PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic DISCUSSION >> ODD TIME SIGNATURES.

DISCUSSION. ODD TIME SIGNATURES.

over a looong time ive read various posts about odd time sigs.
and it seems to me that this is a 'big hot button' for some users.
and its cropped up recently again.
(NOTE>>>i'm not trying to offend anyone...just as an outside
observer i'm wondering if solutions can be found that keep
everyone happy).
thus maybe an open discussion is needed as to ways to keep
everyone happy....cos i like a happy world.
can compromises be reached ??

so i'll start things off with my 2 cents fwiw and what some might deem
worthless...lol....and maybe i'll get egg on my face..
but so be it.

i keep on asking myself the question what can do pg re this
issue ? and why does this issue keep on coming up in the user
community ? and why do odd time sigs and their handling in bb
irk some users ??

i keep on coming up with the same answer...
ive found with pg that if they can do something at the codeing
level...they will...in order to keep users happy.
the various features implemented in bb over the years are
testament to that....all driven by various user input.
BUT (as happens daily in various industries)...sometimes
what users want..though simple looking on the surface from a user
viewpoint might actually be darn difficult to implement
at the technical level. we had exactly the problem in tech
industry...ie what seemed quote from a ceo 'doable in five
minutes'...actually couldnt be done without a huge re-write of code.
my ceo never troubled
me again once i showed him the manpower/budget needed...lol.

in summary, and i dont know the internal codeing of bb...
but i suspect from the pg coders perspectives that the
'devils in the coding implementation details'.
like we used to get in industry. drove our users nuts...till we explained why...
then it was cups of tea for everyone...and peace once again
came about in the valley.

in summary i suspect if pg could make things easier re odd
time sigs i'm sure they would have done it.
lets be fair for a moment. yes i get my irksome moments
with bb...BUT...then i remind myself of the big picture.
ie...its remarkable how far pg have brought bb over the years.
its unique in the market.
as ive said before the only way to appreciate bb (or rb)...
is for someone to take tech courses in C++, win api's, dsp
programming and lets throw in asm programming too.
in summary this stuff isnt trivial.

so...if its difficult for pg to solve users hot buttons re
odd time sigs what to do ??
so lets have a discussion.

a time sig is basically two values...the numerator and the
denominator i believe ? eg 6/8.
so how about these ideas...??

1..pg include in bb various different 'odd time sig templates'...
one for each odd time sig with arrange examples.
maybe an expansion of the current styles examples/demos ?
2..when a user wants to change the standard time sig in a
song to an odd time sig...a hotkey is presssed...
and user selects a template related to the odd time sig...
PLUS how many bars. and voila...even though the base time sig
shows maybe as 4/4 in actual fact each bar will be shown to be
visually different so as to avoid confusion.
maybe its a question of visually adding more fancy graphics
to each bar ? sooo a bar in 12/8 (eg _SWANK) looks visually
different than a straight 4/4 ?

if anyone says i'm full of it...please offer a better solution
cos i cant think of any without probably involving lots of
programming. yes in some respects its a 'fake workaround'..
but will it assuage some users frustrations ??
maybe also have song examples/vids that explain the 'fake
workaround' ?? would this be usefull to new users ??
sometimes due to limitations of the technology one just has to
make compromises.

and please dont jump all over me as i'm just putting it out there
for discussion. for example lets take 12/8 _SWANK style..
visually in the bar if you listen to the demo as i did with the
template idea you would see in one bar...

1 2 123 <<< visually rhythm accents for 12/8 within the standard paradigm versus
1 2 3 4 for 4/4.

would the template idea make things clearer for new users ?

have at me...throw rotten eggs...i can take it.
in summary i'm suggesting approaching the issue from a different angle
useing some sort of graphics in a bar to delineate say 12/8
or another odd time sig versus straight 2/4 or 4/4 or 3/4 etc etc.


happiness.

om

RB is light years ahead of BiaB in this aspect, just sayin'
There's a working Delphi example in house .. RB even uses BiaB generating engines, so it can be done.
Not sure why it hasn't.
Then again I always worry about a slow merger of RB & BiaB .. I like the workflow in RB, myself, so resist it becoming more like BiaB

Went and pulled up a SEQ file as an example below
Details are in the picture, but it is drums correctly rendered in 7/4 in RB with no 'gimmicks', just rendered.
5 or 6 tracks in this song were rendered in 7/4 without issue
pics or it didn't happen, right?

Rharv.

thanks for posting your thoughts....spot on.

yes rb will do things that bb cant as you and i often point out.
sometimes i feel you and i and some others are the flag wavers
as to rb capabilities....lol.

but sadly i feel even if rb was the best thing since sliced
bread that some users want it all done in bb...because they
just dont want to learn another daw. thus they miss out on
some neat rb features and tricks.

this is why i started in the tips forum a thread attempting
to show its not rb versus a users fav daw they are used to but creating
a powerhouse song creation solution useing both their fav daw
'and' rb...ie plusses of each.
i would love it if you could contribute to that thread as you
must have some neat tricks of your own useing rb...
so feel free to do so.

i feel that actually a lets call it 'advanced features of rb'
video is badly needed...
as well as a comparison chart on the pg site showing the features
that rb has viz bb. both the vid and chart might help new users.

i didnt mention rb re time sigs in this thread because i just didnt want
to get jumped on like a couple of times in the past.
it irks me frankly. so i kept it strictly bb.
between you and i it still baffles me why some users call rb c**p frankly.
particularly with the new features in 2024 rb.
but each to his own i guess.

ps...if you notice in tips forum is another rb thread re interesting
vst plugins ive tested in rb. many have cranked me up big time.
the aim being to find ones that will run on modest pc processors and not need
threadrippers and xeons etc..and pc's costing a small mortgage...lol.

jeff was good enough to let me include the list of vst's he uses...
AND i would really like it if you allowed me to list the plugins you
use in rb. the aim being to help new users.
so feel free to add to the vst // vsti list etc etc i started in tips forum.
imho if you cant do a hit record with the plugins ive listed so far
in conjunction with the pg dx plugins one wont with anything.
there are some amazeing freebies out there...check out the list
ive tested so far. (more to come.)

great respect and happiness.

om

The end result of above song.
Only lead guitar and horns are played; drums, bass, keys, funk rhythm guitar all generated in 7/4 ..
if it was wanted by more people I suspect it would be included in BiaB eventually
http://www.masteringmatters.com/stuff/Count_Me_Out.mp3

/I'm just glad to have RB's ability to accomplish this

Often, I'll consider the numbered 'slots' in the matrix cells instead of bars.

So for 5/4 I'll man the first cell 3 beats, and the second 2 (or vice versa). Then the 2 cells equal one bar of music. Same for the next two cells and so on.

The advantage here is you can put a chord on any of the 5 beats in the bar of music. The disadvantage is that it won't work well if you want to export notation.

I don't know if it's possible for PG to change it and still remain back compatible. I commend PG for the back compatibility, and if it means I need a few work-around methods, it's OK with me.

Notes ♫

Notes.

excellent post.
what i'm basically suggesting is an updated bar graphic so users have a visual guide showing the 'cels' (useing additional vertical lines ?) and how the cel divisions
visually change depending on chosen odd time sig.
ie a picture is worth a thousand words kinda idea.

thanks for your comments. appreciate any other ideas you have.
cos the aim of this thread is to explore ways to keep users of odd time sigs happy
without a major rewrite of bb code. maybe its easy to do the updated cel graphics ?
only pg can answer that.

...................................................................................................................................

Rharv.

great stuff rharv.

given your in depth skills i'm sure users new to rb would
find very usefull a vid covering such rb aspects as how to..

1..mix different tempos in one song.

eg lets say 7/4 morphing into another different tempo then back to 7/4 kind of idea.
and then another tempo change for the solos and another for the coda ?
or some advanced ways to do changeing jazz tempos in a jazz song.
at various time points. i am not a jazz expert...but some users really
into the jazz genre might find this very usefull....
includeing an example song showing 'freeform' and 'improv.'
ie...'how to do a jazz song in rb with varying tempos' kind of idea.
because there are many pg users into the jazz genre.
and pg content offers lots of different jazz styles.

2..use of fractional tempos in above in conjunction with pg
content.

3..other advanced ways of doing neat tricks in rb.

i'm lousy at doing vids and also vision impaired even though the
surgeons have done a great job recently improving my vision
which i'm obviously ecstatic about.
so if you could do a you tube vid showing creating a mixed tempo
song ...i'm sure people would find it usefull.
ie real world case including also fractional tempos.

as you and i know rb has some very interesting tricks up its sleeve.
but its sad that often new users dont dig into them and thus miss
some very usefull features that would help a user create songs.
fyi...recently i looked at a very high end but costly daw.
though it had some neat tricks itself it didnt have some rb
features...and...thus...i would miss certain rb features if i
switched to it.

in conclusion it would be grrrreat if you did a vid...and maybe
the icing on the cake might be includeing midi tricks due to rb's
great strength in midi features.
feel free also to include rb tips ive posted in the tips forum.
with the rb 2024 update things are getting very exciting...
yippee 256 tracks and i can now do vocal comping more easily.
poor jeff must get fed up with my suggestions..lol...
but its all about makeing rb fantastic for users. imho rb needs just a bit more 'finessing'
and thus 'magnifico'.


happiness.

om

Not up to doing video at this point .. would be a ton of work trying to capture all the things involved. With no net gain for me, and my time is better spent elsewhere for now.
But for Giggles, the Chord Cells in the above 7/4 song look like below image
For the Bars with 3 chords, the chords were on 1, 5 and 7 of the bar .. and the Chord Sheet seems to imply that ..
/Edit -Now that I've examined the Chord sheet closer, what exactly is an F5 chord?
//OK, Googled it; it's F no 3rd ..
///F5 seems kind of confusing as a label

In all honesty, time signature is complicated.
For instance, what time is Satellite in?
Lots of correct answers, but very difficult to structure for generating,
and your time signature decision affects the tempo ..and generating success, so 'time' becomes ambiguous



/I'd assume 12/8, but I could definitely see 6/8 or even 4/4 (triplet) working, and in some spots even 5/4
// generating/composing is complex and involves math and effort
///and lots of experimenting!

Rharv.

re your time....yeah i get it.
i think pg needs to do vids showing advanced aspects
of rb...because there is sooo much to like.
and thus might get more users realising various advantages of
rb over even expensive daws like the one i looked at recently.

as to odd time sigs...i agree....its a very complex subject,
and i wonder how much can be done in programming code to keep
users happy.
which probably explains why pg programmers chose the current
implementation route they did in bb.
the added complication being auto accompany
versus a straight daw that doesnt have auto accompany.
only pg can comment as its their code...but...maybe if pg
explained to bb users why they took the route they did...
ie the existing paradigm bar wise..maybe it would help users
to understand its not a trivial topic as you pointed out.
the devils in the programming details i suspect.
i also suspect that its easier to program for odd time sigs
where all tracks are midi rather than a mix of midi and audio
tracks. the audio tracks and track generation introducing
another level of complexity as well as time stretching and
fractional tempos ?

what i'm getting at...in conclusion...is....one just cant say
well 'xyz daw' can do something...so why cant bb ??
because...a traditional daw doesnt have to do what bb does behind the
scenes in the background. its a simpler programming environment
for daw programmers than bb i would suggest from my tech background.
a basic daw paradigm is filling audio buffers before they are needed
cos win isnt a real time os. whereas bb has added tasks to do also.

i hope pg read this and comment why users needs for odd time sigs
introduces various challenges re low level programming code.

maybe i'm wrong...but sometimes in the past in systems development
ive found there are no perfect solutions to make users happy.
only sometimes compromises.
SO...in this case maybe more detailed bar graphics showing cel
divisions per the way notes does things in his mind.?
i'm the same...for me on screen improved bar cel graphics would
help me also.

ps...fyi...i'm testing out an el cheapo fits in your hand minisforum 140 buck fanless pc currently.
has surprised me. win boots fast after some tweaks plus its working grrreat for normal
apps like net/office that dont need lots of cpu power.
i wouldnt use it for serious music production due to the low single thread count etc.
but...imho...the writing is on the wall i reckon and apple had better be carefull much as i like their M serious processors...cos if these little mini pc's get 'souped up' to say 4ghz watch out world.
for such a low price. next 5 yrs gonna be interesting.

happiness.

om

I tried making a 7/4 style once, but the problem was that with the 4 major chord divisions in BiaB cell, I couldn't get the chords to fall on the actual beats, except for the first one. That's OK if there is only one chord per measure, but only if there is no more than 1 chord per measure that falls on the first beat of that same bar.

That's why I don't necessarily consider the cells in the BiaB matrix bars or measures.

And as rharv pointed out, sometimes it's difficult to even know what the time signature of a piece.

Is it 12/8 or 4/4, triplet based? Or 6/8? Or 3/4? I could write the same song in each of those, and it would sound the same.

I have written scores of fake e-disks for BiaB https://www.nortonmusic.com/contents.html#fake and for many of the songs I've had to get quite creative to get the song to have the right feel, often not using the assigned time signature.

But almost all rhythms can be subdivided into 2 or 3 at the most basic level. 4/4, 6/4, 2/2, etc. breaks down in to 2's. If it's triplet based, it also uses 3s in the subdivisions. So 12/8, 6/8, and 3/4 can be subdivided into 3s. But often, 6/8 is taken in two and the subdivision is in 3s. You can do 6/8 but making two 3 beat cells equal one 6/8 bar. I've even used waltz styles to make 6/8 that way (depending on the song).

It sometimes takes some creative thinking to get things to work out in BiaB, but the more you do it, the easier it gets.

So cells can be assigned 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the subdivisions can be broken down into 2 or 3 (EV or sw). From there, you can get just about anything to fit.

Additionally, how the cells built makes a difference. Example: For a 5/4 song if the cells are 3-2 the feel is different from 2-3. That depends on the song.

Getting further advanced. Sometimes the 3 measure needs to be a tad quicker than the 2. An example of that is Jethro Tull's “Living In The Past”. If the 3 part of the 5 is rushed a bit (or the 2 part dragged) the 5/4 is smoother sounding.

Once you forget about each cell equalling one bar of music, you can expand what BiaB will do quite a bit.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Notes.

(OTS = odd time sigs).

this is brilliant stuff you posted.

please clarify something for me.

1..are you saying different daws/music apps might implement OTS
differently ?
2..lets take the case of two orchestra conductors in different
parts of the world leading different orchestras.
are you saying each might have their own different implementation
of a particular OTS ?

if so this reminds me of how some midi gear manufacturers implemented
the midi spec differently....

am i correct or wrong ?

from what your saying it would seem that for OTS there is no
common standard ? as there are different interpretations ?
this is an aspect i'm confused about. i'm a simple soul that
normally does songs in the standard time sigs.

if there is no standard agreed in the world music community re
OTS then of course it makes the job exceedingly difficult
for pg programmers. cos if they do things one way for one group
of musos other muso groups might disagree ?
or am i out to lunch ??

i'm just trying to understand and get to the meat of why the OTS features in
bb seem to be an issue for some users....
in relation to their daw apps they are used to ?
for example if different daw apps interpret OTS differently then this would be
a technical quagmire trying to keep all users happy.

please correct me if i'm wrong regarding the above.

finally i'm curious about what you feel needs to be implemented in bb
(if technically possible at the programming level) to make some musos that use OTS
a lot happier ? so this topic becomes less of an issue for them ?
do you feel there is a solution ? if so what do you think would work from a user perspective ?

once again kudos for your post.

happiness.

om

OM, when I use another program to generate a track(s) and the said track(s) is in 6/8, or 5/4, etc, when imported into my DAW they import at 6 beats per measure, 5 beats per measure, etc. When I import a 6/8 or 5/4 track(s) from BiaB they import as 3 beats per measure or 4 beats per measure. That makes them incompatible with my other programs.

As I have said previously if one works entirely in BiaB or imports those other time signatures into a DAW and play instruments along with said BiaB tracks then no problem.

I hope this helps clear this up for you.

Mario/ALL.

(good info mario...thanks for clarifying.)

ok...i just ran a series of tests useing mission1 style demo
which is 5/4. i set tempo 140.
i hope the following is usefull.
i genned it in bb and then imported m1 into both reaps
and rb....both set to 5/4 time sig....and tempo 140.

heres what i found.
1..both reaps and rb showed correct 5 cel divisions per bar
graphically.
2..both reaps and rb...in each the main music started in cel 9.
so it looks like reaps and rb are in agreement.
BUT..
3..looking in bb piano roll and tracks window the cel divisions didnt match
either rb/reaps. ie... 4 in a bar....even though bb played
the demo correctly. but not 5 cels in a bar graphically.

hopefully the above is of interest.
please do your own tests useing the demo of missile1 styles demo 5/4.
so we are all working with the same 5/4. and tempo.
if i get a chance i'll dload the s1 demo and see what the prob might be.
ie does s1 set to the same paradigm ie...main body music starting at cel 9
and 5 cel divisions per bar or say 10 if useing zoom ?

you guys tell me if my tests were interesting or am i barking up
the wrong tree....?
it would seem to me that both bb piano roll and tracks window graphically
should reflect the OTS...in this case 5/4....but those views in bb dont.
whereas graphically both reaps and rb do as expected.

can i assume that reaps and rb are doing things correctly ?
but bb isnt graphically ??

feel free to critique my testing methodology.
now i'm gonna go off and create a song titled 'the mission position'...lol.

happiness to all...

om

ps...mario...although i'm an old midiot...you are obviously more capable than i
as evinced by your wonderfull soundscapes. in showcase.
also i tend to work more with rt's these days to do my songs and dont use midi
as extensively as i once did.

BiaB simply doesn't handle 5/4 as expected .. it squeezes 5 beats in a 4 four bar measure, so I suspect your test was doomed to fail from the git-go,
at least historically that has been my result.
RB & Reaper are *probably correct (I didn't try your test).

Hmm ... When creating a 5/4 song, my BiaB uses two bars to get 5/4; One three beats and one two beats.
Maybe that's a difference between BiaB created and imported?



I wrote something in response to a post by Andrew in another thread on a similar subject that might shed some light here, or may elicite a "That's not right" from someone. Andrew didn't reply but was likely focussed on the specific MIDI file, which the OP has sent him.

ALL.

(mario please read my last post before this one.)

Rharv and Gordon...thanks for commenting.

its only a suspicion but i created mission1 style demo midi in bb.
ie..type 0 midi....which i then imported into rb event editor.
i noticed lots of bb created control info at front of the test midi type 0 mission mid..

(dont ya love detective work ? just fun to me....lol.)

SOOOO...i am wondering how things would turn out IF after exporting
the midi from bb IF THEN one used an event editor to strip out the control header
control info before the first note on...IF THEN on import to the daw eg s1...
set to 5/4 for the song...all was copacetic.
in summary i'm wondering IF its the front end midi header settings that are causeing confusion for the daw ? rb midi monitor is also usefull for analysing data before the first note on.

NOTE...its very important to ensure after import of the 5/4 midi that INDEED the daw is set to 5/4 and NOT 4/4 default. because all is pear shaped otherwise.

i may be totally out to lunch rharv...but i find it TELLING that the piano roll
in rb showed the correct 5/4 bar divisions BUT not bb...i guess as you said cos
the way 5/4 is handled bar wise in bb per your comment.

mario uses s1 right ?

if i'm correct i would love to know if the mission 5/4 stripped of its front end control
info was then imported into s1 set to 5/4...if then all was copacetic in s1 and matched what i got in rb and reaps viz correct cel divisions.

guys...i'm certainly willing to get egg on my face. it comes with the detective work
territory...lol....so be it....but it looks like to me that importing from bb to reaps or rb
one gets the 5/4 results one expects PROVIDED reaps and rb are set to 5/4 time sig.

NOTE >>> Gordon...you might have hit on something important.
is there any chance that different daw vendors/creators might interpret the midi spec differently ??
if so...this might explain things.

this is fun...lol.

ADDENDUM.

downloading s1 trial right now. will report back.
had to create an account/palava...sigh.

i would be highly interested if a user with both apple and pc would import into
logic pro for example the 5/4 mission midi style from bb...
ie do things in logic pro look as expected ?

happiness.

om

Gordon
I was talking about when I use a 5/4 style (unless that has changed)
I should have been clearer

OM "
i may be totally out to lunch rharv...but i find it TELLING that the piano roll
in rb showed the correct 5/4 bar divisions BUT not bb...i guess as you said cos
the way 5/4 is handled bar wise in bb per your comment.

mario uses s1 right ?"

I have used RB for 5/4 and you are correct in that it shows 5 beats per measure. But when I imported it into Studio One Pro it was still in 4/4. And yes I set S1 to 5/4 prior to the import. Note this was a couple of years ago but I doubt it has changed.

Sorry for a confusing explanation. I'll try to clarify.

1. The first thing I need to stress is that you must forget about BiaB doing odd time signatures. Actually, it doesn't do time signatures at all, it just has cells that can hold from 1 to 4 beats. That means anything with more than 4 beats per bar can't be done in a single cell. So you need to think about the hacks I described.
2. Time signatures themselves are flexible. Example: a 6/8 time signature is often taken "in two". Two beats per bar with a triplet pattern on each beat. You could do the same song with a 12/8 meter, but taken "in four". Or a 3/4 time signature. Cut time (2/2 or ala breve) can be thought of as 4/4 time takin "in two". Often when I read cut time music, that's how I approach it.
3. If 5/4 time had never been invented, you could write the music by alternating 3/4 and 2/4 bars of music. But having a new time signature ever bar would be a PITA. Similarly, alternating 3 beat cells with 2 beat cells will get the job done. Or you could start with 2 followed by 3 - or even 4 and 1. Which sounds best for the song and your chosen style.
4. Since BiaB can't support more than 4 beats per cell, you can emulate longer than 4 beat time signatures by combining more than one cell in BiaB to make one bar of music.

Frequently when making a Fake e-disk for BiaB I'll come across a 6/4 bar. So I split it up, one cell with 4 beats and the next one with 2, and there is my 6/4 bar of music. It doesn't only apply to odd time signatures. After all, 3/4 is an odd time signature and BiaB does 3/4 fine because it doesn't exceed the 4 beat limit per cell.

When you think about BiaB as cells, instead of bars, it gets very flexible. It depends on the chosen style and what it sounds like. Examples:

• Change the beats to 2 (F5), use a "sw" style, and you get a 6/8 bar of music. Leave the cell with 4 beats and it's a 12/8 bar.
• A waltz can be half of a 6/8 bar per cell. Especially if the 6/8 is taken in 6.
• One 3/4 cell + one 4/4 cell = one 7/4 bar

And so on.

As long as you don't intend on printing notation, these hacks work just fine.

One more point. Time signatures are guides, not arbitrary rules. In doing my fake disks, I have found many songs that were not in the time signature that I would have guessed. It may have sounded like a waltz but was written in 6/8, with each ♪ equaling one beat. Or one I figured was 4/4 was actually written in 2/4.

So think beats and sub beats, try to figure out how to get that to work in BiaB's cells, and most time signatures are available to you.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

NOTES...

wow !! great info.

Mario.

could you do the following test please ?
my analysis of the 5/4 mission demo is there is various header or control info
before the midi notes start. you can see it in rb event list or midi monitor..
could you delete this front end control info...set s1 to 5/4
import the bb 5/4 mission demo stripped of the front end control info...and post back if still a prob ?

i tried dloading s1 trial to test but my prob is studio computer is not connected
to the net. so i tried the activate offline option...then it wants me to dload another file.
lifes too short....i really wish daw trials were as simple as the reaps approach.
sorry. mario...s1 certainly has a plethora of nice features...but...they gotta make the trials easier.

btw...again love your sig.

ALL.

correct me if i'm wrong but i read into notes brilliant post there is a 'possibility'
that each daw maker might interpret things midi differently ?
ie the use of the words ' not arbitrary rules' ?

all i can suggest at this point is a standard 5/4 file is posted on the net that various daw users with different daws can import and test. and see which daws dont agree with each other. for me it looks like rb and reaps agree...
rb piano roll is correct. but bb piano roll doesnt match the rb piano roll as to divisions.

to ALL thanks for making this discussion very interesting.
maybe pg should test 5/4 and other OTSigs in various daws also.

ADDENDUM.

i decided to activate s1 trial on another pc this time a pc connected to the net.
installed s1 after dload.
but 'then' i was met with s1 needing some licence file which hadnt been dloaded with
the s1 installer. ...i couldnt find such on presonus account.
this trial activation is just too complex...giving up....too many steps.
ive uninstalled s1 useing the uninstaller in win program files.

i'm a pretty patient guy...but this is too complex a install and verify of s1 trial.

maybe someone else can give s1 a go...ie import the mission 5/4 midi into s1 after stripping it of front end control data.



happiness.

om

Everything Notes implied was true ..
You can get to every odd time you want using combinations of time signatures if you are OK with what that looks like in BiaB
..well most Odd Time Signatures anyway. I'd hate to see Bruford's 'He**s Bells' displayed that way, if even possible. (19/8)

One tip I can say out loud is when generating in, for example, 7/4 Time Signature; the tendency will usually be that RB plays a 4/4 and then another, but cuts off the last beat of that second bar for that track. Thus effectively 4/4 & 3/4, but on the UI the scroll bar moves along at a 7/4 display.

/it's like mathematical magic if you don't understand the relationship between math and programming
//sure makes it easier to see where I am in the song, especially on audio tracks

I tried for a hour trying to do that in RB but with zero success. It is my inexperience with that DAW, it fought me all the way so I just gave up, I'm not going to spend hours learning RB as I will never use it. (It's funny that I use(d) Cakewalk's Pro Audio and Sonar as well as Studio One Pro with rarely looking at the doc but RB is so much different - I am not knocking RB or those whom use it - I have always said if you do not already have a DAW then learn RB, it is just not my choice of DAWs)

So I generated the 5/4 mission style in BiaB and ran the MIDI file through my MIDI editor (midieditor.org). I deleted the unknown item but it wouldn't let me delete the time signature, i.e. all of the notes and CCs did show. I set S1 to 5/4 an imported the MIDI file. It was exactly as before, i.e. 4/4 lines up the BiaB MIDI measures perfectly while 5/4 did not.

om, you can DL a 30 day demo here
https://www.presonus.com/en-US/studio-one.html
You just have to open an account.

Notes, I tried you cell approach with a 5/4 time signature. I set BiaB to 5/4 and it set up the chord sheet to repeating 3/4 and 2/4. I loaded a 5/4 style and all was well. But when I dragged that style into Studio One Pro it only lined up with a 4/4 time signature, just as it was with my other attempts. So staying in BiaB all is well but not when moving said styles into a DAW.

mario.

one funky thing to watch out for in rb is you MUST...after importing the bb file
ensure that time sig is 5/4....otherwise things are winky....if you find in rb tracks view
its defaulted to 4/4...change it to 5/4.

let me say right off the bat i'm not trying to 'push' rb at you.
cos i realise you love s1....which has v nice features.
you are a very talented long time user.
i'm just trying to figure out with the assistance of you all why some daws
(eg in my case reaps and rb) handle 5/4 and others might not.)

mario i DID set up an account for s1. but still couldnt get past activation codes phase.
sorry cos i would love to test s1.
just a way out there question...not meant to irk you...but...upon import of the bb file
did you check time sig was set to 5/4 ?
OR lets say you save a blank song project in s1 in advance..set to 5/4...then open it up and import bb file...does it now show 4/4 say and not 5/4. ?
i have to as i said in rb be carefull and ensure after import 5/4 is set in rb.

ok...all...i tried another daw...waveform free...whats interesting is in waveform tracks view once i imported the bb midi and set time sig to 5/4...all seemed copacetic...
i got 5 per bar cel divisions like reaps and rb.

this is all very strange...and i'm wondering if the anomoly with time sigs is daw dependent. hopefully we all can figure this problem of OT's together and as notes
mentioned a 'hack' or workaround....
i'm gonna see if i can try trials of other daws as time permits.

ADDENDUM.

well i tried to get trials of some big name daws...but jeesh...what ya gotta go thru to get a free
trial. its draining on a person.
so maybe other pg users can try the 5/4 test in their own fav daws.
i'm beat...lol.

happiness to all....and i appreciate the help and comments.

om

om, yes I set both RB and S1 to 5/4 prior to importing the MIDI file. In S1 when I changed the time signature to 4/4 is when the MIDI file lined up with the measures.

It is very interesting that "ok...all...i tried another daw...waveform free...whats interesting is in waveform tracks view once i imported the bb midi and set time sig to 5/4...all seemed copacetic...
i got 5 per bar cel divisions like reaps and rb.". It looks like Waveform uses cells like BiaB. Does Reaper use cells also? S1 doesn't use cells, only measures, so maybe that is the difference. Or are you saying that cells are measures. Note that BiaB only uses cells as measures in 3/4 or 4/4 for exportation.

mario.

hi...to clarify i mean 5 cels within a bar. which reaps and rb show once set to 5/4.
such fun...lol...i'm haveing a daw test marathon.
currently dloading samplitude music studio.
no account set ups...just dload free trial.

will report back on samp.

btw i tried your midieditor.org...there is a button at top to set time sig but haveing trouble getting it to work.
nice little freebie though.

i think your comment re cels might be correct....maybe s1 does things differently.
remember roland and yamaha midi gear years ago had different interpretation of the midi spec ?
i'm wondering if same is occurring here per notes points.

ps...looking at the features in samplitude music studio and the cheap price its impressive.
gonna see if i can try mixcraft next if trial isnt too difficult to get.

respect and happiness.

om

ALL.
UPDATE.

ok just tried samplitude studio..trial and once i imported 5/4 midi
and set sst to 5/4....

like reaps and rb and waveform free.......5 cel divisions per bar showed in the sst midi editor.
actually sst is pretty impressive with a ton of features...boggles ones mind.
and the way magix has done the trial approach is pretty clever.

update.

just tried mixcraft..lovely simple trial. too many features to list.
once again on import of 5/4 and setting mixcraft to 5/4.
got 5 cel divisions once again...

IN SUMMARY....the daws so far that seem to work and show 5 cell divisions per bar for 5/4 OTS are...
..reaps
..rb
..waveform free
..samplitude music studio
..mixcraft.

ps to mario. please confirm something re s1 ...i assume you have the option in s1
timeline to show cel divisions in a bar or time ie...>> hh/mm/ss ?


happiness to all.

om

... Implying that BiaB uses different methods to get odd tempos depending on context.
Speaking as a software designer amongst many things, that sounds like a recipe for problems.

All.

(please see my previous post re daws i tested that displayed the 5 cels in a bar
for a 5/4 OTS.)

as ive just had my supper and my belly is full...lol..just want to mention some aspects...

1. the daw trials i tried today exhibited huge numbers of impressive features.
amazing actually...but...
2. i find lots of modern daws employ the use of loads of icons....and often i found myself what i call 'icon hunting' as in how do i change the timeline from hh/mm/ss
times to cel divisions within the bar and where do i set the time signature.
fantastic daw features...but often i found myself searching for a feature.
3..I KNOW people here prolly think i have a rb bias...but honestly i dont.
two of my fav apps are reaps v2 and rb. why you might ask ?
the answer is simple...i find they are simpler daw environments for me to create in.
i'm a simple soul you see...and apps with loads of icons i find difficult to use.
maybe its my vision impairment (now improved somewhat by the brilliant eye surgeons)..we are all different.
let me say again the daw trials i tried today were choc full of very impressive features.
maybe i'm a 'dumb A' lol...


anyway upshot is ive found several daws (see my last post) that produce expected
5/4 results looking at their 5/4 bar divisions.
i would love to hear from ableton, pro tools, cubase and users of other daws if they have probs re odd time sigs. (OTS). also it would be interesting if logic pro works ok importing 5/4 files from bb.

now i'm gonna goof off...lol.

ps...mario..i dont know if this helps re setting s1 to bars and divisions of such instead of time.?
for example in reaps i can set timeline to hh/mm/ss OR bars and bar divisions.
mario i googled 'studio one viewing timeline in bars'....link below.
s1 offers obviously a plethora of features.

https://pcaudiolabs.com/how-to-use-the-grid-in-studio-one/



happiness to all.

om

I have mine set to bars and bar divisions. I have the hh/mm/ss set in the lower S1 taskbar, thus I have both showing simultaneously.

Yes Studio One Pro has a "plethora of features". I use a lot of them but not all of them. And much like BiaB I learn something new every time I use it!

mario thanks....i wonder if its some s1 setting somewhere ?

ALL....HERES A SURPRISE...NO BRAINER.

ok heres a lesson in letting a user get a trial easy and be up and running fast.
from the moment i went to the web site...dloaded the trial...installed...
and imported the 5/4 bb file into the daw took at max a few minutes.
versus other products where it took a looong time to get the trial imho.

i'm highly impressed also how far this daw has come since last i checked..
very easy to use with a low learning curve.
just flawless.

https://www.multitrackstudio.com/download.php

if anyone doubts me...see for yourself....the ease of install
and its ease of use.
like rb and reaps v2 it has hidden depths.
after install import the 5/4 bb file and set the project to 5/4
and 140 bpm. magnifico...

bottom line...the midi editor shows 5 cel divisions per bar...
ie what is expected. like other tested daws upthread.
seriously take the test lite version for a spin.

in conclusion mts imho is a winner. i was very surprised.
imho bb or rb with this...one could do a hit record with.
this is one elegant kiss concept daw....SERIOUSLY.
LOVED IT....it may not have the razzamatazz of some daws...
but wow is all i can say.

just my opinions...AND NO...for those sceptics out there...
i have no links to MTS whatsover.
particularly for someone new to music production MTS would be grrrreat.
THIS IS DAW DONE RIGHT IMHO...I WAS SMILING LIKE CRAZEEEEEEEE...lol.

happiness.

om

Multitrack Studio is good stuff.
Been around a long time

An old 'Mac' link from when we worked audiominds .. UI tells how old it was
http://audiominds.com/recording_software.html <grin>

Rharv.

re MTS...what a great daw. i agree good stuff.
a breeze to get the trial versus some trials where it consumes lots of time to get a trial...
ie account creation...etc etc...sigh.
theres gotta be a better way while protecting a company ip.
MTS was a breeze just like reaps trial.

heres another.

i just tried PODIUM free daw.
like MTS a breeze to try it....and lots of nice user features.
also like MTS not bloated..small exe.

lets get to the meat.
i dropped in the bb genned 5/4 140 bpm like with the other daws
no probs...opened editor...cel divisions were as expected...5 divisions
in a bar.

congrats to podium....only played with it a little...but another interesting daw option.
lots of good user features etc....like MTS i would suggest someone new to music production useing this with bb or rb generating the session musician tracks would have
fun. i mean i love rb/bb/ptw/reaps for their depth of features...but the freebie daws
are nothing to sneeze at imho.

I REALLY WISH SOME APPLE USERS WOULD RUN A 5/4 140 bpm test importing
from bb mission1 style demo.
(Rob Helms...you have an apple ...right ? if your reading this...any chance you could check if you get in gband or logic 5 cel divisions per bar for a 5/4 song.)

what confuses me rharv is why i can get 5 cel divisions in rb for a 5/4 file but not
in bb....comparing piano rolls. any bb workaround ?

respect and happiness rharv.

om

That is what I said earlier; the Delphi code working example exists in house written and implemented in RB .. and I guess since you get it for free with BiaB maybe they figure if you like to work like that we already gave you RB . dunno
I just move on to RB when BiaB can't do what I need.

Rharv.

hmmm...i wonder why ?

as you say the programming code is in rb so why not bb ?

actually going through all these daws has given me even more
respect for rb and its uniqueness.
it baffles me why some people knock rb...cos thru my testing various daws
...none of them do what rb does.
lots of snazzy daws out there but also i'm finding daws
with just too many icons to figure out from a user perspective.

i'm not exactly the dimmest bulb on the tree ...but in some daws i felt
overwhelmed by all the icons the programmers have used plus the size of
the executables. by comparison...like reaps daw the MTS and Podium daws impress
me how they do so much within lean *exe's.

fyi...ive got a fanless 140 buck hold in your hand mini pc here i'm testing out.
great for the net as i dont want to use my production ry pc for that.
lousy single thread score for music production...but for s's and giggles
i'm also testing these daws out on it.

MTS and Podium surprised me...obviously cos they are clever lean
daws like reaps....and come up fast.
the fanless would be ok for low track and plug in counts...
ie song scratchpad kinda idea... but my production new mini pc
blows it away...but of course that one is 3 times the price.

one thing going thru my mind is how apple (much as i love their new m processors)
is gonna compete once these fanless 140 buckers have 3 or 4 ghz cpu's in a few years
and thus blow the doors off for music production at a cheap
under 150 buck price.

fyi i think things might be playing out as follows...
critique my logic..

1. apple dropped intel cpu's. thus big loss of biz for intel.
2. intel responds with cheap powerfull processors for cheap under 200 buck
mini pc's in response to replace the lost revenue stream.
tech wars...lol.
the thinking being that apple macs tho' grrreat are also not exactly affordeable for many poor musos around the world.
gonna be an interesting few years.

fyi was hoping to try pro tools in the spirit of being unbiased...but...my goodness its so difficult to get a trial versus the ease of reaps or mts or podium daws trials..
ive now given up twice....lots of steps to go thru to try trial like some other daws.
i like the way pg do it...they protect their ip...while...at the same time makeing it easy for users.

respect and happiness.

om

ps...just tried briefly the mulab daw trial...mission1 5/4 works in this too.
5 cel divisions per bar.

Are you saying that a BiaB 5/4 song dragged and dropped into those DAW actually had 5 beats per measure and the BiaB file played perfectly with it?

Mario.

dunno what i can say more.

just do your own testing with various daw trials if you doubt me.
eg ...
1..export pg mission1 song.
2..set host daw to 5/4 140 bpm....etc etc.
MTStudio is great for fast trialling...only takes a few mins to dload and open up.

note...the only daw editor or piano roll i could not get 5 cels in a bar was bb.
all the rest rb/reaps/mtstudio/podium etc etc no probs.

as i'm tired thats it for me re testing. cant test every daw of course takes too much time.
frankly i gave up on some daw trials as i said because of taking too much effort
to get the trial. after ease of use of getting MTStudio and podium trials i thought
why cant others make it easy to do daw trials.
for example mts gives you 3 tracks to test out.

i'm not sure gotta check but mts has a generous inexpensive upgrade policy as do others like reaps. magix samplitude impressed me how they approached the trials
aspect. but some of the daws took some time to dload as they include lots of content and plugins etc etc...so to be fair they are larger programs because of this.

re setting s1 time sigs to help you ive been looking on the net...
i assume you know this as an example...

https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=42994

there are also vids on you tube re the s1 time sigs topic.
from my research it looks like s1 is very capable re time sigs and changeing
time sigs in a song. thus i'm puzzled....when i have time will try and get s1 trial again.
it seems that s1 has both a time sig and tempo track....??

happiness.

om

I would love to test Logic, but my Mac is too old to download it. I don't really like GB. I use Reaper on Mac.

Sorry om I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just confused over the word cels. I understand that cell means one measure so is cel a beat? I can't find the word cel anywhere.

Again if I upset you I am sorry. That was not my intention.

Mario.

as notes said...various people have various interpretations i guess.
let me say upfront i always have been lousy at music theory.
if you asked me to put pen to manuscript paper old skool...not me.
i do songs differently.

so heres my take....depending on time sig numerator.

4 = 4 cel graphic divisions
6 = 6 ditto
12 = 12 ditto.

i just tested in rb...all good.

for you i will try once more today s1 trial and go thru the many steps.
because i want to try it anyway in the spirit of being unbiased.

fyi...the daws i'm gonna test out further are mts, podium and maybe waveform free.
the first 2 cos of price/performance and waveform free...cos it works on rasp pi.

Rob Helms.

re MTStudio...there is a version for mac...maybe try the demo ?
am curious what you think. even runs here on junky pc.
only takes a few mins to dload and install. i was very impressed. like reaps a daw done right
imho.


happiness.

om

I think it's just one of OM's word contractions... cel == cell.

FWIW, in this context I personally would interpret cell as meaning a box on the screen into which one would type a chord, so I would expect 4.4 to have four such cells, 5/4 to have five, 6/8 to have 6 and so on.

For me, BiaB fails a little right from the start, because I interpret the chord entry as having only one or two cells per measure. Entering commas to get chords on the second and forth beats of a 4/4 seems clumsy to me... rhetorical question, but why not use space or tab to advance by one cell and tab or enter to advance by a bar/measure. It's probably quicker and easier to get to individual beats that way than juggling whatever and commas within one bar. I presume it made sense when they first did it...

I also imagine that some combination of history, data structures, file structure, code, user resistance(?), etc. is what makes them appear so reluctant to change things.

I feel sure that this statement is correct on everything, except perhaps for 'user resistance'.

I think the original design architecture only ever contemplated a maximum of 4 beats to the bar, and that is so hard-coded in so many places that re-engineering this presents significant challenges.

Gordon.

re cels...good explaination. its just the way my mind works.
i use the cel concept in my mind to correlate the divisions graphically i'm looking at.
of course there is the issue of what might happen within one cel.

for example from my understanding talking with jazz friends in the past...freeform poses
a problem cos various things might occur between beats....
so one cant be exactly strict within the context of a beat ?
so for me and maybe i'm stupid but i thinking of a cel in the context of anything musical
note wise that might be occurring within the cel.
a corollary...maybe a bad one...lol...think of 6 houses...
their contents can vary over time. maybe on monday house no 4 has 3 people in it...
because a friend has popped over to watch the telly...but that evening only 2 people are in the house. thats sorta how i see things.
then the issue of microchords is something else.

from what ive seen of your posts gordon you obviously are way better at music theory
than i..i'm a dunce by comparison...kudos to you.

Mario.

lets make a deal....lol.
if you help me figure out how to get the s1 trial...i'll address solution to rb giving you a hard time and frustrating you.
if you agree to the deal...where i'm getting hung up with s1 trial is after account set
up and dloading s1...i get this licence screen asking for a code i cant find.
so please do the following if you can...pretend you are a person wanting to get the s1
trial for first time and see if you get hung up at the same spot as i.

as to rb...just like bb genning the tracks is the same in rb.
eg select the mission 1 style demo thats in the stylepicker ie 5/4 140 bpm.
then gen it...and notice after a short wait the tracks will appear in rb tracks view.
includeing the default synth has been set up...eg coyote.
next step is KEY...in rb make sure that time sig is set to 5/4 AND bpm set to 140.
THEN playback to hear the song.
tell me if this works for you. IF it DOES notice the cel divisions in each bar are 5
correlating with the numerator of the time sig set....rather than the standard 4.
NOTE i'm NOT trying to push rb at you...i'm just curious what is bugging you in rb.

happiness.

om

PS...audiotrack i agree with your hard coding point. i had the same prob in industry when
i had to take over a B I G app...we finally decided it would be a huge cost and many man hours
and resources to solve.

I'd intended to write "perceived user resistance", but failed. Ho Hum.

Yes. I deliberately stayed away from those for the moment. Although one set of 'microchords' per cell seems reasonable, I'm not so sure how well it would work with eighth-note beats/cells.


Hmm ... music theory is one thing, actually being any good at music is quite another. I started very late and I continue to struggle. I suppose being a jazz enthusiast just makes things more complex, perhaps especially for a techie mind ... I get too bogged down in the theory, so I'm not free enough. Ho hum.

Gordon, I agree with you on the cell comment. I always think in terms of measures and beats and never cells.

I think the code for BiaB is very old and locked in on n/4. I also think we are locked into having to accept that limitation.

I have always told my students to learn music theory but don't let it get into the way of making music. That is learn theory to expand your knowledge but don't let it dictate your playing. Use it to augment your playing. YMMV

om, 1- I tried to get the demo version of Studio One Pro but because I am already registered I couldn't get to that page.
2- forget about it. I DLed Multitrack studio and like you said I imported a BiaB 6/8 and 5/4 song into it and it lined up and played perfectly with the beats and measures, i.e. cells. However like RB when I saved those Multitrack Studio MIDI files and loaded them into S1 they reverted back to 4/4. With all of your trials also loading and playing BiaB files perfectly it is obvious that S1 is the problem/anomaly/outlier.

Thanx for all of your investigative work.

No, that sounds right to me, though others will disagree.

My grandfather was a piano tuner and played by ear. I asked him if he'd teach me, but he said "It's not the right way ... you should have lessons and learn properly".

As a child in a single-parent home in a house of multiple occupancy in an inner London slum-clearance area, we had no money for a piano or lessons. I dropped music early at school to focus on engineering, so I had no tutoring at all until I was almost 60.
I've almost always been good at anything to which I turn my hand. I thought music would be the same, as did my friends. Nope, not this time. I'm now trying to push some of that theory learning more to the back, but it's a struggle and I'm now in my 70s.

Gordon, I feel your pain. I'm 78 and I have a hard time learning new stuff. Plus at my age if its not necessary and it ain't fun I ain't doing it. That is why I'm not trying to learn RB as I find it difficult to use, i.e not fun. I DLed Multitrack studio and had it up and running in about 10 minutes, i.e fun.

My advise it to just have fun with the piano and don't worry about theory. Once you get better at playing then learn a little theory at a time. Plus there are many on these forums that are glad to help you if or when you get stuck.

JAOM, i used MTS for several years. I loved it. It had one issue that moved me onward. I do not like the comping features in it. I actually moved from Cakewalk and Powertracks to N-tracks studio and quickly to MTS used it through 4 versions and in the meantime RB was born. I then started to add Reaper into the mix but felt confused and tried Studio one since it came with my Presonus interface. MTS is slick smooth and quick. It is easier to mix in that just about eveything else, it just lacks a real good comping setup other than copy paste. Actually i am so unbelievable busy these days that after beta slowed down i had to focus on other matters. I will get back to DAW work soon. I have been creating a nice catalog of BiaB backing songs. I have nearly 30 so far. With hundreds yet to process.

I'm glad other have found it so, worried I may be one of a few ..
I also have no issue using RB, or Reaper .. or any other DAW, except as JOM & others mentioned; some others can be a pain to get set up and running.
If I need to install an installer just to get it, well that's frustrating .. like Kontakt. I have it, but sheeesh

// I want to get work done .. like now! So I resort to familiar tools quite often

Bob MTS is a great little DAW no doubt. I stopped using it when i got Studio one, then left that when they kind of cheated me out of a version. I finally upgraded Reaper and bought Harrison Mixbus 32C on a sale and i like those two. Still sometimes i miss the absolute simplicity of MTS.

Mario. thanks. your good people.
anytime your stuck on something in rb...just
post in rb forum and youll get help.
if were me re 5/4 in s1 i would contact the s1
forum/support. i'm sure there must be a solution.

Rob Helms...and any apple users reading this.
ive never tested it but notice there is a version of MTStudio
for ipad.
Rob...have you tested MTS on your apple ?
re comping...maybe go on the MTS forum and make a feature
suggestion ? i like what jeff did in rb 2024 viz comping.
i use it for vocals etc.

All.
whether paid or free...from all the daw trials imho you could do
a grrreat song with any one of them.
as the daw marketplace is sooo competitive the array of features
in any of the daws...whether paid or free...is amazeing imho.
just blowing my kilt up...lol.
taking just one paid one as an example....
samplitude music studio.
this daw for the price of a meal out has a huge feature set.
however to really appreciate it one needs to spend some
time with it in order to get the most out of it.
even the free daws like waveform free or podium free offer
very impressive feature sets.

frankly for me i like the lean daw approach.
eg MTS or Podium with small exe sizes.
(a reason i like also reaps v2....kiss concept.)

whats blowing my kilt up is i got this 140 buck cheap fanless mini
pc to replace an ageing pc i was useing for the net.
for s's and giggles ive been trying the daw trials on it.
been surprising. but of course even though it got the ok from
latency mon and surprised me with its low dpc count...which is
good for music production...its single thread score is way under 3000
that i recommend for music production. so i wouldnt load it up with
resource hogging plugins and loads of tracks.
its got a low end processor with emmc storage.
however one can hang eg ultra fast m.2 drives off usb.

in closeing fyi...as ive never done a song in 5/4 before out of the loads
ive done over the years. i'm trying to use the mission1 style 5/4 as
a personal challenge and as a base for a little vocal scat
i came up with that lasts 2 minutes.
if i get it the way i want it..i'll post a very rough demo on
my scloud.

happiness to all.

om

No i have not test MTS on apple since it works the same as on PC so i do not feel the need nor want to spend the money. I stopped using it for a certain reason and that has not changed. I never discourage it's use as it is a really solid program. It was just one single thing that it has that i did not like. The rest is head and shoulders better than most programs. I did play with the iPad app once but i don't like recording on an iPad.

When i was using MTS that was the time that the Reaper revolution began. Every forum board you went on the "Reaperites" were attacking! it was like a wave and it caused a rather weird hatred of Reaper. It did not matter what issue you brought up their answer was to switch to Reaper. Slobbering fanaticism! I Loved MTS because it simply got things done. In particular i love how you could drop either audio or midi on a track and then in the FX slots add a synth or a audio plugin and it treated the tracks the same in regard to processing. It also looks GUI wise like a simple old school tape machine of sorts. No need for a tracks and mixer view the main view did both at the same time. My only reason for leaving it behind was that as some of the other programs developed the ability to comp tracks became a bit more refined than MTS. Still it does have a nice copy paste ability from one track to another. But i like the take lanes in Reaper and other apps. Yes i reconciled with Reaper. i just stay away from their website and ignore the "Reaperites"! It seems they have calmed down a bit, or the other programs have become so much better that they are not running ahead anymore. Or maybe i am just a bit more tolerant now?!? hhmm maybe that is it. yeah, let's call it that!

rob...
I just wondered if you tried mts demo trial on apple.

btw i cant find a trial of harrison daw mixbus.
does one exist ????

happiness

om

I love that. If I still had students, I'd steal that line.

I think it's important to know theory, at least at the basic level. The rules are rules, and they make sense, but it's nice to break the rules, too. That's where imagination and creativity come in, but without the framework, it's much more difficult to do this. Sure, there will always be great musicians who don't know theory, but they are the exceptions to the rule. Most of us aren't that exceptional.

I don't like RB because of the lack of advanced MIDI editing tools. I can do a lot of things with MIDI on an old Master Tracks Pro app that I cannot do with Real Band. (Of course, there are other things RB can do that MTPro will not.)

There is a wonderful change filter in MTP that when making global changes to a track or song, I can only apply it to specific circumstances.



Say, if I want to change just the snare drum on a drum track, and just the 3rd or 4th beat of the measures to perhaps play 5 clock tics behind the beat, it's easy. Highlight the track shift everything 5 beats to the right, but invoke the change filter to only use the snare drum note, on the selected beats, and not disturb the rest of the drums. Without that filter, I'd have to do it one measure at a time.

The filter can be applied to any global change. All the dialog boxes have the option to use the filter, here is one example of many.



Click the Use Change Filter box, it takes you to the change filter dialog, and you can make specific edits on a global scale.

Almost any editing tool can be rung through the change filter in MTPro, and that saves me countless hours of time.

So RB, even just for uncommon time signatures, is out of the question for me.

When doing my Band-in-a-Box Fake e-Disks, I'm reluctant to use microchords for 2 reasons, (1) they are not backwards compatible to older versions of the app and (2) sometimes with certain styles they just don't sound right.

I want anybody to be able to use my products, and I want them to be able to change the style to whatever they like.

That's where the BiaB hacks come in.

In some ways the maximum of 4 beats to a cell is a hindrance, but for other things it can be an asset. The creative hacks needed to get around that limitation, also opens the door for the ability to do some things you couldn't do otherwise.

I'm glad BiaB has prioritized back-compatibility, and don't mind the creative hacks needed to get it to work the way I want. I've done 51 fake disks with hundreds of songs in each one, and have never been unable to enter a song. That speaks well for the versatility of this app.

So put on your thinking caps, almost everything is possible.

Notes ♫

ALL.

i need a little help.
i came up with a song idea as a challenge for me on
mission1 style 5/4....as ive never done a 5/4 song before.
however heres the prob...

in the pickers for rt's and rd's...in the lists i dont
see which session musos can be used on odd time sigs like
5/4. am i missing something ?
twould seem to me there needs to be extra columns in the pickers
which content can be used with OTS's.
if anyone knows what pg content i might test for a 5/4 song...it would save
me a lot of detailed work auditioning lots of content that might not apply to 5/4 styles.

Meanwhile.

i tried to get a trial today of a daw from a big well known name.
the hoops it looked i would have had to through is mind boggling.
dont these orgs realise they could probably do more biz if they made trials
easier to demo ? i think once again MTS is the right way.
fast dload and install and give the potential buyer a couple of tracks.
there must be a better way to protect ip rather than asking
people to go thru' hoops.

Notes.

re midi filtering in rb etc... your comments surprised me as i always thought
between the piano roll and rb filtering there were sufficient filter
options. for other users benefit i would suggest you create a wishlist.
maybe also jeff yankauer will read your comments and offer some solutions.
i normally dont get into deep filtering so i bow to your obvious deep
experience in midi.

happiness to all.

om

You won't find RealTracks or RealDrums in 5/4 because BIAB doesn't natively support that time signature. There are no RealTracks or RealDrums recorded in 5/4.

In BIAB, 5/4 is made up of a bar of 3/4 and a bar of 2/4. In other words, it takes two bars to make each bar of 5/4.

However, filter for 5/4 in the Style Picker and you will find samples. But they won't be single bars of 5/4. To the best or my knowledge, there aren't any. Others may know more.

In RB
If the SEQ file has a 5/4 time signature set, generate any RT/RD .. experiment
Let us know .. try any 3/4 or 4/4 RT/RD and let us know if it just 'Generates' .. in the desired time sig
In BiaB, I dunno, might work ..

Of course you can save time by looking at the RT description. Trying a 'ballad picked acoustic' when you're looking for a rock/groove feel would be a waste of time

/that said I HAVE stumbled onto things .. just mashed grunge drums, mandolin, acoustic, banjo, rock guitar, and funk bass together just to experiment, can be fun and provide unexpected results in that they all worked together (kinda)

http://masteringmatters.com/stuff/UrbnM1bc.mp3
/not odd-time on this particular one, but shows that experimenting can be fun
//my previously posted odd-time song also used various unrelated 4/4 RTs , so it can work

ALL.

AT. thanks for commenting.
what do you think about this idea ??
put in the wishlist the idea of a seperate section for what pg content
would be appropo for each odd time sig (OTS). ??
so for example this mission1 5/4 style i'm working with...

i would enter mission1 style in the picker and up would come
a list of rt's//rd's//supertracks and loops and other pg
content etc that a user could try as a base to experiment
with. rather like one might do in a commercial studio with
session players...trying various approaches and combos of
various instrumental ideas....and with this type of style
arrangement concepts and scatting.
AT...this is my first venture into OTS out of the tons of songs
ive done over the years...and its gonna be very demanding...
so...as such...i feel the above suggestion might save me time
testing out thousands of rt's//rd's//supertracks and loops.
do i make sense ?

Rharv.

thanks for commenting.
(re http://masteringmatters.com/stuff/UrbnM1bc.mp3...cute arrange.)

re testing pg content to see what fits...
thats roughly what ive been doing but its very hit and miss
and time consuming i'm finding auditioning content.
as always you come up with neat ideas.

now i want to go on a mini rant rharv...lmao.
how the darn heck some call rb junk beats me.
ive just tested a lot of daws...all great in their own way...
BUT...none of them...and i mean none of them could let me get to
this stage of OTS song developement as rb in such a short time..
because ive got it all there in rb ...all the daw features
plus the session track generation for audio and midi.

fyi...heres what happened you see. this is not made up
and is straight up.
i started listening to this 5/4 style and the old creative juices
started flowing and i thought 'hold on a cotton pickin moment
if i did this and this and that i could do a neat vocal scat
over the chord arrangement'. and thus a germ of a song idea was born.
suddenly i got very excited testing out various song ideas in rb
....as is my wont..lol.
i started going 'lovely..i got a yummy groove starting to
happen'.
so far rharv ive put in about one and a half hours in rb and got
a basic bed track/arrangement happening ie...groove..plus a guide vocal scat
over the top of the instrumentation includeing a jazz rd that seems
to fit. now i'm scouring the pg content to see what other pg
content would fit...to make a nice sound picture plus maybe a
funky fadeing solo for the outtro.
now maybe people will hate the final song demo idea..but...
in the process..its helped me understand OTS more and maybe how to
arrange for such. so what the heck i do the best i can and thats it.

BUT HERES THE RUB RHARV...re rb.
ive just been through an exhaustive process doing many daw trials.
and while there are great ones out there...for me..
with none of them.... would i have been able to reach the point
i have in song idea development in such a short time.
why ??
this is down and dirty song production. very very difficult
and challengeing. which is why i love it.
(but i know i'm on to something when my wife ... who let me tell
you can be really critical...took a listen...and went 'yeh i like it'.
getting her to say that is tough...lol....seriously.).

what do i mean by 'down and dirty'. let me explain.
with any other daw i would have had to use my midi kbd
trying various approaches probably with spending time going through
what plugins might work. and also transferring tracks to and fro between
rb and the other daw. for example i love reaps..but for this type of style ?
i need various features that rb offers....and the integrated
nature of rb audio and midi features in conjunction with track genning.
see where i'm coming from ?
so why some people say rb is junk baffles me.
this 5/4 is very very demanding re the song idea i have in my mind.
(i was thinking in my mind 'i wonder what the brilliant dave
brubeck would have done with rb'.)
anyway thats my opinion...and if people disagree...so be it.
this is gonna be a hell of a trip. and maybe at the end
i'll get egg on my face. but i'm gonna give it the old college try
and see if i'm up to it.

i feel no other music app could have got me to this stage
within such a short time. is rb 'perfect' ? nope...but i dont know
anything better for the challenge of this 5/4 song.

a footnote...MTS has a rather interesting feature and how it uses
colour in its midi piano roll. makes it easy to identify the different
patches in an imported type 0 midi file. clever idea....
and shows me that the creator of MTS put a ton of thought into
the product from a user viewpoint.)

now i'm off to eat something....lol...

happiness to all.

om

Go for it. After all, that's exactly what the Wish List is for.

That is important, though there are several ways in which it can be handled.

One is to keep everything as it is, but that does cause some upset.

One is a migration strategy, whereby files to an older standard are migrated to a newer standard, perhaps "on the fly" as I imagine is done with SG1, SG2...SGU, SGX, etc., or perhaps as a batch process.

Notes' Expanded Styles highlight both some of the issues of making BIAB work as one sometimes needs, and also give some insight into how and why such migration can be tricky. I presume(!) that his method also has the usual side-effect of halving the number of available bars in a song due to BiaB's 255-bar limit.

One of the reasons I favour a batch process is that one can run tests on old format files converting to new-format files, independently of the program that eventually will work with those files and only roll out the new program once the issues are resolved. I have little doubt that there would be quite a few such issues. One of the reasons is that the new program need not have the code for handling the migration built-in, though it certainly could call the batch program when a file needs migrating.

My strategy for embedded systems with stored parameters has long been similar to this. The data contains a version number which is checked at start-up and whilst the stored number is older than the new, I apply each data upgrade in turn, updating the version number at each step, until I'm at the most recent. By doing it in steps, I need not test previous upgrades each time, just the latest.

Great idea and I have already given it a +1

I did not want to hijack that thread so I will explain myself here. I think you should add that PGM should record some RTs in 5/4 and maybe other so called odd time signatures. It could be an add on style package that one could purchase so those whom wouldn't want wouldn't get it. Just an idea. YMMV

Mario.

definitely !

actually it might be another revenue stream for pg...
let me explain..

1..a list of existing content that us poorer musos could use
for each OTS that might work...then for the 'mansion on the lake'
musos ... lol...
2..a new created library of content that targets OTS as
paid add ons. eg a harp or harpsichord (<<love them) and other
rt's and rd's etc.

ok...i'm gonna add your suggestion to the wishlist threads so your idea
isnt lost in the ether..
trotting off now.

groovy ideas mario.

om

ps...to all.

the more i'm playing with the MTS daw the more respect i have for the designer.
mainly because it doesnt flood the user with a load of icons.
i could work with just rb and MTS.
i also like that it has its own fx suite and various other features.
good job MTS.

happiness.

om

RE : Realband (RB) adavantages when it comes to OTS.
(i'm also putting the following in my rb/other daw powerhouse thread
in the tips section.)

All....an update.

so i think ive stumbled by happenstance and experimentation
a very big advantage of rb when it comes to odd time sigs (OTS).

and let me say upfront...no i'm not biased re rb...but ive stumbled on something
...and maybe its a hidden feature..that is blowing my blinkin' mind.
let me explain...and particularly for some who might call for pg to
drop rb. maybe people are just not aware...but...what i found out is
very groovy.

here are the salient points.

1..even tho ive done a ton of songs in my life...never have i done 5/4.

2..in the process of helping in this thread re OTS i discovered
a 5/4 style that twigged a new song idea....ie useing pg mission1 style.
particularly with the pg demo...it stirred a song idea....sooo..

3..i went to town in rb to manipulate the chord arrangement to
what i heard in my head as well as started writing lyrics.
and mucked about particularly with various arrangement
alternatives until i got an arrange that matched what i heard
in my head.

4..developing the song idea the way i heard in my head i used
ONLY midi plus coyote plugin because i can work fast this way
moving midi segments around and testing various arrangements fast.
to knockers of coyote << its only being used for demoing/roughing
out ideas. BUT...heres the rub...i found a nice little piccolo
sound in coyote...sooo..lesson learnt is never discount anything.

5..at the same time i was doing the above and getting the song arranged
the way i heard in my head i was testing lots of daws free and paid.
i was doing this not only to keep more current in the daw world
but also to see how they handled OTS and other aspects viz rb.

i came up with only one conclusion putting in the intense song development
work. ie rb offered adavantages over anything ive tested.
reasons being the way it handled 5/4 IN CONJUNCTION WITH the
powerfull track generation features as well as the fact i could do test
generations on so many tracks.
quite literally in rb after 1 1/2 hrs i had my rough arrange
(bed guide tracks) done plus vocal lyric rough guide.
this was very intense very difficult down and dirty work i
couldnt have done in any daw i tested. one aspect of many
being it saved me useing my midi kbd. plus being midi everything is fast.
AND THE BONUS WAS to get me started rb selected a suitable
jazz real drum and generated it on a track.
its also interesting testing out midi supertrack and other session muso
options to render more ideas for the song.

to say this is a 'XXXXX' of an effort is an understatement...lol.
even with rb. but let me comment further and mention that the way
rb handles OTS (in this case 5/4) versus bb...is a big plus
and makeing my life easier. there is a ton of work yet to do,
as the song is just guide tracks right now and frankly i dont
know if i can pull it off....we shall see.

so to people who think pg should 'drop' rb i say this would
be a shame as it does things ive not seen other music apps do..
(includeing reaps that ive enjoyed for years..).
certainly doing this extremely challenging 5/4 song rb has been of
great benefit and ive learnt a lot...
BECAUSE of all the midi features IN CONJUNCTION
with the unique track generation features.
so why some knock rb baffles me. maybe its lack of familiarity..
dunno. along the way of course i had the occasional rb 'quirk'
but ive encountered such with other apps.

now...its not rb's fault but one big problem ive had with this
mission1 song is the time i'm haveing to spend going through
rt's/rd's/supertracks/loops etc etc auditioning to hear which
i can shape into a 5/4 time sig. which is why i started the wishlist re needing
pg content geared specifically to OTS like 5/4.
this would save me oodles of time auditioning pg content.
so...if anyone knows any current pg session muso content that would
work in a 5/4 140 bpm song...i'm all ears.


happiness.

om