Hello everybody,

can someone tell me what are MGX files (under BIAB 2015)? I have 9 or 10 ones in my song directory; they seem to be a species of MGU files but I failed to see why they have a different extension
and they are mentioned zero (0) times in the manual

pgmusic should maintain an index of all file extensions used by BIAB

thanks in advance,
Bernard Rasson

Hi Bernard.

When looking through the manual, I usually open the PDF file found in /bb, and then search it with CTRL+F. When I did that with MGX, the manual had a small section about MGX files on page 179 (this is the 2015 Manual).

Basically....


If one loads a multitrack MIDI file into BIAB -- say a MIDI file that was found on the internet -- the file will load all tracks onto either the Melody track or the Soloist track.

When this is saved as a BIAB file, the file will have an MGX extension.

In other words, if your file has .MGX, it means that it contains a multitrack MIDI file on the Melody or Soloist track.

Normal BIAB .MGU files are a single MIDI track. On the top menu, if you select "Melody | Track Type", you'll see what I mean.

Regards,
Noel

thank you so much Noel
now that I think of it, I do quite often use the "open midi file" menu item to inspect the chord chart of a song
I am still learning new ways to use chords every week or so

best regards,
Bernard

Hi Bernard,

I can tell from your posts that you're reading your way through BIAB's possibilites.

It's a brilliant program and it's got a massive amount of potential under the hood. Even now, after starting with it in 2006, I'm still finding new things out about the software.

Just in case you haven't found this part of the PG Music website, yet, the link below will take you to a collection of video clips that might be useful.

https://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htm

All the best with taming BIAB!

Regards,
Noel

• one of my songs: What Do You Say

thank you very much Noel
I only knew about the New Real Tracks and Xtra Style Paks videos
your help is very much appreciated
best regards,
Bernard

Noel, I haven’t checked this but aren’t all of those other possible extensions deprecated now? I thought you would just get MGU or SGU now.

Hi Matt,

I just this minute tried loading a midi file onto the Melody track and saving it as a BIAB file. With BIAB 2020 (730), the BIAB file saved as MGX.

I'm not absolutely certain about this but I think the file types that have been done away with are MG1, MG2, etc., which used to be songfiles based on the built-in styles.

Sooner or later, John Ford might jump in and enlighten us a bit more. He's much more versed in how BIAB has grown historically than I am.

All the best,
Noel

.mgx files are those with embedded multichannel MIDI. Since the MIDI is in either the melody or soloist track, it has to be an mg-something, rather than sg-something.

Thanks for the clarification, Noel and John.

I'm a little late to the party on this, and while MGX may not be referenced in the manual, I did find this in the Help:

The [Copy Melody to Melody Track] is a utility function that should only be used when the style is "finished." Prior to executing this command, the Melody track contains the entire MIDI file with all of the parts. This "MIDI-file-on-the-Melody-track" is used to create the style. Once the style is created, you might want to extract the actual Melody track from the MIDI file to put on the Melody track. The channels used are the channels that have the BB Part set to "Melody." When you do this command, you get a chance to first save the MGX file (i.e. the file with the MIDI file on the Melody track), so that you can revisit the file. This "Copy Melody to Melody Track" is useful to audition your new style, because you can then hear just the Melody along with your style.