I deleted my post from yesterday about this primarily because there are so many other issues that are far more important that are weighing on my mind.
As I thought more about it, I concluded that all of those issues are beyond my control other than the right to vote this fall.
My original post about this problem was on 03/01/2010. Peter Gannon joined the debate and it lasted for a few days. To their credit, PG did isuue videos about a work around to address the problem about 4 years or so later. A "work around" should only be used when you are trying to do something that is outside of standard notation or tablature.
Something that isn't up for debate is how bluegrass music or fiddle tunes are notated. 99.9% of them are notated in 8th notes. The very few that are notated in 16th notes are done by people who have no understanding of the music. PG usually treats them as 16th notes.
So you may ask, "why is that a big deal?" I'll only offer one answer that should be more than sufficient. You can't take a piece of bluegrass sheet music music and enter it into BIAB as it is written in most so called bluegrass styles without using a work around.
I haven't upgraded BIAB since 2014 because of this issue. I don't plan on upgrading or recommending the program to ANYONE until this is corrected.
This may have been corrected in upgrades since then, but I'm not willing to spend hundreds of dollars to find out.
The default timing for bluegrass and most other acoustic music is 4/4 time and it's written in 8th notes. That should be reflected in all of the bluegrass or acoustic styles.
I hope that Peter Gannon weighs in on this as he did before.
I don't read sheet music so I can't tell you if the issue is corrected or not. I hope someone can post it is because bluegrass and Band-in-a-Box otherwise complement each other like peanut butter and jelly.
Hello Bob, you have been gone a long time. However, I don't think things have changed that much in regards to you interest. Here is a brief peek at what is in BIAB 2020.
I don't know if you are aware of this forum article or not but it is worth the read if you have not seen it. Peter Gannon shows how to modify any existing 16th based bluegrass style into an 8th based style. He even offers one to download and install.
I have been also griping about this for years now as I have been playing bluegrass since the early 70's.
Since it has been 11 years since I first brought this to their attention and it has not been corrected by PGMUSIC, I took it upon myself to modify my favorite bluegrass styles and saved them as I saw fit. I figured it was easier for me to spend about 1 hour doing this instead of waiting another 11 years for them to do it.
I don't know if you are aware of this forum article or not but it is worth the read if you have not seen it. Peter Gannon shows how to modify any existing 16th based bluegrass style into an 8th based style. He even offers one to download and install.
I have been also griping about this for years now as I have been playing bluegrass since the early 70's.
Since it has been 11 years since I first brought this to their attention and it has not been corrected by PGMUSIC, I took it upon myself to modify my favorite bluegrass styles and saved them as I saw fit. I figured it was easier for me to spend about 1 hour doing this instead of waiting another 11 years for them to do it.
One can only hope.
I would feel differently about it if I were asking them to do something outside of the box.
Did I miss something here? I thought the issue was about "notation" not about tempo settings. I assume how the tracks actually play and sound is not an issue because it sounds like bluegrass to me.
But I don't want to open old wounds so, nevermind.
It's obvious that PG Music knows they have a demand for bluegrass styles or they wouldn't have created so many of them.
What is insulting is that they believe most of us won't realize they are substituting 16th notes instead of using 8th notes as transcribed in 99.9% of written bluegrass music.
Is BIAB unable to process these styles at faster tempos?
If that is the case, at least have the decency to say that's why you notate it incorrectly!
This was frustrating when I started a thread about it 10 years ago. It still hasn't been fixed. Does anyone want to take a guess about how it feels 10 years later?
Since there hasn't been a response from PG Music, I guess I should just accept they are never going to fix it.
It wouldn't be as bad if I hadn't praised PG Music for their outstanding customer service to friends and fellow musicians over the years.
What really sucks is that PG Music knows for a fact that what I'm saying is 100% correct. And still they refuse to correct it.
I'm done with PG Music as far as BIAB is concerned. I still have friends on the forum so I'll participate there to stay in touch with them. But I'll never again recommend the program to anyone.
Hi Bob. I don't know the first thing about bluegrass but I do have some information that may help.
I just loaded a demo that had most of the melody in 16th notes, and fixed it rather easily.
In the last couple of years with the new GUI, you do Edit, Song Form, Expand. [This was possible before, but the menu command changed in 2018; same function.] Expand doubles the length of the song, doubles the tempo, and makes the melody notated in mostly eighth notes as you want.
Then I went through the RealTracks that were playing frantically and changed each of them one by one to play Half-time. This feature has been possible for several years now.
What is more recent is something I asked for and got only a few years ago: the ability to alter the RealDrums the same way. You now have the option to make the RealDrums Half-time, which is needed in this example. Note that I had a similar reason to make this request like yours: all the BIAB sambas are written at tempos of around quarter = 200, when most sambas in the real world are composed in 2/2 time using tempos close to half = 100. Much easier to read!
Put it all together and it sounds adequate to me (but again, for bluegrass, I wouldn't really know).
So, to answer your original question, BIAB has not to my knowledge introduced styles that meet your request, but it DOES now have the tools necessary to construct them, if a bit awkwardly.
And has anyone made the request in the Wishlist in the last two years, now that we do have a half-time option in RealDrums? Worth a try.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
Doing fine, Bob, except for not playing any concerts!
So I’m confused. Did you also post this recently in the Wishlist? Or just ten years ago? My point is that BIAB should now be able to do this easily, since the addition of timebase changes in both RealTracks and now RealDrums.
I will pass a message on to the developers anyway. If you have a recent request in the Wishlist with a good problem description, please post the link here. Otherwise I’ll just link to this thread.
Stay well.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
There is one quote from the original request that is worth repeating.
Quote:
This has kept a lot of my friends from buying BIAB because when I show it to them, they are impressed by its capabilities but say “they don’t understand bluegrass”, and they are right.
It's worth taking the time to read through the thread Bobflatpicker started a decade ago. It is a nice, civil discussion with input from current members like Notes Norton, Jford and Silvertones but also from former members like Mac.
Peter Gannon made a comment about the midi bluegrass styles worth repeating:
Quote:
BTW, most if not all of the MIDI bluegrass, newgrass etc. styles that we've done (even and swing) were played in live on MIDI instruments (typically MIDI guitar), and not quantized.
Seems like we were using SuperMidiTracks before they were famous!
Two things stick out in re-reading these old threads.
1. From PG Music themselves: From Mr. Gannon: "We should have a converter, that takes any style and changes it (save-as) from 8th note based to 16th (or vice versa). Then all of the bluegrass styles would be available as 8th or 16th. I'll add that to the to do list."
This was back in 2010. Ten years later, we still don't have this 'converter' they were going to put on the To Do list.
2. "BB doesn't support 2/2 notation, so we write the notation in 4/4, with 16th notes."
Go to TablEdit.Com and look at the bluegrass tabs. I personally have hundreds and hundreds of them written in 4/4 time using 8th notes for the most part and playing at between 140 to 260 BPM, depending on the song. I have been playing bluegrass since back in the very early 70's and have been taught by some of the best players around, some of them veteran studio musicians. I have 100+ bluegrass books in my collection, many of them going back to the mid 60's. I have 18 3" binders all filled with tabs and songs I have collected over my 50+ years, both Flatpick Guitar and Banjo. I have the entire Banjo News Letter collection dating back to 1973 full of tablatures and the entire Frets Magazine collection. All of the songs are written in 4/4 time using 8th notes per measure, not 16th notes.
Now no one is going to tell me that for the past 50 years I have been involved in bluegrass that all these teachers and all these books are wrong and PG Music is right.
The problem is that they DON'T understand how bluegrass is played or written. That is a fact. I saw that when I 1st started using BIAB back when it came on Floppy Disks. I put up with it simply because it plays correctly but it certainly is NOT written correctly for that genre.
The converter you talked about would be a godsend for the hundreds, perhaps thousands of bluegrass musicians throughout the world who love and use your product and faithfully return year after year to upgrade. I know I would.
Thanks to all who have weighed in on this. I do appreciate it.
To those who haven't weighed in I have a few simple questions.
What if your favorite musical style was notated wrong in BIAB? What if that had severe implications in how you would use BIAB? What if your beliefs were supported by almost 100% of written music?
What if you had supported their product by upgrading for almost 20 years in hopes they would eventually fix it?
A friend of mine who is an excellent guitarist was approached by Mel Bay to do an instruction book/cd for fiddle tunes. He explained to them that he doesn't read music or use tab.
They told him "no problem. Just play the songs at tempo and then play them slow and we'll have someone notate/tab them." He did and they put out a book/cd combo. I bought the combo and was surprised to see that Mel Bay had notated it in 16th notes. I started to ask my friend about it and decided not to because I knew for a fact that the guy wouldn't know 16th note notation from 8th note notation since he doesn't use either. Everything he does is by ear.
That book is the only one I've ever seen that notates bluegrass/fiddle tunes/traditional music in 16ths. All of the others notate the styles in 8ths.
PG knows that creating these styles in 16ths is incorrect. It would be a simple fix for them to create all of those styles in 8ths and release it in the update at the end of the year. They wouldn't need to do away with the 16th styles, just duplicate those styles in 8ths as they should be.
That's really not much to ask of them. Especially since they know for a fact the current styles are incorrect. It's not even debatable at this point.
I would love to upgrade this winter when the new version is released but I'll never purchase or recommend another PG Music product until they fix it. I've been asking them to do it for over a decade.
I just want to be able to take a song “as written”, and enter the progression into BIAB and use bluegrass styles. These songs are written in 8th’s. We could debate swing 8th's versus even 8th's, but they are still 8th's.
I have been at it for a decade also, I started out a nice guy
I remember opening bluegrass songs in TablEdit and I think they were all as you described, though I'm not musical enough to get it all. EDIT: I remember now that was the issue, I had to halve them to fit the Biab tracks.
I can put a Biab 16ths 100bpm into Reaper at 200bpm 8ths. So I can enter the notes correctly to fit the Biab tracks. The midi from Biab is halved (set rate=0.5) The chords are imported with mxml. Because the tracks are at 100bpm 16 instead of 200bpm 8 you will only get a maximum of 2 chords per bar. Will think about it more in the morning.
With the launch of Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Windows, we're adding new videos to our YouTube channel. We'll also share them here once they are published so you can easily find all the Band-in-a-Box® 2025 and new Add-on videos in one place!
Whether it's a summary of the new features, demonstrations of the 202 new RealTracks, new XPro Styles PAK 8, or Xtra Styles PAKs 18, information on the 2025 49-PAK, or detailed tutorials for other Band-in-a-Box® 2025 features, we have you covered!
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Windows is here, packed with major new features and an incredible collection of available new content! This includes 202 RealTracks (in Sets 449-467), plus 20 bonus Unreleased RealTracks in the 2025 49-PAK. There are new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 4, two new sets of “RealDrums Stems,” XPro Styles PAK 8, Xtra Styles PAK 19, and more!
Special Offers
Upgrade to Band-in-a-Box® 2025 with savings of up to 50% on most upgrade packages during our special—available until December 31, 2024! Visit our Band-in-a-Box® packages page for all the purchase options available.
2025 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK Add-ons
We've packed our Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK with some incredible Add-ons! The Free Bonus PAK is automatically included with most Band-in-a-Box® for Windows 2025 packages, but for even more Add-ons (including 20 Unreleased RealTracks!) upgrade to the 2025 49-PAK for only $49. You can see the full lists of items in each package, and listen to demos here.
If you have any questions, feel free to connect with us directly—we’re here to help!
New! Xtra Styles PAK 19 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 and Higher for Windows!
Xtra Styles PAK 19 for Windows & Mac Band-in-a-Box version 2024 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We’ve got 200 new styles coming your way spread across the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres as well as the second iteration of our Blues volume!
In this PAK you'll find: soft singer-songwriter pop, New Orleans grooves, lilting country waltzes, tight ‘n’ groovy funk, garage punk, smooth soul, gospel jazz, up-tempo train grooves, and more variations on the blues than you’ll know what to do with! Xtra Style PAK 19 features these styles and many, many more!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 19 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 19 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 19 requires the 2024 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
New! XPro Styles PAK 8 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 and higher for Windows!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 8 for Windows & Mac Band-in-a-Box version 2024 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 32 RealTracks/RealDrums!
With XPro Styles PAK 8 there are the usual 75 styles spread across the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres (25 styles each), as well as 25 styles utilizing world music instruments, bringing the total to an even 100.
Here’s a sample of what XPro Styles PAK 8 has to offer: 12-8 country-rock ballads, cool soul-jazz, easy listening Americana, hip-hop beats, Latin jazz-fusion, classic rock, electronic dance music, heavy modern-jazz, charming indie-folk, and even some experimental ‘60s rock! Order’s up and hot to go!
Special Pricing! Until December 31, 2024, all the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 8 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2024 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
New! Xtra Styles PAK 19 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Mac!
Xtra Styles PAK 19 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2024 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We’ve got 200 new styles coming your way spread across the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres as well as the second iteration of our Blues volume!
In this PAK you'll find: soft singer-songwriter pop, New Orleans grooves, lilting country waltzes, tight ‘n’ groovy funk, garage punk, smooth soul, gospel jazz, up-tempo train grooves, and more variations on the blues than you’ll know what to do with! Xtra Style PAK 19 features these styles and many, many more!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 19 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 19 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 19 requires the 2024 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
New! XPro Styles PAK 8 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Mac!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 8 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2024 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 32 RealTracks/RealDrums!
With XPro Styles PAK 8 there are the usual 75 styles spread across the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres (25 styles each), as well as 25 styles utilizing world music instruments, bringing the total to an even 100.
Here’s a sample of what XPro Styles PAK 8 has to offer: 12-8 country-rock ballads, cool soul-jazz, easy listening Americana, hip-hop beats, Latin jazz-fusion, classic rock, electronic dance music, heavy modern-jazz, charming indie-folk, and even some experimental ‘60s rock! Order’s up and hot to go!
Special Pricing! Until December 31, 2024, all the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 8 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2024 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Generate Lyrics for your Band-in-a-Box songs with LyricLab!
Need some lyrics to complete your Band-in-a-Box song? LyricLab is here to help!
LyricLab (by Joanne Cooper) is an AI-powered tool designed to quickly create lyrics and chords to fit your music. Just enter a rough idea of your lyrics, and let the AI bring them to life. Once you're happy with the results, simply import the LyricLab file into Band-in-a-Box® 2024 or newer. From there, you can pick your style and generate melodies to match your song’s chords!
One of our representatives will be happy to help you over the phone. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday, and 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST Saturday. We are closed Sunday. You can also send us your questions via email.
One of our representatives will be happy to help you on our Live Chat or by email. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday; 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST (GMT -8) Saturday; Closed Sunday.
Dansk
Deutsch - Windows
Español
Français - Windows
Italiano - Windows
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Svenskt
русский
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Korean