Hi,


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Update added Jan 06 2021 - bowlesj

I appreciate everyone's attempts to help in the posts below and I feel I learned a few interesting things. However the experience has actually strengthened my belief that it is a lot more efficient for (one PG-Music programmer who really knows what they are doing and who probably has portions of the logic already written) to put in the feature requested in this first post rather than have who knows how many users trying to program work around code which additionally will be much less efficient when completed than what I am wishing for in this post. In view of this I feel PG-Music will save themselves a lot of time by not bothering to read beyond this post. I will add one more thing. After creating the wish list item I actually had the need for manually creating an Audacity Label track with a few chord symbols. So I believe this feature will not get used a lot but it will get used now and then. However since I can't predict my ideas in the future it would be handy if I could list in this post any new ideas I get for using such a label track to Audacity (I have a way to remind myself to make these updates). Any such ideas could be links directly to posts added to this thread so there is both a summary at the top and an notice of a useful addition occurring (these ideas would help with creating these links). My listing new ideas for using these DAW Chord symbol labels might even get others submitting ways they could use it.

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This link takes you directly to a feature in BIAB 2021 that allows one to drag chord symbols into a DAW such as Audacity to be put on a label track that one could have sitting beside a click track (which I often create in Audacity to see the bars and beats).

I think it makes a lot of sense to copy this feature (in check box form) to the attached screen which I use to export the individual tracks to .wav files to be zipped into a file to be sent to my Jazz Jams Club members so they can do their own mix it they wish using any DAW of their choice. The members get a file that unzips to create a Song Name Folder with all the associated files in it. So the checkbox might be described as "Export Chord symbols for a DAW label track".

Thanks,
John

This is already possible in BIAB, although broken in the current version. And it is not a one step operation as you are apparently proposing here. I can tell you this is very doable in the BIAB-VST 2021 and is my preferred workflow.

I have asked for this so many times over the many years.
Make sure you have the # Ticks before chord change to 0

If you had BB21 you simply open the SGU in the Biab Lite Standalone and drag the chord midi markers out.

If you have an older version of Biab you can drop the BB Chord Output midi file into Reaper and it will write the midi chord makers in the file so the others in the group can read the chords in their DAW.

You can also save as musicxml and drop that in Reaper and it will create midi chord markers.

Another way is save to youtube video and convert to mp4 video and send that to them as most DAWs will have a video track.

Sorry Guys, just to be clear, what I am doing now is exporting the BIAB tracks out to 5 .wav files (one for each of Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar & Melody). These of course can be zipped and sent to the jam mates and once uncompressed they drag the files into Audacity or Reaper or GarageBand or whatever. Works great (sounds like BIAB). My Understanding is this new BIAB 2021 feature is suppose to be able to send the Chord symbols (Cmi, G7, whatever) directly to a DAW (not to a file first) and it will create a label track so you can see (Cmi, G7, whatever) along side the other tracks.

So I used the 3 things I was told as the first two pictures show and I got what the 3rd picture shows (no cigar - sounds terrible, no chord symbols). What I hope to get is in the 4th picture which I made up manually from within Audacity.

If you are not aware of it you can right click on the picture and click "Open image ...." or "View Image..." and get a bigger image you can read.

When I drag the Midi file with chord markers into Audacity I not sure how you get the markers to labels.
In Reaper it's no problem.

You can get the chord from the musicxml in Reaper and save that to a midi file that you can include with the BB tracks to give them the marker in the DAWs.

Thanks Pipeline,

Considering the current process I am using is working okay for myself and the club members (as you can hear from this AudioMack link), Getting Reaper and learning it for this one limited use isn't really worth it. But you guys have been helpful in that it forced me to create a proper picture for this wish list entry to show what is happening and what I wish for. I think it is best to just leave it out there and see what happens. Seeing as Audacity is free it won't cost PG-Music much to test it :-)

I need to create a reminder entry to keep looking at the new BIAB release features so I will be more motivated to upgrade. I wish their new release emails had "BIAB 2022: 2 of your wishes have come true + 50 new styles you typically use + 30 new features you might use.." in the subject line and in the email body I get three links right up front I can click on that take me directly to the details. Now this is a wish that PG-Music should put in (exactly what a busy person would want). Their current emails don't inspire me to read them because I think "a bunch of features I will never use". They need to fix their marketing here (get the programmers on this).

John

bowlesj,

I use Audacity and like it. Audacity is easy and fun audio software but Audacity has VERY limited midi capability. As can be seen in +++ THIS +++ Audacity help file the sole intent is to visually compare a midi track to an audio track. Audacity can not read midi file metadata such as chords.

Thanks Jim.

So I guess I need to submit a wish list item to the Audacity forum as well or else maybe remove this wish list item (not sure it I can do that). It's not a really important wish. My prior wish I consider a more important.

John

If you want to get the chord Labels into Audacity the labels are simple txt files
start time sec - start time sec - name



Biab will export to ABC Notation txt
a script could be made to convert the ABC into Audacity Labels just so long as there are no tempo changes.
z8 = L: x 8 so 8 1/8 and you get the time by calculating the tempo and beats.

Thanks Pipeline, it seems like you are also a programmer as am I. I am not familiar with the language of your code. Of the 17 programming languages I have worked with over the years, right now I only use MS-Access, Multicharts power language, PHP & JavaScript. I am swamped in Market Trading' Jazz jams Club and guitar. I am falling behind on these :-) I won't be learning any more languages. Maybe PG-Music or The Audacity folk can use some help (Audacity wiki link for developers).

John

Here, try this.
Remove the .mp4 from the script and load it in Reaper
Biab File > Save Special > Music XML
Drag XML into Reaper
select item and run script
copy text from console
save as Audacity Chord Labels.txt
Audacity Import > Label.

If that works for you, it can be changed to write direct to text file.

But there is good news! Audacity track labels can be imported and exported as ... wait for it ... text files! Audacity has two types of labels, point labels and range labels. Each label is composed of one line of text that consists of a start point, end point and text.

Test it for yourself. Add a label track to an existing project. Use Ctrl + B to insert a point. Enter some text into the point textbox. Export the label track. The exported file saves as a text box. Open the text file and you'll see one line of text with two coordinates and the label text.

Oh Gee...lol. What the hey...lol. Lets try it.

Thanks Jim. I tried your suggestion and I pulled up a song in Audacity and exported a label.txt file. I deleted the label and imported the txt file and the label track appeared again. Cool!

Thanks Pipeline. I figured out what you abc file was and I did the abc export for a song (see png picture). I have the abc below. It is a lot more complex than your example.

I might be able to write an MS-Access script to create an Audacity label.txt file for the song. I don't have reaper. Forget Reaper. The question is when will I get the time to do this...lol. I have 8 songs on my club's Jam Schedule that I need to record my guitar parts for so we can get the songs up on AudioMack to add to the 19 we have done already (I am the "John Guitar" guy). I will put it on my to-do list :-) Another challenge. No promises :-)

Programming thoughts:
The | lines represent the bars.
The " double quotes isolate the chord symbols.
The : colons show the chorus
The loop code to start with for analyzing each line is below.
We probably can figure out the coordinates from the Q:1/4=153 and M:4/4.
The program asks for the number of chorus repeats.
Piece of cake...lol. Famous last words :-) I know form 40 years of programming there will be surprises.
The PG-Music programmers might have this done before me especially considering the other club members are waiting :-)



Modify this code to figure out each line of data.

Just download Reaper and you will have it.
https://www.reaper.fm/files/6.x/reaper619_x64-install.exe
I just made the script up to do what you need.

When you export the ABC choose an empty track and just export the Chords without notation. And Unfold it first.

Another way..
Drop your SGU MGU onto charttranslate.exe
and it will create "Song name.mjb"
open it with Notepad

Thanks Pipeline, as I indicated although programming this would be fun and interesting this project will have to wait. The recordings and trading are top priority. 19 recordings have been completed successfully since March indicating the future recordings are not in jeopardy without the chord symbols in the label track. Delaying to work on this project creates a problem.

Sorry I thought you wanted to send the guys a midi chord marker file and an Audacity text Chord Label with the Biab tracks so they can record in any DAW or Audacity.
As I said Reaper will do all this for you instantly.

Yes, but I left out the fact that I am behind on 8 songs I have to record. I also have no interest in learning Reaper.

I was more interested in this as a useful feature that also provides an added reason to upgrade from BIAB 2016 to 2021 but it makes even more sense for BIAB to add a check box to the dialog box in my first post. After all if they have the code to drag and drop directly to any DAW all this is doing is an export to memory and triggering an input inside the daw as what appears to be one step but is in fact those two steps (there is a name for this - I think it is called dynamic data exchange). So it is not going to be that hard for PG-Music to add that checkbox and have it trip off that export function they already wrote but instead write to a file rather than memory (they already have the logic coded up to prepare the data for the dynamic data exchange). It saves me work (I check the check box and it remembers it). This is a heck of a lot less work than my learning Reaper (buying reaper) or writing an access program. To be honest I am a bit surprised PG-Music did not already put this checkbox in. When they see this post I am guessing they will be thinking "how could we have forgotten to put that checkbox in?". Easy. No human is immune to making mistakes. We get busy. We can only handle so much. Gee, that reminds me of something I just wrote :-)

I have asked PG 967 times since 1954 to add this feature.
I asked Adar to add it to the BBPlugin code, that is a different code, and he added it.
In the PIC below you don't have to learn Reaper to do that, and as I said I can modify the script to save it to a text file that can Import into Audacity.
Reaper is free to try n try n try n try n try......til your heart's content then you can pay for it if you so like.
As long as BB2016 exports to musicxml.

I shouldn't laugh, I know it's frustrating, but you can't blame me for having a quiet chuckle

Maybe slightly exaggerated.
I tried it with BB2016 as it has XML export, took about 10secs to get the Audacity Labels.
As well as saving to text file it can be made to write the Chord markers to midi file along with held chords, that can also be saved.

I was born in 1954 :-) Maybe if you try 1,000 time they will listen.

I am afraid to use Reaper because it is probably better than Audacity. My goal is to be as good a market trader and guitarist as can be expected for my age. My weakness is being easily distracted. Reaper will distract me. I also need to use Audacity for the club (free and simple encourages more to participate).

I had to hide from email all day to get one song done by tonight. Six more to go (I just realized I didn't count correctly) :-) Even if I decided to try you idea I would not get to it for probably 2 or 3 weeks.

If you have a program script that can process the BIAB ABC file that would get me interested. If I was determined t o write that script in access I would schedule it for the summer.

I know ! as I typed that in I heard "that is your age", I pick up the vibes.

Ok, I'll have a look a making a script to convert the ABC to Audacity Label.
I did make/modify one in the forum Biab Chords to ImproVisor maybe modify that or make an AutoHotKey one.

Okay, thanks Pipeline :-)

This is working on 4/4.
I need to work out the 3/4 but 3/4 is not importing the chords back to Biab on beat 3 as they go to beat 4 (greyed out) so there is an issue there.
*remove .mp4 and install the latest version of www.autohotkey.com
set the Autohotkey.exe to run as admin.

I already use a program called Macro-express which runs on windows hotkey shortcut triggers. I am heavily invested in this program (can't remove it). Is this autohotkey likely to create issues with it?

I don't understand why you say delete the Mp4. I see no MP4 in the ABC export out of BIAB file. Whatever you are programming my understanding is it will read the ABC file into memory (Just like I would write in access) and create a file that Audacity can read in (just like I would write in access). I have zero doubt I can write such an access program. It isn't easy but it is a lot easier than other stuff I have written.

I have about 10 access programming projects I want to write but I have higher priorities so they keep getting put off. This access script I might write for the Audacity Labels file is pretty low priority compared to those other programming projects. I am not even sure the other musicians will use it (ts a trivial extra that might be useful at times). I would not go too crazy with this project unless you really love to program (a fun puzzle to figure out). I have been programming so long now that it has lost all its novelty for me. It's just a tool I still use a fair bit. Its not a be all and end all in itself.

Here is the compiled exe so you won't have to worry about installing AutoHotKeys. I have AutoIt and Autohotkeys installed.

Again remove the.mp4 from the filename and unzip.

I did that, my virus checker didn't care for it. I moved it to the virus chest. Can't afford any problems. Like I said it isn't that important. If PG-Music decides it has economic value that's great. Otherwise that is fine too. If I get freed up I will write the code in MS-Access.

Hi Pipeline,

I ran your program again after the Avast Labs people got back to me to verify your program was safe (one never knows these days). Thanks for your efforts so far. It crapped. See picture. I tried a few things to get around the error but no cigar. The file data is below. I noticed this file data is a lot simpler than the other one I posted.

John

X:1
T:All Of Me
L:1/8
K:C
Q:1/4=153
R:EZ Listening Acoustic Guitar w/
M:4/4
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "E7" | | "Am" ||
| "D7" | | "Dm7" | "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "F" | "Fm" | "CMaj7" "Em7" | "A7"|
| "Dm7" | "G7" | "C6" "Ebdim7" | "Dm7" "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "E7" | | "Am" ||
| "D7" | | "Dm7" | "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "F" | "Fm" | "CMaj7" "Em7" | "A7"|
| "Dm7" | "G7" | "C6" "Ebdim7" | "Dm7" "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "E7" | | "Am" ||
| "D7" | | "Dm7" | "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "F" | "Fm" | "CMaj7" "Em7" | "A7"|
| "Dm7" | "G7" | "C6" "Ebdim7" | "Dm7" "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "E7" | | "Am" ||
| "D7" | | "Dm7" | "G7"|
| "CMaj7" | | "E7" ||
| "A7" | | "Dm" ||
| "F" | "Fm" | "CMaj7" "Em7" | "A7"|
| "Dm7" | "G7" | "C69"|

In your original post you wanted midi markers like the BBPlugin now has.
I showed you how to do this with Reaper.
But then you wanted to import them into Audacity,
so I made a script to do this in Reaper,
but you did not want to use Reaper,
so I made an AutoHotKey script to do it,
but you did not want to install AutoHotKey,
so I compiled it to an exe,
then you got a virus on your computer,
because the exe I made had a virus in it.
You seem to be blocked at every turn,
the only option you are left with is type the labels up manually
or wait and hope that PG will add an Audacity Label export.

For any other users that need this just use Reaper, it will do it all.

Hi Pipeline,

Regarding
My prior post does not suggest your exe has a virus in it. Avast suspected it might have a virus which scared me a bit. Avast suggested I move your exe to the virus vault and wait for their lab to review your exe and get back to me as to whether it is safe to run or not. So I decided to follow the avast recommendation. They got back to me the next day and said your code did not have a virus (I said that in My prior post). So I decided to again go with the Avast recommendation and run it. I then posted that your code appears to have a simple bug where it is adding .txt at the end of its file read command and thus is unable to find the ABC file.

I should add that I had a use for Chord symbol labels in Audacity today. It is the first time actually. I made a mistake and removed the BIAB count in on my current project. Someone joined in and submitted a track without a count-in. I had to manually add a label track and manually add a few chord labels in order to get his track lined up. So it is a good feature for PG-Music to put in and to be honest users having to write the code is not really all that efficient. It makes a lot more sense for PG-Music to have a checkbox which remembers to stay checked as I recommend in my first post of this thread. Clearly it will get used now and then and not just by me.

Hi,

Are there any plans to put in the feature request I mention in the very first post. Once it is in I won't be able to resist an upgrade (assuming I am aware of it) as I am creating chord labels in every Audacity mix now as you can see in the attached picture. What would also be useful would be a second set of labels for the sections of the song which is controlled by the BIAB part markers. Maybe something like this in a standard 32 bar song with 3 choruses.

C1-1A (c1 meaning chorus 1)
C1-9A
C1-17A
C1-25B
C2-1A (c2 meaning chorus 2)
C3-9A
C4-17A
C5-25B
C2-1A (c3 meaning chorus 3)
C3-9A
C4-17A
C5-25B

Thanks,
John

Pipeline just reminded me that I can write a script using the BIAB abc file export. I kind of forgot because I did not have much of a need for this until recently then all of a sudden it became really important.

A attached a picture with the abc file and some ideas for how the MS-access program will process it. I know MS-Access and its VBA language well enough that I will have the script done within about 8 to 16 hours hours. It will be able to handle jazz songs where the melody is outside the chorus as well. It will automatically create both chord labels and section labels (two files for import into Audacity). I am not sure exactly when I will start.

Hi,

The wish-list request that I made in Post #1 of this thread needs an enhancement and I will be creating a 2nd very closely related request here as well.

The enhanced wish is to have a button on the BIAB export screen that opens a special screen to allow export of chord labels and click tracks to various popular DAWs. These export choices would be remembered. I attached a picture of how this might look. For me being able to export these tracks to multiple DAWs all at once would be a big time saver. I would use this feature probably once a week on average. When you study the picture it should become obvious that many new tracks would be exported with (only one button click each week) to a folder containing all tracks for the song and the chord label tracks and click tracks would need to be in the format "DAW-Name_Track-Type-Optional-Sub-Type" (Examples: Audacity_Labels_Chords.txt, Audacity_Labels_Sections.txt, Audacity_Clicks.wav, Reaper_Labels_Chords.mid, Reaper_Labels_Sections.mid). You might notice the 2nd picture shows song section labels and I have section labels in my example here but my first picture does not show a section label column. I missed that. A section label column would be needed to match the BIAB sections. I am not sure if all DAWs can handle this. Audacity certainly can as my 2nd picture shows. This would need to be investigated.

For me this 2nd feature would never be used if the main request above was put in. The 2nd related wish is to copy the feature demonstrated at this BIAB 2021 VST video jump into BIAB itself. Note that the BIAB 2022 VST has a C7 button for dragging items into the DAW. I personaally think this feature set is better in BIAB itself. There are several reason for this. 1/ The BIAB VSP plugin has a lot of bugs. 2/ The BIAB VSP stand alone plugin also has a lot of bugs. 3/ one of the bugs is you can't get the chords to copy properly from BIAB to the Plugin. Okay to be fair I have been emailing with support about these bugs and I believe they will eventually be fixed. However this leads to the final reason. 4/ I highly doubt the Plugin will EVER be as good as BIAB because BIAB is a massively great program. Why make a duplicate that is never likely to be as good?

I attached a few additional pictures that may help make this request clear.

Thanks,
John