Hey everybody, can one sustain a chord past the end of a bar, or sustain a chord over multiple bars? Thanks.

Yes, you can. Just enter the chord with three dots (which tells BIAB to do a "hold". It will hold the chord until it sees another chord, which could be several measures later.

However, what sustains depends on the instruments sustaining. Obviously a piano will do a natural decay, and organ will continue to sustain, and a percussion instrument will only sustain as long as the hit allows.

For more information on this, look up "Rests, Shots, and Held Chords" in either the help file or the user manual.

Thanks John for the reply, I've tried leaving the bar following the held chord bar blank, but the piano cuts off when it reaches that bar, I've also tried entering the chord in the bar and adding three periods but the chord re strikes. Have read the help file and manual, but they don't say what the bar following the held bar should look like. Thanks for your time. I'll keep plugging away at it.

It may be that your sound source only sustains the piano for a few beats. Also, unfortunately, I don't believe there are defined holds for all the RealTrack instruments, so you might want to check if the piano you are using has them (you can see this in one of the columns of the RealTracks Picker, not the StylePicker).

Is this at the end of the song or the middle of the song?

If at the end of the song, BIAB has a quirk on a held chord. What you need to do is enter the held chord (using the three dots), and then where you want the hold to end, you need to enter a chord with a single dot (for a "rest"), but it can't be the same chord as the hold. I know that may screw up notation, but it is what it is. I usually just do something like:

|C... / / / | / / / / | / / / Csus.|

Other things to check if it is the end of the song:

Is the last bar of the song well beyond the held chord? This could be the Bar at End of Chorus box, or in the Tag settings if you used one.

Did you turn off the built-in ending (2 or 4-bar) in Song Settings?

Yes, what Matt said!

More here might help http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=399465#Post399465

If you use the RealChart of the piano, these are recorded on a Yamaha Acoustic/Midi piano, you will get the midi that you can manually edit the held chord to make it longer.

You can Drag the Piano track to DROP MID, drag it to a folder,
BB > File > Import Melody from MIDI file, you can mute the RealTrack piano, if you click the piano roll icon and select the M or piano button you will see the held chord, highlight that chord with the mouse, then hold Shift and drag the red notes to make them longer, I hope I have confused you enough.

I will often use a sustain for an ending. Dust On The Floor from my website is one of the good examples. The final chord is held as it fades. It's pretty strange sounding to have a long hold inside of a song. Holding for more than part of a measure in a song's body, tends to lose the song's energy and many listeners will lose that magic attachment that keeps them listening and focused on the song. I recently heard a song in one of the forums I listen to that did that very thing. My immediate thought was "WTH was that?" Instantly, my focus and interest in the song was broken. The holds exceeded a full measure with nothing happening.

If you have a long fade...say a piano chord....and you plan to fade it over several measures, and the song isn't finished, you better have something else coming in on that next measure to hold the listener and keep their attention. A flute, a guitar, a singer...something needs to be happening to pick up where the piano left off.

The big issue on the held chords as they fade is the quality of the sound as it decays. This is especially true if the key has been changed (as BB will do to the original recording) because as the chord is fading, at times, artifacts of the key change will appear. The fade sounds unnatural. Super buzz kill.

You also have issues with things that don't fade on the hold. The B3 organ comes to mind. You need to automate the fade on those to match the natural decay of the rest of the tracks.

Normally, you don't want to use a long fade. You want a controlled fade where everything goes out at the same apparent fade speed and silence at the same point. The key is to have that fade sound natural. Most of my ending fades are around a measure and a half total. Listen to Footsteps in the Hall....also on my music page. It has a B3 in the ending held chord and fades with the song to silence. The fade takes around 7 to 8 beats past the hold on 1.

So the point is, try to keep holds in the song less than a measure, and control them at the end.

Thanks so much guys for the replies. The chord in question is the last chord in the song, but I have the end set 4 bars after the last chord. I have the ending generation turned off in BIAB. Will try some of your suggestions with fingers crossed. Thanks again.

Make it more than 4 bars and give yourself a cushion. The fade can last fully 4, depending on the instruments.

Milt, since it's the last chord in the song.... yes... give yourself the cushion Matt mentioned, but try to do your fade to silence in less than 2 measures. Longer than that doesn't sound good.... unless you're the Beatles where they used a really long fade on one of the songs... Day in the life? perhaps....

Shorter fades can also work well. Stinger type endings where you grab that cymbal.