Lately I have noticed that more and more jazz and Bossa styles do not "understand" e.g. | Cmaj7 / Cmaj7#5 / |

I know that I could bypass this problem by using E7#5 in stead of the Cmaj#5, but as this
1) will change the bass notes and
2) this is a quite normal "Bill Evans" set of chords,

is there somebody who can please tell my which Real Styles still can play my chances correctly?

Tonnie

Tonnie, when you mention: "Don't Understand", I presume BiaB allows you to enter the chords OK, but the program doesn't play the correct chords.

I guess there's a chance that the RealTracks haven't been recorded with those chords, however, I would check to see that Natural Arrangement is switched Off.

Another thought:
Make sure Force to Simple Arrangement is switched Off (although presumably it will already be that way):

Just remembered, there's a Global Override from Options > Preferences. Maybe verify this setting also.

Veteran,

Thanks! I will check my selections in BiaB.

Tonnie

Veteran,

Have checked all settings as per your two answers, but were already set correctly. So I assume that there are many jazz and bossa real style that just do not recognize Cmaj7#5. But I have (in the past) come across styles that do, so I would just like to know which ones!

Tonnie

Haven't we been through this before...?

where is the Cmaj#5 Tonne, you left us hanging...

And since you have brought this up. Always good to look back at this
BIAB Chords

And ask ourselves why do these question of BIAB not playing chords come up so often?

Cmaj7#5 is on the list of chords that are allowed to be entered in the chord sheet, but many styles just do not "play" them.
I just want to know which ones do!

Tonnie

Yikes. The answer to Tonnie would imply a chart exists of what chords are (or easier perhaps, are not) supported by each style.

Matt,

Finally somebody who understands my "observations" of not interpretated chords in certain styles! Tonnie

Tonnie, I'm pretty sure I understand your predicament. I just wanted to cover all possibilities first.

Potentially, there are two ways to move forward:
1: Prepare a list of what RealTracks do / don't correctly play specific chords, so the user knows why.
2: Get the RealTracks to correctly play all chords that BiaB indicates it supports.

I'm definitely leaning towards number 2. I'm not holding my breath though.

I suspected this might be the case a decade ago when I reported a Bossa style in which the piano dropped out on all mMaj7 chords. This is of course a critical chord type in Brazilian music. But when I reported it and a patch came swiftly, I changed my mind and concluded the artist had recorded it; the indexing must have been wrong. But maybe my conclusion from then was incorrect and some styles simply cannot support all ‘supported’ chords.

Hi,

When you say that it's not playing them.... if it is a Rhythm type RealTrack and nothing plays at all during that chord (i.e. you just hear silence), that should not happen - that would definitely be a bug.

If you are saying it is playing a C chord instead of a C5 or a Cmaj7 instead of a Cmaj7#5, the most likely possibility is that "natural arrangements" are enabled (Options | Preferences | Arrangements). The goal of this feature is to get the arrangement sounding as good as possible, using chord types and playing that is typical for the style of music.



Note that this is different than the "Simple Arrangement" setting in Song Settings --> the goal of THIS feature (simple) is to draw from specific sections of the RealTracks recording that have less complex playing / fewer notes - this doesn't substitute chords.

Now it is possible that there exist some RealTracks that don't have a Cmaj7#5 or C5 chord specifically, however I just tested several RealTracks at random and they all had it. If they don't, they should still fall back to the best substitute chord. If this isn't happening, which is certainly possible, could you provide a specific example or attach a frozen song file demonstrating it.

FWIW here are the ones I just listened to (Rhythm type RTs chosen at random):

Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Jazz Sw 140
Guitar, Electric, Rhythm SmoothJazzCool Sw16 075
Piano, Acoustic, Solo-Accompaniment PopLite Ev 140
Piano, Electric, Rhythm JazzFunkGroovin Ev16 110
Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm, Country WaltzSw 140

Thanks for this information, Andrew.

So Tonnie, the OP, can you provide a specific RealTrack that demonstrates the problem? As I mentioned, when I found a similar problem and reported it, PG Music fixed it quite quickly.

Most “jazz” styles can play Cmaj7#5, only the chord tones, cause it plays a weird natural11. To “solve” it and avoid weird mistakes, I write the slash chord E/C.
But, you are so right that much used chords don’t play well: like in the music of Bill Evans (13b9, m9b5), Duke Ellington (lydian dominant chord), Kenny Barron (phrygian and phrygian with a natural 13), Hancock, Shorter, Beirach and Liebman (augmented sus chords, lydian and lydian augmented chords, lydian#9)... Renee Rosnes made the wonderful The Modern Pianist disk for PGMUSIC, Biab can not correctly accompany it, so she recorded the bass lines...

To know which scales (chords) BIAB can play, I made this video. But, for the impatient: Bass part knows only 7 7th-chords and ignores, mostly, all alterations. Piano part is slightly better.

If you ask yourself if the realtracks are more accurate, the short answer is: “no”.
The whole PGMUSIC “list of recognized chords” is sadly incorrect and -frankly?- dishonest advertising.
https://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_chordlist.htm

Yamaha and Roland do it a lot better, harmony-wise, but lack the slightly better jazz and latin styles that BIAB has, lack the melody lead sheet, holds, pushes...


Njoy!

Hello Dzjang,
You have an interesting topic, however I don't believe this is what the OP is talking about.

The chord list is just a reference sheet of chords that can be entered into the chord sheet.

You made your own custom MIDI style using the StyleMaker, and are testing it over various chords, and this is completely different from how RealTracks are created.

Try E/C if the style doesn´t play CMaj7#5

Well, harmony-wise, realtracks have a better piano than Midi styles, but, as for the bass part?

For bread and butter and camp fire chords, all is well... but for modern jazz harmony (starting with Ellington, Trane, Shorter, Hancock...) there is a lot left to be desired, stuff that Roland and Yamaha have been covering for years.

I understand that some people don’t get the harmonic mistakes. There are some good books by Mark Levine, Jerry Coker, David Baker, that can help shed a light on what sounds good. Though these scholars/musicians tend to have diverging opinions, they all agree on the more common modern chords, like phrygian, sus-chords, altered, 13b9. Some musicians never use these harmonic principles. They love a natural 9 on a susb9, play mixolydian over altered! We call them -lovingly- “The Ones that Never get Called for a gig, or called back after a gig”

Have fun!

Check it out. Dig the screeching harmonic clashes between piano and bass!

Matt,

Thanks for your reply, but there are just too many real styles (especially those with horn backgrounds), that are not recorded with all the chords that can be entered into BiaB.

So I had hoped for an answer, with the name of some real styles, that do play the chords I have entered.

Tonnie

Interesting you mention horn parts. I do horn parts for pay, and it's essential that they play the correct nuances of the chords.

I remain confused.

We have Andrew saying...


Then he references several ...Rhythm type RTs chosen at random.

So is the issue now that we can't find a soloist RT (e.g., a Horn Player) which covers an altered chord with a riff containing a #5?

Matt,

Support confirmed some time ago, that some chord changes (legal to enter in BiaB), just were not recorded in e.g. Crooner Real Styles.

Tonnie

Right. This is why I asked about a jazz template to create User Styles.

Still amazes me that after 20+ years of operation and claims, BIAB does not play certain chords and notes. Maybe a testimony to the complexity of music?

Hello, I think at this point it would make a lot of sense if you could just send us a list of some of the styles that present the problem at your end, so we can collate, check and confirm the issues in detail.

I think the O/P was asked this question already but the reply was:
So without being advised any of the encountered styles it's difficult for others to check/confirm.

What if BIAB provided us with the info?
Style x plays these chords, style z plays those chords...
Would be a nice feature.

Yes, such a chart would be a great asset. Hopefully a feature such this could be delivered.

That would be a pretty substantial spreadsheet, but perhaps helpful to a few of us. As I mentioned a while ago in this thread, PG Music did imply such information exists.

If I set up such a spreadsheet, I would likely have all possibly supported chords as column headers, and all styles as rows. Huge.

I think it would be easier and far more practical to list what's not available, rather than what is available.

Yes, it could be in a spreadsheet format. This would allow searching by RealTrack / MIDI Track for excluded chord type.

If the user searches for Maj7#5 it would tell them which RealTracks / MIDI Tracks don't support it. Move on the something else.

Thinking further, if it's done with a spreadsheet, it's then absolutely easy to negate the result and only list the ones that do support the chord.

Sorry, but I think you are taking my question way out of proportion. Just give me the name of a few Real Styles that can play Cmaj7 to Cmaj7#5.

Tonnie

Hey Tonnie,

If only we knew. What chords are known by which style is something only PGMUSIC knows, it’s an embarrassing secret...

The rest is up to us: experiment, try out, get frustrated, find something else, maybe get lucky. Still, there is always fun to be had if you stumble on the nice stuff.

Don’t hold our seriousness against us: we’re committed to the music and love using Biab, we have invested quite a lot in the software over the years and have reasonable expectations, that the program not always delivers on.

Have fun.

Here is one

Opps, wrong alteration, let me try that again...

Sorry, I tried with multiple regenerations but never would this 3 section horn track play a #5. So that is one style we an rule out of the 371 bossa styles I have in my style picker.

_JSWINGP.STY
_JSWINGG.STY
_JWALTZG.STY
_JWALTZP.STY
_BOSSAN.STY
_BOSSAGT.STY
_BOSSAG.STY
_BOSSAP.STY

And many more. In fact all rhythm RealTracks play Cmaj7#5 as far as I know, if you have the "Natural arrangements" disabled (as I mentioned in a previous post.. that can be done globally or per song in Song settings.)

A problem which I can see thanks to the example of RT3451 is specifically with "Background" and Solo" type RealTracks. Hopefully we can improve the background RealTracks so that they play better over Cmaj7#5. If the RealStyle you have chosen uses a background or solo RealTrack, you might try this type of workaround:

1 - Type an alternate chord symbol for any problem bars and generate the one background track until you get a result you like.
2 - freeze the track.
3 - revert to the original chord symbols and re-generate.

I was pretty sure we had focused this discussion on Soloist RTs not the Rhythm RTs. I looked specifically at a trio horn RT (soloists) and no #5 was generated. Seems something to work on in the future as you suggest.

Andrew,

Thanks!

This was the kind of answer I was looking for. I will check out the styles you suggested ASAP.

Tonnie

Thanks Andrew,

Selecting "Natural Arrangements - Never" solved my issue. I was harmonizing melodic minor scale chords for practice, and it was not playing mMaj7,.. it was playing m7 or b7.
I was entering chords both manually and through the chord builder.

Also it was not playing Augmented chords on a tune I was working on yesterday.

Thought I was losing it. Luckily my ears aren't as bad as I thought.

Thx LB