file. BiaB quite nicely generates the song chords. Since the entire song is still in midi and stored in the sequencer, I was expecting BiaB to be in step with the midi song when it was played, and it usually is if the song is in 4/4. But when I have other time signatures, I often experience this midi ‘out of sync’ with the chord sheet. When I go to the next stage of separating the tracks out I can sometimes compensate by adjusting the number of bars before starting to play but sometimes not. Any help please!
BiaB has a default option of either 3 or 4 beats per cell. That's why 4/4 works as a default.
I haven't tried this, but it's probably the first thing I'd try.
If the song I was importing was in 5/4, I'd set the BiaB sheet for 3 beats on the first bar, 2 on the second, 3 on the third, 2 on the fourth and so on.
I find, not thinking about each numbered cell as a bar or measure of music, allows you to do many things BiaB wasn't originally built to do. This especially best if you are using MIDI styles, because MIDI is just thousands of times more editable than pre-recorded audio.
Hi Jim, that doesn't work. The time signature and tempo is set to what is in the values in the midi file itself. This is why I thought BiaB would automatically be in sync. You can change the time signature aftger loading but thatdoesn't help. Why would they be out of sync?
Thank you for the suggestion, but I'm not really clear on how that helps me? Sometimes a 3/4 midi is in sync and others are not. Also, the beats per bar is a bar setting so evvery bar would need to be set individually.
I don't think this is how BIAB works. Yes. BIAB will capture the chords. And it will caputure the midi content of each track within a midi file. But when it plays BIAB creates new content in accordance with the STYLE. It does not "play along" with a midi file from an external source. So you will not be able to "synch" the BIAB generated RTs and/or Midi tracks with the Midi File tracks. And if there is some "workaround" to make it all synch (which I assume there is by freezing utility tracks) it will sound like crap.
BIAB – 2025, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, Motu Audio Express 6x6 - My SoundCloud (Tip: No need to create a SC account to hear music - just hit ESC ).
Another thing to consider is that the MIDI file may not necessarily have been created to align to beats and bars, time signatures an tempos. This can happen, for example, when live recording the different parts without a click track (think just turning on record and start playing the parts). I also have some older MIDIs where the originator runs the file through an app that randomizes the beats and bars to intentionally not align, but still sound properly when played back (a sort of copy protection mechanism).
John
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Ma\ybe a long shot but open the original mdi file in RealBand and see if that works when you want to edit and adjust volmes.. You can still generate RTs, new midi tracks and record.then export the project to whatever you use for backing tracks or jsut play i in RB.
Bob’s suggestion of RealBand is better odds than a long shot, because it supports non-integer tempos. If it’s a free-form tempo like John suggested it could be, I really don’t know what to do.
This has nothing to do with tempos or time signatures, but there’s a small point from Dan that I’m going to be picky about because it’s often misrepresented. I know he knows this: BIAB does not ‘capture’ the chords from an imported MIDI file. The MIDI standard doesn’t include chords (even the new MIDI 2.0) so there is nothing to capture. Instead, BIAB interprets what the chords are from reading the notes. It does a pretty good job of this in my experience, until you get into complex jazz chords with slash roots where even human transcribers could have arguments about the choice of chord. This omission in MIDI is one reason that transferring a song as Music XML often works better. It has the actual chord spelling (and includes text elements too). And the time signatures and tempo are clearly given throughout, assuming they were set in the original source.
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.
You've hit on the problem that I have with BiaB and that is the underlying way it works. The manual does not, or doesn't seem to, go into what's going on underneath the interface. In this particular case I see a midi file being interpreted by BiaB to detect the chords. The tempo and the key signature in the midi should be able to select an appropriate style to at least to start with and, when the song plays, the movement along the bars would be in time with the midi file. After all, that is all that is playing at this time. If you could explain to me what is happening in BiaB that sometimes, not always, this lock step with tempo is not the same. That way I could sort this out for myself.
I don’t know that we users can even make an attempt to explain what’s under the BIAB hood. It’s proprietary software and that’s unlikely to be something we would ever know. The best we can hope for is to get the attention of a PG Music staffer who could give you a step-by-step solution, if such exists.
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.
Well, I think the response with helpful suggestions has been great. I think, after all the time I have spent on this issue, that John Ford is probably on the right track. I will certainly look at all the suggestions that have been made. I have attached a zipped file containing some songs that work as I had expected and some that don’t. Those that do work are prepended with ‘!y’ and those that don’t are prepended with ‘!x’. I have done nothing more than Open Special > Open Midi File. There does not appear to be any settings that can alter the alignment. I would be really interested if anybody could have a look at the files and let me know their opinion. If this is a copyright issue then I apologise to the holder; I have no intention of using these files, I’ve had them for years and just searched through for examples of what I meant.
I start projects daily normally beginning with midi files for a variety of reasons and benefits and I don't recall having any synch problems off hand. Many are live midi recordings made without a click track. There have been corrupt and bad midi files over time but that's another topic and doesn't seem to be the problem. I'm anxious to review the files you've posted and appreciate you taking the time to do so.
There are several ways to get a midi file into BIAB and midi, as well as audio files, can be either opened or imported into a BIAB project with different characteristics between the two methods. The user's desired intent for the file data is the deciding factor to which method to use. I plan to look at these different methods I've mentioned and spend some time testing the files.
Just a thought ... MIDI has tempo and time-signature, but I think it may not have a indication of beat-1, so if there's an anacrusis, could that be causing the misalignment?
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 .
Another thing to consider is that the MIDI file may not necessarily have been created to align to beats and bars, time signatures an tempos. This can happen, for example, when live recording the different parts without a click track (think just turning on record and start playing the parts).
This seems to be the case - of the files Jonel posted that I checked, the ones that didn't work were all misaligned or free tempo. This is fine if you're simply playing the MIDI, but when importing it into BB or any DAW you need to manually align things.
Originally Posted by jonel
If you could explain to me what is happening in BiaB that sometimes, not always, this lock step with tempo is not the same. That way I could sort this out for myself.
Sometimes MIDI files don't have correct tempo information or time signature, or an undefined key signature. To see what information is embedded in a MIDI file, you can use an app such as MIDIYodi to inspect them. Also I've personally come across many MIDI files that are defined at 120bpm which is the "default" tempo in most DAWs, yet the actual song is a completely different tempo - any DAW, including BIAB, would have no idea whether the notes are intentionally out of time or not, therefore they'd need manual correction.
There are a couple functions in BIAB that can help with this:
If the MIDI is off by exactly a bar or multiples of bars, then "importing" the MIDI instead of "opening" the MIDI can help - importing brings up a window that will let you offset any number of bars, or add blank bars to the beginning. See the screenshot below:
If the MIDI is off by any amount that is not exactly a number of bars, then you can shift the MIDI track by a specified number of beats or ticks using the options in this menu:
<< "This seems to be the case - of the files Jonel posted that I checked, the ones that didn't work were all misaligned or free tempo. This is fine if you're simply playing the MIDI, but when importing it into BB or any DAW you need to manually align things." >>
Same here. Another possible solution is to create a tempo map using the ACW. BIAB has a feature on the Master Track in the Mixer to create a mix and open it on the Audio Channel.
Opening the ACW then has the audio wave file automatically loaded and ready to create the tempo. Normally, the chords have also been analyzed, the key set, the Style muted etc. The midi file opens imported onto the Melodist Channel. I use the normal open command (F3) for this.
The Audio File can be muted or erased once the tempo map has been created.
Sometimes MIDI files don't have correct tempo information or time signature, or an undefined key signature. To see what information is embedded in a MIDI file, you can use an app such as MIDIYodi to inspect them. Also I've personally come across many MIDI files that are defined at 120bpm which is the "default" tempo in most DAWs, yet the actual song is a completely different tempo - any DAW, including BIAB, would have no idea whether the notes are intentionally out of time or not, therefore they'd need manual correction.
FWIW, 120bpm is also he default for MIDI.
Thinking about this, if I record an SMF file on either of my keyboards, I will most likely not set up any of that stuff. Usually I'm not using tempo, key signature or time signature, I'm just recording the notes I play. I'm not sure that a key signature is even present on either ... I've cartainly never used it.
One would like to think that full MIDI songs have them set suitably, but AFAICS, nothing I record will ... yet anyway.
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 think the replies to my orginal post have been outstanding and have shone a liight on both Midi as well as its its use in BiaB. Since I posted the initial issue I have also been examining the files and I can see some the problems now. The tempo map mentioned by Charlie was of particuar interst with regards to 'Abide With Me' which is clearly a live performance suited to the occasions when it would be performed.
I thank everbody very much for bringing a lot of light to this partiular topic for me. It has helped me a lot.
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Yes. BIAB will capture the chords. And it will caputure the midi content of each track within a midi file. But when it plays BIAB creates new content in accordance with the STYLE. It does not "play along" with a midi file from an external source. So you will not be able to "synch" the BIAB generated RTs and/or Midi tracks with the Midi File tracks. And if there is some "workaround" to make it all synch (which I assume there is by freezing utility tracks) it will sound like crap. 
![[Linked Image - Only viewable when logged in]](https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=31387&filename=import midi.png)
![[Linked Image - Only viewable when logged in]](https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=31388&filename=edit melody.png)
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