181. I'm having trouble getting the Audio Chord Wizard to figure out the correct chords for my song.

Detecting chords from audio files is a very difficult task for a computer program. The success depends on two main factors. The first is the quality and type of source material. Straightforward Rock, Pop, and Country tunes will be more successfull than a complicated Jazz Bebop tune. One problem is that Jazz musicians sometimes imply the chord rather than specifically playing it at that bar - e.g. the bass player may not necessarily be playing the root of the chord. The second main factor is the accuracy of the interpretted tempo and balines. You will want to listen to the song and get the barlines accurately placed throughout the song.

First, make sure you have the latest update for your version of Band-in-a-Box®. There have been significant Audio Chord Wizard improvements since it was first released, including better detection of barlines and tempos.

After loading your song, tap the barlines as accurately as you can from the start of the song, by pressing the F8 key. Try to get your first tap exactly at 'bar 1', that is after any silence or intro bars that might be at the beginning of the song. With recent builds of ACW, your first F8 tap is considered to be the start of the song - it isn't required that you use a different keystroke (F6) to set bar 1. If you miss bar 1 the first time you play the song, just rewind and try again until you get it. Then, continue pressing F8 at barlines as the song plays. It often only require a couple or a few taps at the start of the song, but continue tapping throughout the song or whever it seems to drift a little bit, perhaps due to a slight change in tempo, an anticipation, etc. The Red Triangles on the barlines are called Good Bar Lines (GBL's). The green Triangle bar indicators are bar lines which ACW has automatically inferred from its automatic tempo detection PLUS your edited Good Bar Lines. We call the green automatic bar lines Inferred Bar Lines (IBL's).

Once you have accurate barlines, you may need to go through and 'clean up' a chord here and there. For example, perhaps ACW based part of its analysis for one bar on an accidental loudest frequency of a drum beat. You can send the chords back to Band-in-a-Box® if you wish them to be displayed on the main Band-in-a-Box® chorsheet. You should use the Audio Chord Wizard Utility to create a tempo map - because your song is most likely NOT at an exact tempo like 120.00 bpm throughout the whole song, Band-in-a-Box® will correct for this by adding tempo changes where necessary (Band-in-a-Box® needs to do this because it only supports exact tempos like 120, and not tempos like 120.263 bpm).

These are the most common issues, however there is more detailed information about ACW in the Band-in-a-Box® PDF manual and help file.


Alyssa - PG Music