I need to hold an F chord for the first two beats of a bar followed by a chromatic walk of F, F#, G to a shot on an Ab chord. I don't see any way to make these an eighth note duration in the Chord Settings Dialog Box.

Any ideas how to accomplish this would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Dominic

Unfortunately, a program limitation is that you cannot have more than 4 beats to the bar.

More than 4 beats has been requested numerous times, but is still not delivered to my knowledge.

You can use a push to make the beat come early (precede the chord with a caret character (^) for an 1/8th beat push, or 2 carets (^^) for a 16th beat push - this will play the chord an 1/8th or 1/16th beat early, but the limitation of 4 beats to the bar remains.

Yes, there is the limitation just described.

When I need to do this, I use MIDI on the Melody and/or Soloist track. I might also mute other tracks for a measure or more by using F5.

Hi Dominic,

Here's how I get around the limitation using the time base settings for Realtracks and Realdrums.

This solution involves thinking of one BIAB chordsheet's cell as half a bar rather than the usual one bar.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=572052#Post572052

Hope it helps,
Noel

• my latest song: In The Still Of This Gentle Night (a lullaby) [...a co-write with Steve Young]

You should also check Norton Music's expanded styles, although it's a MIDI solution.

Thanks, Noel. I've been out for the evening. Will have a look into your solution in the morning. Thanks again.

Dominic,

If you have any question, please feel free to ask. I've got a couple of sample SGU files at the link, too, to show how my approach works.

All the best,
Noel

• my latest song: A Lullaby [...a co-write with Steve Young]

Noel, I wasn't able to get it to work with my file so I tried to do it with your 4 chords per cell file. Opened the file in BB, changed the BPM from 65 to 130, right clicked in the mixer and changed the guitar to half-time. When I Generate and play the file the number of measures does not double and the number of chords per bar remains at four. I must be doing something wrong.

Dominatoruke, Welcome to the forum!

I have two thoughts. Do any of your tracks have the blue "snowflake" button engaged? If so, disengage the button(s) as that means the track is frozen and can not be changed. Double time means double bars. At each double time bar you need to right click, select "Insert bars" and select the default selection of one bar. That way four bars becomes eight bars but the chords stay correct.

Hi Dominic,

Example #2 at the link in my post that's five above this one, only had a single instrument.

If you have more than one instrument as well as drums, then each of those instruments and the drums needs to be set to a time-base setting of 'halftime'.

NOTE: Make sure that you save your file with a NEW NAME. It's always best to keep the original so that it's possible to return to it.

1. Firstly set the tempo to double (from 65 to 130 as you have done).

2. IMAGE 1 below shows how to set the time-base for Realtrack #2452 String Quartet in the style I'm using.

3. Do this for all the Realtracks and Realdrums in your style.

4. Because you are using an existing song, it's necessary to expand the chords so that one bar of chords covers two cells on the chords sheets.

5. To do this, use "Edit | Song form | Expand chords by 2" as shown on IMAGE 2.

This expands the duration of the chords so that, at the new double-tempo speed, two chordsheet cells at 130 bpm play in the same time as one chordsheet cell at 65 bpm.

Once the above steps are done, it will play properly.

Regards,
Noel

Ooooh Noel,

I like your way of expanding the chord sheet a whole lot more than mine.

Thanks Jim, no frozen tracks.

Noel, that did work. I was missing the expanding the chords part. Now the problem is that it doesn't play all the chords I enter. Example: Space 177a has an F that holds. Space 178 has F, F#, G and Ab (the walk up I am trying to get to play in time) but only the F and F# are playing and they still sound like eighth notes. The chromatic walk up is not fast enough.

Interesting...

The resolution of the chords could depend on the Realtracks. I'd have to investigate that.

Are you able to upload the SGU/MGU file to Dropbox and then private message me a Dropbox link so that I can download and look at the file?

Regards,
Noel

Let me look into the dropbox thing.

Noel,
I haven't sorted out the drop box thing yet and just tried to PM you but it says you are not accepting private messages at this time.

Since I couldn't get the 1/8 note chord stuff to work I realized it wasn't really necessary for my guitar backing track to do it. I play the chord sequence on the uke and the guitar just hits on the quarter notes. Sounds just fine that way.
Thanks for your help.

Hi again Dominic,

I'm glad you've got something that you've happy with.

This concept is a tough one to handle when you are relatively new to BIAB or haven't played around too much with the program. I would class it as an "Advanced" concept. I'm sorry that my explanation was lacking. I'll review it and see if there is any way that I can make it easier to understand.

All the best with your music making,
Noel

Noel, I don't believe your explanation was lacking. When I went through the process it just didn't work as I had hoped.

I have uploaded a couple files to dropbox that I would like to get to you along with an explanation of said files. As I mentioned before your account here is not accepting PMs.
Regards,
Dominic

Aside: the PG Music PM system caps us at 300 private messages. I hit that cap all the time and have to go in and clean up. Often, though, I get PMs when the question would be better suited for posting in the open forum because 1) collectively we know more than any one person and 2) everyone benefits from seeing the answer.

Understood, Matt. In this case the song I'm working on and my explanation of the files I intend to provide Noel are probably best not to be posted directly in the forum. However, rest assured if we get this resolved I will post something so everyone can benefit from it.

I really appreciate everyone's willingness to help.

Hi Dominic,

I've adjusted the private message settings so you can contact me.

I'm looking forward to seeing if I can shed any more light on the issue.

Regards,
Noel