Hello group,

I would like to enter Take 5, which is in 5/4 timing.
Can this somehow be done?

Regards
Bernt

There are some 5/4 styles, but essentially they are a bar of 3/4 followed by a bar of 2/4 (or vica-versa).

I understand that BiaB does not have any support for more than 4 beats to the bar.

Search for 5/4 in the StylePicker, but I think you will have to enter as two bars for every one 5/4 bar:

I saw a reference to 5/4 styles by Noel96 in an earlier post from 2016 or 18.

But I have none.
The style picker has no referenxe to any 5/4.

Despite the fact that I have the Ultra version.

Edit: entering 5/4 into the filter, results in 4/4 results only.

???
Bernt

Ohh, I see, they come up as 4/4 but are supposedly 5/4.
Midi only.

It is not clear how one would use them.

Interesting ... I think something has changed as I thought precisely that, but I tried it.
BiaB seems to be playing 5/4, shows 5/4 in the time signature box, but shows 4/4 on the bar and when I go to editable notation, is also shows 4/4. It looks rather like there's at least partial support for less common time signatures. The notes are times on the 16th or 12th divisions of the bar, so editing any notation would be a challenge.

I'm still not going to try a song my wife wants to sing: "Light Flight". The verses are 5/4,5/4,2/4 and the chorus is 6/8.

Other time signatures have been a long requested item, but have never eventuated.

I suspect the underlying code still only supports up to 4/4. While the styles 'sound' as 5/4, it is difficult to for me (as a classically trained musician) to read what is clearly a 4/4 time-signature notation and play it in 5/4.

And yes, mixing multiple time signatures could be challenging in BiaB. (Don't go near Dave Brubeck's: Blue Rondo à la Turk).

If you notice all of the MIDI 5/4 time signatures are from 2003 and nothing since then. IIRC back then all non 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 time signatures show up as 4/4 in notation. They sound right but display wrong.

Not having other time signatures makes BiaB useless when using it with other programs. The only way to use them in a DAW is to actually play your instrument(s) yourself. It is what it is

I've always liked Gryphon's "Touch and Go", which sounds fairly simple but slightly strange (and enchanting). I think it's a 4/4 + 5/4 polymeter.

Sometimes it's perhaps best to just go with the feel :-)

The StylePicker lists two 5/4 styles when the song title, Take Five, is entered into the StylePicker song title filter.

54_SWING is all MIDI instrument patches. -J54SW+ has MIDI instrument patches but RealDrums Jazz54Swing^4Brushes.

Yeah. BIAB really comes up short when it comes to different time signatures.

I have since tried to enter Take 5 by splitting each 5/4 bar into 2 bars.

This is how I did that:

Edit the first bar Bar Settings-># of Beats to 3 and the second bar to 2.

I then copied this pair enough times to enter the song.
Then entered the chords, treating each pair of bars as one 5/4 bar.

Well, it plays sort of but not real good.
It still sounds a bit like the music is intermingled or constantly changing beat somehow. Hard to explain.

Editing each 3/4 bar to show the blue a block (for drum break) helps a bit.

Not pretty.

Regards
Bernt

For time signatures higher than 4/4, each bar will be spread out over 2 or more bars. An example would be 5/4 will be written as 3/4+2/4. For 12/8 or 6/8, use a 4/4 with a style using a triplet feel (eg. Irish). For 9/8 use a waltz with a triplet feel.

We hope this helps!

That is what I tried. The Realtracks do not like to play like that very nicely.

Unfortunately, unless the program has native support for odd time-signatures like 5/4, 7/4 etc, the results are likely to be less than ideal.

"Take 5" is also swung and I suspect BiaB doesn't handle that so well with the two bars technique.

Berntd,

I've been playing around with Realband using 5/4 because in RB, it's possible to work with unusual time signatures. Unfortunately, there is a generating issue with Realtracks at the moment. I have advised Technical Support about this. It's not a difficult problem to work around since the RTs are only being generated a little early and it's easy enough to drag things into place in RB.

Anyway... to cut a long story short, what I discovered is that Waltz Realtracks are the best for generating a 5/4 feel that has the 1-2-3-1-2 kind of feel. So, if you've set your bars in a 3/4 + 2/4 arrangement, try a waltz Realtrack and see how that generates for you.

I'll upload a little songfile in a couple of hours so you can try it out.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel,

That is an interesting observation I will give that a try.
In the past I was not overly impressed by the Waltz selection. At that time I tried entering the Rock 'n Roll Waltz (Kay Starr).

Best regards
Bernt

If you use a DAW it is easy to make 5/4 in most styles. I've never made a whole 5/4 song in BIAB (like "Take Five" or "Mission Impossible" Theme) but I sometimes add a beat or two to a bar in a few places, making an occasional 5/4 or 6/4 bar and it was never any problem stealing a beat from BIAB tracks and adding them to the bar. You just have to decide where the secondary stress should be (2+3 or 3+2) and put a stress or downbeat on either the 3rd or 4th beat of the modified bar. A 3/4 style becomes 5/4 by deleting every second 3rd beat to get a 3+2 "Take Five" feel. Adding a beat to end of a 4/4 style bar (copy ether the 2nd or 4th) will make a convincing 5/4 with a 2+3 stress.

Of course, this means you have to use a DAW and cut and paste the tracks from BIAB to the DAW before rendering, as BIAB cannot directly play these (it is not a DAW!)

Sometimes cutting and adding a beat will make a particular instrument sound unnatural and you may have to choose a beat from another location. Even easier, if you can afford it, is to have the Melodyne plugin in your DAW and just smooth out or change the notes in that one spot to make it natural.

Cutting or adding beats from a single style will always sound better than using two different BIAB styles because the instrumentation and sounds may not exactly match.

If you plan to use a DAW to make a continuous 5/4 song, I suggest using a DAW that has ripple-delete (or "ripple-edit) which means you can delete or add a beat and it automatically moves the rest of the track to match the cut (instead of having to drag the rest of the track backwards or forwards. I understand Reaper and Studio One do this quite well, and Cubase can do it but not as easily.

ThomasS,

Great advice. Ripple edit is a nice feature in most DAWs but Band-in-a-Box can do the same thing in the audio editor. Highlight a section and you can drag to shorten or lengthen as needed. The fix sour notes feature in the audio editor might help weird sounding notes sound better.

As I said in another thread, RB just does it better (or more intuitive). They are two different tools and sometimes RB really excels.

Bass, one rhythm guitar, EP and drums (and probably other tracks) generated in 7/4 in this experiment from many years ago
I thought the name I came up with was fun as it can be taken a couple ways, but for a musician it means something different .. count it .. 7/4

The image shows how tracks just line up and work in RB in odd times .. the ancient 5/4 styles in BiaB still do not work, as they try to squeeze the odd time into a standard 3/4 or 4/4 measure, but RB does the actual odd time changes as expected with other styles .. at least in my experience

http://masteringmatters.com/stuff/Count_Me_Out.mp3
SEQ file available upon request for educational purposes
It's great to see interest in odd time stuff, as I have always enjoyed that personally

I have to ask as I have never understood it.
What is RealBand? I have it and I have used it maybe twice in the past for ???.
How is it different to BIAB ?

Sorry, I am more of a musician/ user of BIAB for practice than a producer of backing tracks and studio work.
For my needs, I need to select styles, change tempo, edit repeats, change key and get to the next or previous song.


Regards
berntd

Without getting into the intricacies of "what is and what isn't a DAW", RealBand works more like a DAW than BiaB.
It supports 48 channels which can be MIDI or Audio, and has native support for BiaB styles and tracks.

It has fewer limitations in terms of maximum measures, and has much better support for odd time signatures.

There are several short videos at this link that describe RealBand with examples.

Oh, thanks.
Regards
Bernt