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Posted By: jonel How to use notaion with a swing style - 01/14/22 11:20 AM
I know this topic has come up in other places in this forum, but none of the posts are helping me much. I like to use the BiaB notation entry view, it works well for me. Well it works well for me when I have an 'Even Feel' style for my song. Up until now I have steered completely clear of the 'Swing Feel' because it simply doesn't seem to work for me and more than likely it is because of the way I am trying to use it.

I make the assumption that if I load a swing style then the timing of the notes entered on the notation staff will coincide with the timing of the swing feel of the style. This has not been my experience so far. Although the notes were entered with a swing style already loaded, the resulting melody was out of time with the stle. I tried the option to change the melody to have a 'swing feel' and that did modify the notes (it was a swing 16) but it still felt out of time with the style.

I have noticed, in the past, that when a swing style is selected, that the notation staff is divided into triplets, but this is not happening in my case (using BiaB 2022), it still shows a standard grid.

So, basically, I have a melody in mind for the swing style, but somehow I just can't articulate it using the notation window.

Any help would be gratefully received because I do like a lot of thiose swing styles.
Posted By: AudioTrack Re: How to use notaion with a swing style - 01/14/22 11:01 PM
Not sure if changing the setting for this option assists?

Attached picture 2022-01-15_12-59-46.jpg
Styles *should* have the default notation resolution set accordingly, but if not you can change that setting in AudioTrack's screenshot. If you notice some styles that don't have the resolution set correctly, please email a list to support, since we can fix them for future builds.

One strategy I've used in the past for entering a MIDI melody is:

1. Turn on wizard playalong feature (under Play menu).
2. Ctrl+R (Record MIDI)
3. Tap your melody by pressing any key on your QWERTY keyboard, not worrying about the pitch of the notes, only the rhythm.
4. After you have saved your take, use editable notation mode on the melody track to set the pitch of the notes. To do this, there are several keyboard shortcuts you can use. My preferred method is to use INS and DEL on the numeric keypad (might need to toggle numlock) to step from note to note, and use the up and down cursor keys to change the pitch.
Posted By: jonel Re: How to use notaion with a swing style - 01/18/22 05:56 AM
Thanks AudioTrack. Yes, that helps in getting the triplets notation but not much in terms of the timimg of my notes in relation to the background of the style. But I guess this is probably me!
Posted By: jonel Re: How to use notaion with a swing style - 01/18/22 07:35 AM
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the tip. I use this approach quite successfully in Ableton, but I've never got on well with in BiaB. I appear to be suffering what feels like latency although I'm coming directly from ther midi controller using ASIO. Also, the keys don't connect to any of the key sets of the 'Pianos' tab on BiaB interface when I am playing on the midi controller. That was my interest in entering my notes directly on the notation window.

Direct entry has been great for me when the styles are 'Even Feel', but when I try this with the 'Swing Feel' I felt it was out of sync with the background. I just assumed that if I stuck to the notation then the timing would be in sync with the style.But I have to say that my own musical expertise is probably to blame for this.
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