how do you enter Am add9 ? - PG Music Forums

withouth the minor seventh,bottom to top.....

A-C-E-B

?

I don't think this chord is supported. You will have to choose between hearing the minor seventh with Am9, or the sixth with Am69.

70.000 features and a minor chord add9 is not supported. How ironic, and disappointing. Not everybody likes to throw in there a minor seventh...it gives a completely different sound.

obviously my remark is not directed at you.....

Thanks for the reply

BB really does need the "add" chords.

One workaround might be to try the E5/A, which should yield The A, E and B without the C. Has *almost* the same flavor.

--Mac

thanks Mac, that's what I have tried too, earlier....but with E5/ A, BB gives a G sharp, which is even worse, lol

well, we try....

The chosen style may throw the 3rd of E in there, I've noticed that...

Am/B works, if you can tolerate the 9 in the bass.

John

I have found that if I enter say a Cadd9, it accepts it but notates it as C2. I just tried it with a minor but it did not take it.

Quote:

Am/B works, if you can tolerate the 9 in the bass.

John

I have very strong doubts about that. A 9th in the bass is not something that I throw in there without very good reason....a dissonance in the bass changes the chord even more than the same dissonance in the upper parts

Quote:

The chosen style may throw the 3rd of E in there, I've noticed that...

so it depends on the styles, as well ? for example, if I want just minor and major triads without any extensions whatsoever UNLESS i enter seventh chords, etc, would I be better off with a Folk style rather than a Funk style in order for me not to have these chord problems?

I'll try that....

I also remember that there was another chord embellishment option other than the main one (the one found by right-clicking and choosing Song Settings)
does anyone remembers where that other option is?

I have also tried correcting the notes manually.... for example in the style 'back street top 40' I wrote Em/B again but the bass was playing an E on the strong beat, so basically the chord sounded like a straight Em. But I moved the bass note from E to B and it stays there if I control the playback of the song by just clicking in the chord sheet window. If I click the play button, the bass reverts to the E note.

I'll try to modify the harmony in that way.....hopefully it will work

Quote:

I have also tried correcting the notes manually.... for example in the style 'back street top 40' I wrote Em/B again but the bass was playing an E on the strong beat, so basically the chord sounded like a straight Em. But I moved the bass note from E to B and it stays there if I control the playback of the song by just clicking in the chord sheet window. If I click the play button, the bass reverts to the E note.

I'll try to modify the harmony in that way.....hopefully it will work

That is because hitting Play *regenerates* the song in BB.

The only tracks that we can change and stay static are events on the Melody or Soloist tracks. (and Audio). All others will be regenerated by the Style file when you hit Play, thus any manual edits get overwritten.

If you have ber 2010, you can use the FREEZE option to keep that track as you changed it.

--Mac

Quote:

so it depends on the styles, as well ? for example, if I want just minor and major triads without any extensions whatsoever UNLESS i enter seventh chords, etc, would I be better off with a Folk style rather than a Funk style in order for me not to have these chord problems?

I've never gone through all the styles in an effort to find out which ones do and don't, but I do know that the rock styles, like Metal, etc. always play the '5' chords as just two-note events with no third, while many of the jazz, soul, etc. oriented styles do indeed insert the 3rd in there.

--Mac

Quote:

Quote:

If you have ber 2010, you can use the FREEZE option to keep that track as you changed it.

--Mac

yes I just got the v2010 yesterday. I'll try the Freeze function too ,Mac. Do you remember that other chord option? I think it was called something like 'pop chords or jazz chords', but I can't find it.

Under the Edit menu is "Jazz Up" or "Jazz Down" the chords

But that has mostly to do with chord extensions, I think, and likely would not remove a 3rd inserted into a 5 powerchord by the style file, since the 3rd is not a chord extension.

--Mac

Quote:

Under the Edit menu is "Jazz Up" or "Jazz Down" the chords

But that has mostly to do with chord extensions, I think, and likely would not remove a 3rd inserted into a 5 powerchord by the style file, since the 3rd is not a chord extension.

--Mac

what I am trying to do is not to remove a third to get a powerchord, basically I was writing that chord in that weird ' E5 / A' way hoping to get a minor add9 chord. I don't even remember why we got into all this E5/A business!

anyways, yes that 'Jazz down' option, I have been killing myself trying to find it, ah ah
I could not remember where that one option was. It's still a great help as I write extensions only if they are 'prepared' by the previous chord, the traditional classical way. So this option will be of greatly help, I remember I used it all the time but now it has been a while since I wasn't using BB, so for the life of me I could not remember.

I am selecting styles more carefully now

Thanks Mac

these little things about the minor add9 chord etc, don't undervalue the program ,though, BB 2010 is still a monster program, well worth having. The Realtracks are light-years ahead of the midi sounds generated by the VSC in my old 2007 version. And with the Freeze addition making changes is not much slower than with the old MIDI generated tracks.

Band in a Box ? No joke ,now it really is one

Yes the other main thing about real drums and tracks for me is the more realistic phrase lengths and fills.

I would say though that having a really good synth and drum add-on like XLN addictive drums with it's high end midi resolution and miking really puts midi in a differernt light.

You also have to remember that BIAB's midi resolution is quite low and only allows for two bar patterns that aren't allways strung together in a way that's entirely true- to- life.

This can be modified by setting up styles with pattern chains lasting 8 bars which is good but it would be great to have more than one dedicated pattern chain available in any one instrument.

Its a telling point about the way the program is often used that a lot of people will have no idea or interest in what i'm talking about in that last point.

My feeling is that if people are intrerested in making the vast majority of the existing styles work better then perhaps they ought to ask for more midi capability.

Regards

Alan

Mac mentioned the "Jazz Down" feature that is helpful. I also believe there is a song setting to eliminate "chord embellishments" for the song so that chord you enter are not substituted with "jazzed up" chords right from pressing Play. I find this useful, especially when I am using a style that I like in a way that it might not have been intended; e.g., blues styles without going heavy on the sevenths.

Alan, I agree about using a very good synth with BB, infact I hope to understand how I can setup my Kontakt 3 with the program. I could use some really nice sax patches for the 'thru' channel. Tried already but without success, do you know of some links where I can learn more?

Your other observations are no doubt interesting, especially what you said about what BB does with 2-bar phrases. Another thing I don't quite like about it, i's the 16 tracks sequencer....never been able to figure it out. It would be nice to have some simple but effective sequencer with all the tracks clearly labeled out and with a simple but traditional mixer. I have always found the at type of sequencer really productive

'' I have always found the at type of sequencer really productive ''

this freaking keyboard plays up.

I meant ' that type of sequencer'

the 'at' type of sequencer must be some innovative one that we have not yet heard of....

Maybe it ran on the old IBM AT.

And handled a whopping 16 tracks of very cheezy MIDI via DOS commands...

--Mac

Quote:

Alan, I agree about using a very good synth with BB, infact I hope to understand how I can setup my Kontakt 3 with the program. I could use some really nice sax patches for the 'thru' channel.

It's a good thought but that will frustrate you too. The problem is all of those big sampler programs like Kontakt, Sampletank etc, are not GM compatible. That means that on one hand yes you can set them up to work with Biab but you have to go in and assign each midi instrument every time you want to do a different song or make changes to an existing one. That gets old real fast. A basic GM synth like the VSC, Forte or a hardware module like the Ketron are true plug and play. Whatever instruments Biab wants to use are called up instantly, no problem. This is where the old Catch 22 comes in, live with the GM sounds or spend an inordinate amount of time setting up a nice sampler for each tune manually.
The other thing is Biab only has one midi output port so you can only use one synth at a time. You can't for example use the Forte for the backing band but use Kontakt for the sax soloist. That is one of the big reasons Real Band was developed. 32 midi output ports plus it does almost everything Biab does.

Bob

Quote:

Maybe it ran on the old IBM AT.

--Mac

LOL

hi Jazzmammal, yes I see what you mean about Kontakt and no GM compatibility. I remember I started investigating this a few years ago with Kontakt 2 and then gave up.....as you said, it was frustrating and I gave up. This tech stuff can really suck all your music time if not careful, as you well know

I also have a killer sounding sample library from Eastwest called Goliath, it apparently has a GM bank but it's still not GM compatible , so what's the use.....unless it's GM compatible, using that with BB would be very impractical and time consuming.

The single midi port in BB is really not enough, but thanks for the suggestion about Realband, I did not know about this difference about the midi ports and I think I could put RB to good use.

Check out RB for sure, it's my main go to program now. When I said it does almost what Biab does, that's true. As far as loading a song or creating a new Biab song, it works exactly the same. What's missing are the midi soloists (the Real Tracks soloists work fine), the soundtrack and the ability to put in 1st/2nd endings, tags, coda's etc to create a fake book type chart. Still, for pure music creating it's identical to Biab with 48 tracks, all the midi output ports, much better midi/audio editing and mastering.

Bob

I'll definitely start using Realband. I did check out the very first versions a while ago but I did run into a problem and didn't take my time with it. The one that comes with BB 2010 seems much improved overall. The idea to have a BB with a nice 16 track sequencer is really what I am looking for. Thanks