I'm making a backing track for Will You Go Lassie Go which is in 6/8 time and when I look at Style Time Signature it says that for 12/8 or 6/8 use 4/4 with a style using a triple feel. If I do use 4/4 then the notation for the song doesn't fit in 4/4 time so I'm using 3/4. Will this work or am I getting something wrong? I'm also not sure about finding styles with a triple feel.
Most of our 6/8 styles are achieved by actually playing in 4/4 with a triplet feel, and if you change the time signature to 3/4, they won't play correctly.
If you're using Band-in-a-Box 2018, then you can use those styles in 4/4 but see correct 6/8 notation for entering melodies. In the Notation Window, you should see a small drop-down menu to the right of the Mono and Clean checkboxes, which shows the current time signature. Selecting 6/8 in that drop-down menu will give you 6/8 notation without affecting playback.
I am using BIAB 2018 MegaPak. I click on 6/8 on the drop down menu and I then get the bar spread over two bars and in each one there are two vertical slashes and two sets of six vertical lines where I enter the notes but I can't relate this to the 6/8 time. Sorry to be slow about this, I have watched a number of videos but can't fine the answer.
What we need is real 6/8 time signatures as well as other non 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures. That is have 6, 7, 5, etc beats per measure on the tracks, in the exports and in the notation. BiaB is way ahead of the competition in many aspects but far behind in time signatures. YMMV.
Unclear if the pianist is a total beginner or a professional jazz player?
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
The screen that I get on 6/8 time on each bar shows 2 x 6 dotted lines instead of the 3 dotted lines shown in your image. And the box showing the time signature shows 6/8x2. If I can get those 3 dotted lines then it makes a lot of sense.
Not sure how to attach an image of that to be more clear.
One bar of 6/8 is equivalent to 2 beats of 4/4 in a triplet feel, so when you select 6/8 in the Notation Window, it displays each bar (as counted on the chord sheet) as two bars with two beats each, and six divisions in each beat that you can enter notes on.
The reason there are 6 lines per beat instead of 3 is that Band-in-a-Box's Notation Window always displays 16th note divisions, not 8ths. If you want to enter 8th notes, you just need to enter a note on every second line instead of every line.
I did try attaching the image but without success - I followed instructions but the image didn't appear on Paint. The next post from Kent seems to make sense so I shall give that a try and get back if I still have problems.
Hi I found a way to be able to use 6/8 time signature midi imports with 4/4 styles, the approach is that the midi have to be edited in 4/4 time signature with sextuplets arrangement, see image below/attached for an example of a normal 6/8 arrangement, and the required translation into sextuplets arrangement. It works fine in BIAB with 4/4 styles...
It needs some additional editing to get the sextuplets arrangement but in does the trick to be able to use 4/4 styles normally. Allows to place chords at beats 1 and 3, I guess that to be able to add chord on each beat, then a more elaborate tuplets arrangement should work too, e.i. twelve tuplets to allow for chords into beat 1, 2, 3, 4, ...
Addition, depending on the arrangement 2 triplets per bar could be used, and the style 4/4 style should fit the melody feel.
In any case, agree with comments above, a flexible chord sheet to be able to set up any time signature would be a great step forward, as the style picker could provide feedback on suitable styles to apply (limitations on available styles should be understood). For example, there are styles with 6/8 ts, but the style time signature tool does not allow to pick 6/8 for the song; time signature flexible management seems to be an item that needs to happen...user tracks could feed those ts beyond 4/4 & 3/4...
Example with triplets. The way to get the triplets is done by engraving the melody per 6/8, exporting xml to DAW, changing to 4/4, stretching the midi to fit the bars to 4/4, exporting to engraving program as 4/4 to ensure triplets are right, and exporting resulting midi to be imported to BIAB. This way the chords can be added to the bars at beats 1,3, and they will be in sync. Not all arrangements might work at beats 2, 4, but simple ones can be OK...
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