I have difficulty inserting this triplet.....

The first note goes on line 1 of the first beat, the second goes on the 3rd line of the first beat, the third goes on the 2nd line of 2nd beat. This gives even spacing for 3 notes over 2 beats

This may not be the answer you're looking for, but I long ago abandoned trying to use the notation function in BIAB.

I just can't get on with it at all and instead use notation software (I use Sibelius, but there are plenty to choose from without having to pay) which I then then import into BiaB.

It does mean that any time I want to adjust the notation, I have to do it in one program and then import it into BiaB, but I still find that a lot easier and quicker than trying to use the BiaB notation function.

You might not want to go down this road, but I just wanted to raise it as an option.

This is a limitation of the notation portion of the program. It is not really meant to be a "notation program" and so it doesn't really handle everything well. There are free programs available all over the internet that do exactly what you are looking for. It is not the perfect solution but it is just the way it is .

One of those free solutions, MuseScore 3.0, is a good notation program and it does something no other notation program does: it reads native BIAB song files.

Hmm, that's what I was wondering as I sit here trying to notate in RealBand.

In just one bar I have a quarter-note, a dotted-quarter-note, an eigth note that should be followed by a dotted-quarter-note on the B immediately below middle C and I would like it on the treble stave, but the editor puts it on the bass stave. Then I put the final eighth note on the treble stave and it leaves that B as a double note on the bass staff and stretches the preceding eighth-note o the treble staff to an eigth-plus-dotted-quarter note. If I delete the stretch, it joins the preceding eigth-note to the final one. If I try to use N, I can't presently select the stretch, only the half-note B and if I look at the note durations, every single note except the half note is reported as 0:48.

That's an awful lot of oddities in just one bar.

I considered setting treble-clef only, but can't at present find the option in RB, though I think/thought there's the option in BIAB.



My usual notation tool. Is there a good way to import just a short section from Musescore (I'm trying to insert six bars of intro), or is the best bet to do all the notation in Musescore and import the whole song (via MIDI I presume)? Thus far all I've done is to import a whole song in MIDI.


The workflow I'm thinking for songs I create is Musescore for the leadsheet(s), export to midi, import into BIAB and add chords (again) and style there, save it, open again in RealBand.

That's not so easy where my original source in a band members BIAB file.


Oh good grief ... I've just been comparing something between RB and BIAB and I now find that whaen I click on the notation icon in the RealBand toolbar, an audio edit window opens. I'm definitely _not_ clicking the adjacent Audio Edit icon. At present I seem to not be able to open a notation window, not via the icon, not via Window->[window] and it's not present if I minimise all windows and open eah one in turn. The other "current track" icons work as expected. Sigh.

I always try exporting and importing Music XML first. If it works, it includes more of the information such as song name, chords, and dynamic markings. MIDI gives you very little besides the notes.

Oh yes, of course. Thank you.
That will likely help transfer to Musescore (or whatever) as well as from.

‘From’ only. MuseScore reads BIAB source files, so there is no need to save the BIAB song into any other format.

PG really should remake that old notation tutorial from 2004. I'd looked at it despite it's age but had quit out because the recording was such poor quality and I presumed, at sixteen years old and archived, it was probably pretty much obsolete. In fact it's quite informative. The current one does no show the staff-roll mode at all and that would allow me to fix that rogue (IMHO) lengthened note. It's in the manual.

But why are the note durations almost all alegedly the same when the notes clearly are not?

I'm not sure if this is relevant to your inquiry, but BiaB Notation entry is somewhat unique. It enters a note of a longer duration than expected which is subsequently shortened by the entry of either a following note or a rest. Also the selection of Mono mode may make a difference to how this is interpreted (see screen capture):

You can also adjust the percentage of 'available space' that the note durations take. I think it might be 90% but I'd have to look later. I've never felt the need to alter that, but perhaps for some genres doing so might be useful.

Are we perhaps talking about a file imported into BIAB?

Oh. I doubt I'd have guessed. Do I presume then that means monotonic, not monophonic? Oh ... and actually that option seems not present in RealBand. I'm rather bemused that the notation editor is similar but different. That seems perverse, but I guess they had a reason.



No the notes were entered by clicks on the editable notation staves (in RealBand, not BIAB). As I've hardly yet changed this file, I'm thinking I may go back to BIAB, add the into there and the open it again in RealBand, though I guess I'll need to learn the differences if I'm not to make life hard for myself.