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Chapter 12: Tools, Wizards, Tutors, and Fun

Video Window

You can load videos that you have already downloaded from YouTube or elsewhere into Band-in-a-Box Video Window.  This window is a great tool for learning and composing.  For example, if you have a video music lesson that you want to learn but the riffs are too fast, you can slow down the video in Band-in-a-Box.  The stretching quality is excellent, allowing you to decrease or increase the tempo by an incredible amount.

Press the Views - [Video] button and select Video Player from the menu to launch the Video Window and then click on the [Open] button on its toolbar.  You will then see a menu of options.

All the Import options allow you to add a video to your existing project, while the Open options will start a new project.  You can choose to extract both the video and the audio of the file, just the video (no audio), or just the audio (no video).  Many video formats are supported, including MP4, M4V, MOV, MPG, MPEG, and AVI.

 

Use the transport control at the bottom of the window to play, stop, or move to a position in the video.

  As the song plays, you can slow down the video, and the audio will slow down and stay in sync.  The quality of the audio at slower or faster tempos is great.  The video slowdown range is 6-800%.  This is a great tool for transposition.  You can select a range in the Chord Sheet window and use Transport - [Loop] button to loop a section of the video at a lower tempo, for example.

  This button steps back 2 seconds.

  There is a [Full] button to make the video full screen, and the Esc key will go out of the full screen mode.

DAW Plug-In Mode

There is a “plug-in” mode for your favorite sequencer (GarageBand, ProTools, Logic, Nuendo, Reaper and more).  With the plug-in mode, Band-in-a-Box is open as a small window, and acts as a plug-in for your favorite DAW sequencer, so you can drag and drop MIDI and audio (AIFF, M4A) tracks from Band-in-a-Box to your favorite sequencer.

The DAW Plug-in mode is a mode within the regular Band-in-a-Box program.  This mode allows you to transfer tracks or parts of tracks, to other DAW sequencers or Finder.

  You can enter and exit the plug-in mode easily by pressing the small [DAW] button on the main toolbar.

When you do this, the window size of Band-in-a-Box becomes small. (You can resize it to the size/position that you want, and it will remember that).

Drag and Drop

This is the Drop Station where you drop a track after dragging it to get an audio or MIDI version of the track.  There are 4 quadrants, and they are labeled according to the types of files that will be made by the drop: Audio Files (WAV, M4A, AIFF) or MIDI file (MID).

	When you drop the track onto the Drop Station, you will see an orange color, indicating that the track is accepted, and the file is being prepared.
	When the file is ready, the Drop Station turns green.  You can now drag it to your favorite DAW or Finder.
	When you drop the track to the [+], you are presented with a dialog, where you can choose a file format and other render options.

You can choose a format (WAV, AIF, M4A, or MID) of the file. When you have dragged the Master radio button, you can select the “Separate files for each track” option. If “Normalize audio files” is selected, the file will be normalized.  Normalizing boosts the volume to a maximum level without distortion.  Most professional music tracks are normalized. If you want to add ACID information (tempo, key, and time signature) to the WAV file, check the “Acidize WAV files” option.

There is a right-click menu allowing you to copy the resulting file to a favorite folder, open the favorite folder, start/stop the DAW Plug-in mode, upload to SoundCloud.com and more.

Dragging Master Track

  If you want the entire performance, drag the Master button to the Drop Station.  Then when it turns green, drag to a DAW or Finder.

  It will be dragged as audio, unless you have set it to be dragged as MIDI in Plugin Settings dialog.

  By default, a single file is dropped, with the entire arrangement, but if you want all tracks transferred as separate files, you can enable this option in Plugin Settings dialog.  (Note that your DAW will need to support dropping of multiple files and will typically put them on consecutive tracks.)

Dragging a Single Track

  If you want a single track transferred, drag that track button to the drop station.  (For example, drag the Bass button to transfer the bass track.)  Then when the Drop Station turns green, drag that to a DAW or Finder. 

If the track is a RealTrack (green), then it will be transferred as Audio.  If it is a MIDI track (yellow), then it will be transferred as MIDI.

  If you want MIDI tracks transferred as audio, you can set this in Plug-In Options dialog.

Dragging Selected Regions

If you would like to transfer only a portion of the performance, you can do this by selecting the region in Band-in-a-Box and then dragging the track button to the Drop Station (don’t drag the selected region).  You will then get just the selected region dragged to a DAW or Finder.

SoundCloud and Dropbox Support

There is SoundCloud.com integration that lets you upload your compositions easily to the SoundCloud.com service.  SoundCloud.com is a popular web service (unaffiliated with PG Music) that lets users upload their original songs for others to hear.

If you use the Dropbox service, you can easily drag/drop files from Band-in-a-Box directly to your Dropbox folder, or save audio to Dropbox, without leaving the main Band-in-a-Box screen.   To do this, drag a track (or the Master button for all tracks) to the Drop station, and when it turns green, you can then right-click on the [Drop] button, and choose “Copy files to Dropbox Folder.”

Plug-In Options

To get to the DAW Plug-in options, press the [Plugin] button and choose the menu item “Options for DAW Plug-in” or go to the Preferences dialog and click the [DAW Plugin] button.

You will then see the plug-in options.

Allow Drag and Drop (default=true) - If disabled, the Drag and Drop feature will not work.  There shouldn’t be a reason to disable this.

Drag individual MIDI tracks as audio (default=false) - When enabled, the chosen MIDI tracks get converted to audio, using Apple^® Synth.

Drag Combo (Master) track as audio (default=true) - When enabled, the entire arrangement gets converted to audio, using Apple^® Synth.  If not selected, the MIDI tracks in the arrangement get transferred as MIDI, in a single file.

Drag Combo as separate tracks (default=false) - If set to true, when dragging the Combo button, the drop will result in multiple files, one for each track.

Drag Audio as - You can choose the format of the audio files that will be created.

Show DragDrop Folder - This will show Finder where the dropped files reside.  When you drag a file to your DAW, the file is created on disk and stored in the DragDrop folder inside the Band-in-a-Box folder.

Erase DragDrop Folder - This will erase (trash) all the dragged audio/MIDI files in the DragDrop folder.  Note that some DAW sequencers require these files to reside permanently (or until you use a “consolidate” command in the DAW), so don’t erase these files unless you are sure that they are not needed.

“Woodshed” Tempo Feature

When practicing (or “woodshedding”) a tune, it is useful for the tempo to speed up every time the section loops or the song restarts from the beginning.  To use this feature, press the [Practice] button on the toolbar, select the menu item Woodshed (increasing) tempo practice and set the “Woodshed tempo” value in the Tempo Woodshedding dialog.

For example, if you set the value to 5, the tempo will speed up by 5 each time the song (or a highlighted section) loops to the beginning.  The idea is that you start off with a slow tempo, playing the part perfectly, and keep this up as the song tempo increases.

When you press Stop, the tempo reverts to the original tempo.

There are four modes to the woodshed tempo field. 

• “Up only,” which is getting faster each loop “forever,” well until tempo = 500, which is BB’s maximum tempo.
• An “up then down” mode that goes up by [a settable increment] up to a [settable maximum] and then starts going down by the increment back to the original where it restarts.  For example, a song with a tempo of 140, if you set the tempo to increase by 5, to a maximum increase of 100, the song will go from 140,145,150 etc. to 240, then go to 235,230… back to 140 and cycle again.
• An “Up then Reset” mode, that goes up in increments up to the settable maximum, then resets to the original and starts again.  For example, a song with a tempo of 140, if you set the tempo to increase by 5, to a maximum increase of 100, the song will go from 140,145,150 etc. to 240, then go to 140 and start again.
• An “Up and stay at Max” mode that goes up until the maximum and stays there.

Modes 2 and 3 are analogous to a “treadmill workout,” with programmed changes in speed.

Playalong Wizard

The Playalong Wizard is an intelligent play along feature that uses your QWERTY keyboard to play along with Band-in-a-Box.  This also allows you to record to the Melody or Soloist track without an external MIDI keyboard, and can even be used to trigger the Soloist Wizard.  Also, play along using the Wizard can use the harmony feature, so you can play along live from your QWERTY keyboard in 4-part Saxophone harmony for example.

Turning the Wizard On/Off

Click on the [MIDI] toolbar button and check MIDI QWERTY Keyboard Wizard.  You can also select the Wizard Playalong option from the Song menu, or press Option+W.

 

Playing the Wizard

The Wizard keys are only active during playback.  The active keys are the lower 2 rows of the keyboard.

Changing Instruments / Settings for the Wizard

The Wizard is a play along instrument, so is treated just like the THRU instrument.  Changing Instruments, Volume, Reverb, etc. for the Wizard is therefore the same as for the THRU instrument.  (i.e., Click on the THRU button, then select instrument etc.)  You can record the Wizard and it will use THRU harmonies if selected.

Play Regular Notes

There is an option to play regular “non-smart” notes, for those of you up to the task of poking out actual melodies on your QWERTY keys.

In the Song menu, toggle Wizard Uses ‘Smart’ Notes off (unchecked) to have the Wizard provide you access to a chromatic scale, and toggle on to have Band-in-a-Box provide you with notes based on the chord/key of the song.

Soloist Wizard

Additionally, you will find another great Wizard feature in the Soloist menu; the Solo Wizard.  Toggling this option “on” enables the Soloist Wizard.  As you play notes on the MIDI or QWERTY keyboard, the program will play “correct” notes in the style of the current Soloist!  This means that you can play a perfect solo every time, simply by pressing any key on your MIDI keyboard or QWERTY keys.

Beyond impressing your friends with your newfound improvisational prowess, this feature has practical implications as well.  For example, you can concentrate on practicing your solo phrasing and playing “in time” without concerning yourself with which notes to play (Band-in-a-Box will supply the correct notes: see the next section for details.)

Recording Using the Wizard

To record the Wizard, press the [Record MIDI] button to record, and play the Wizard.  This will be recorded.  You can use the feature of recording the Wizard to enter music without a MIDI keyboard that doesn’t sound as stiff as most music entered in step time.  This is how it works:

• Press the [Record MIDI] button.
• As the song plays, play the melody that you want on any Wizard key, using the same key for each note, in the rhythm of the melody.  The Wizard notes won’t be the exact melody, but don’t worry about that as you record.
• When you are finished, go to the Notation window.  You now have the notes with the correct durations and times, but the wrong pitches.
• One by one drag the notes up to the correct melody note, holding down the shift, control, and key for sharps, flats, and naturals respectively.  You will then have entered a melody that sounds like it was recorded from a keyboard, without the stiff sound of a melody entered in step time!

Scales Wizard

When students are practicing Jazz tunes, it is helpful to see the scales that are used for each chord.  The Scale Wizard allows you to easily generate these scales, which appear as notation on the Soloist track.  Options include Instrument Range, Patch Selection, Jazzy Mode (will use Lydian dominant scales for some 7th chords), and Diatonic Mode (keeps scales relative to the song key). 

The Soloist | Scales menu items allow you to generate scales for a certain song, or auto-generate them for all loaded songs.  View the scales in the notation or the on-screen guitar and piano.

Scale Direction - When playing a new scale, either start on the root of the scale (going up) or start with the closest scale tone (moving up or down).  The two modes are:
1. Ascending.  The scales will always start on the root that is in the octave above the Lowest Note that is set and will play in ascending order.
2. Walking.  The scales will start on the nearest scale tone to the previous tone that was played.  The notes will ascend to the Highest Note setting, and then descend (by scale tones) down to the Lowest Note.

Write to Track - Choose Melody or Soloist track to write the scales to.

Lowest Note is the lowest note to play for any scale.  C5 (note 60) is middle C.

Highest Note is the highest note to play, used when the scale direction is up and down (Walking).

Scale Tones Diatonic to Key Signature - If diatonic, minor scales will be according to the key (VI minor is Aeolian etc.).  Otherwise, all minors will be Dorian.

Use Jazz Scales - If set, will use Lydian b7 chords.  Chords like Bb7 in the key of C will have Lydian b7 scales (i.e. A#4 in the scale).

Patch - Send this MIDI patch (instrument) when playing the scale.

[Defaults] sets to default values.

[OK- Generate Scales] writes the scales to the notation of the selected track, Soloist or Melody.

Audio Chord Wizard (Stand-alone)

This amazing wizard automatically figures out the chords from any MP4, M4A, AIFF or other audio file and displays them in Band-in-a-Box.  Just load an audio file to instantly see the chords.

Launch the Audio Chord Wizard with the toolbar button or with the Windows | AudioChordWizard | Run AudioChordWizard menu command.

Audio Chord Wizard Window

The Audio Chord Wizard window shows an overview of the open wave file with the bar lines and chords as interpreted by the wizard below.  Controls and settings are found in the toolbar at the top of the window, and the lower part of the window either shows chords and bars in a Chord Sheet view or notes in a Note Bars view.

Primary Program Controls

Toggle Play/Pause (Space bar or multimedia Play/Pause key).

Stop play, rewind to start with Esc key or multimedia Stop key.  Press the letter W to rewind without Stop.

Set the Bar One location.  The Audio Chord Wizard works best if you do this first, before any other actions.  This moves nearest bar line to the current play position.  The Tab key also sets bar lines.

Moves nearest bar line to current play position.  Tab or F8 keys also set bar lines.

Exit and send chords to Band-in-a-Box.

Average tempo, control+click the tempo box for options.

Song time signature, 2/4 to 12/8 supported.

	Song key signature.
	Use to correct pitch of song if necessary to improve chord recognition.

Select either the Chord Sheet view to follow along with the chords of the song, or the Note Bars view to see the notes interpreted by the Audio Chord Wizard in a piano-roll type of display.

The zoom buttons at the bottom of the screen adjust the scale of the display.  The minus button shrinks the display to show more bars, the plus sign expands the display but shows fewer bars.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts make it easier to navigate the song and tap in bar lines without having to work the mouse with start/stop/scroll actions.

Play/Pause - Space Bar.

Stop - Esc.

Tap Barline - Tab key.

Jump To Song Start - W key.

Jump Forward One Bar - right arrow key.

Jump Back One Bar - left arrow key.

Jump Forward Four Bars - down arrow key.

Jump Back Four Bars - up arrow key.

Chord Sheet Overview

The Chord Sheet window in the Audio Chord Wizard shows the chords for the whole song on a single screen.  This allows you to click on a bar on the Chord Sheet to jump to that area of the song.

You can mark sections of the song using part markers, and the sections will begin on a new line with a line space between so they are clearly seen.  So, you can then also learn the form of the song, as you can see the various sections (intro/verse/chorus/break) at a glance, or quickly jump to the any section simply by double-clicking on that part of the Chord Sheet.

For this discussion, open /Band-in-a-Box/Tutorials/Frontier.m4a.

You will now see the song, and the Chord Sheet window in the Audio Chord Wizard is visible.

  Play the song.

	Locate the start of bar 1 on the waveform and click on the [Set Bar One] button.  You may have to stop the song and start over again to pinpoint the location, but once you do the Audio Chord Wizard can accurately mark the rest of the bar lines.
	You can insert your own bar lines by clicking on this button or by pressing the Tab key. When a new bar starts, hit the [Tap Barline] button (or Tab key).  This is called “tapping in a bar line.”

Bar lines can be tapped in as the song is playing or when it is stopped.  You will see that if you tap a bar line near to an existing bar line the existing line will be moved to the location of your tap.

The first time you do that, the program will consider that point to be “bar 1.”  Tap in a few more bar lines.

Click on the Chord Sheet, and the music will jump to that location.

Now, let’s define some sections in the song.

If a bar begins a new section, click on the bar # on the Chord Sheet, or press the P key to put in a part marker.  Pressing P again will change the part marker, and then turn it off.

Now the song is divided into sections, with space between each section, and each section starting on a new line.

To change the # of bars per row, or rows per screen, right-click or control+click on the Chord Sheet.

The +/- buttons at the bottom right of the window also change the row height.

Chords may be edited in the Audio Chord Wizard with a right mouse click or control+click on the chord.  When Edit Chord is selected, a highlight cell opens at the chord location.  Type in the name of the new chord using standard Band-in-a-Box chord entry characters and press the Enter key to make the edit.  The edited chord name is colored blue.

Individual edits can be removed with the Remove Chord Edit command, or all edits in the song can be removed with the Remove All Chord Edits command.  Part markers, chord symbols, key signature, and tuning setting are saved in Band-in-a-Box, and are passed back and forth to the Chord Wizard.

The Audio Chord Wizard is a great way to learn the chords of songs.  You can add section markers and divide the song logically into sections, so it is also a great way to learn the “form” of the song, an essential part of learning popular songs.

As well as the chords of the song, the Audio Chord Wizard also figures out,

• the tempo of the file,
• bar lines throughout the song,
• fine tuning detection (e.g. 5 cents sharp from A440).

Note Bars

The Note Bars display is an alternative to the Chord Sheet window.  It shows many of the notes found in the file.  This serves as a helpful guide to transcription and can also help to verify chord names.

The Audio Piano Roll is divided by a blue horizontal line.  Notes below the blue line have been identified as the bass part by the Audio Chord Wizard.

The note bars look like a MIDI Piano Roll, but they are not exactly the same as a MIDI Piano Roll.  Audio Chord wizard detects the strongest frequencies found in each eighth-note time slot and displays them in the Note Bars window.

Sometimes the displayed frequencies REALLY ARE instrument notes played in the audio file.  But they could be spurious information, such as the accidental loudest frequency of a drum beat.  A midrange frequency note-bar might be showing the sum of harmonics from several instruments, each instrument’s harmonics contributing to the strength of that frequency.

The Notes Bars display information is real and useful but try not to assume that every displayed note-bar is a real note in the audio.

Opening Files

When the Audio Chord Wizard button is pressed, the program window will open and then launch the Open Wave File dialog for selection of the audio file to be analyzed.  There is a file named Frontier.m4a in the /Band-in-a-Box/Tutorials folder that you can use to try out the Audio Chord Wizard.

When you select a file to open you will see a series of progress messages.  The Audio Chord Wizard is then launched, and more progress messages will flash on screen as the file is analyzed and imported.  As well as interpreting the chords, the program is also inserting bar lines and setting the tempo.

Chord Detection

Chord Detection accuracy depends on the accuracy of the bar lines.  If bar lines are not well-aligned, then the Chord Detection can be expected to be rather poor.  It is quick and easy to align the bar lines on most songs, once you get the hang of it.

The first task is to locate the beginning of Bar One.  Since an audio file could have an arbitrary amount of silence at the beginning of the song, and many songs begin with a pickup partial bar, ACW cannot easily guess the first bar without a hint from you.

The shortcut keys and mouse playback controls make it easy to find Bar One.  Tap the space bar to begin play, watch the Location Cursor, and listen for the downbeat.  If the Location Cursor passes the downbeat and you were not completely certain of the location, you can tap the W key to rewind to the song beginning and replay the first part of the song, to audition the downbeat as many times as necessary to make sure of its location.

You can also single-click in the Chords panel to jump the playback position.  If the rhythm is unusually complicated near the downbeat, you could repeatedly click just a little before the suspected Bar One location, to zero-in on the exact downbeat.

In the following example song, we have discovered the downbeat of Bar One, so we control+click on that location to Set Bar One.

Now the Bar One bar line is red (shown below).  The red Triangle bar indicator indicates that we have edited that bar line.  The Red Triangles are called Good Bar Lines (GBL’s).  The green Triangle bar indicators are bar lines which ACW has automatically inferred from its automatic tempo detection PLUS your edited Good Bar Lines.  We call the green automatic bar lines Inferred Bar Lines (IBL’s). On this example song, the initial automatic tempo detection did a pretty good job.  Simply setting Bar One has caused the first four bars to be properly aligned to the music.  On some songs, Set Bar One is the only action necessary to get good bar alignment for the ENTIRE tune.

Approaching Bar 5, the automatic tempo tracking begins to drift.  The current position of the Location cursor is where Bar 5 SHOULD be.  That is easy to fix. 

If you prefer real-time control, just tap Tab or the F8 key where the downbeat should actually be.

If you prefer stopped-time editing, you can either mouse-drag Bar 5 to its desired position or drag the playback Location cursor to the desired position and then tap Tab or the F8 key.

When we tap the Tab key, or alternatively click on the [Tap Barline] button, the Audio Chord Wizard will automatically recalculate the bars to the right of the playback position as playback continues.

Now the Good Bar Line is drawn red to show that it was edited.  The chords are now much better.

In the case of this song, setting this one bar line is sufficient to get good tracking to the end.  Songs which have drastic tempo changes, loose feel, or time signature changes could require a few more adjustments.

When satisfied with the bar lines and chords, click the [OK – Send to BIAB] button to return the chords and tempo map to Band-in-a-Box.

Special Cases

Time Signature

If a song is not in the default 4/4 time signature, set the Time Signature very early before you do anything else.

Bad Initial Tempo Estimates

Double/Half Tempo

Sometimes Audio Chord Wizard will guess double or half of the tempo you might prefer.

Slightly Wrong:

Sometimes syncopated songs can have musical anticipations which make ACW guess a tempo slightly too fast or slightly too slow.

Completely, Horribly Wrong

Some songs have rhythms difficult for a computer to understand.  Sometimes a song’s rhythmic beats are spaced in such a way that a song with a perfect Tempo of 120, might mathematically BETTER fit the audio beats at some simple (but wrong) related ratio such as 80, 100, 160, or 180 BPM.

If the initial Tempo Estimate is pretty good, the Tap Bar line function will be the easiest way to fix such errors, requiring only a few keyboard taps during playback.

But if the initial tempo estimate happens to be horribly wrong, it helps to make the initial tempo “in the ballpark” BEFORE you tap a few Tabs or F8’s to make it completely right.

Control+click on the Average Tempo control for some easy automatic fixes.

In some cases, there is a good reason to initially set the tempo artificially slow by using the “Find Best Half Tempo” function.

For example, if the initial tempo estimate is considerably faster than the tempo that you want to tap in, the Tap Bar line function can mistakenly think that you want a very fast tempo, which fills the remainder of the song with unwanted fast-tempo bars.  In that case, if you initially set the tempo very slow, ACW will be unlikely to misinterpret your Tap Bar Lines.

Set Key Signature

Once the chords look reasonable, for instance if your song looks like it is probably in the key of F, set the Key Signature control to F for better chord spelling.  This only affects the cosmetic display of notes and chords (flats and sharps).  The Key Signature control does not currently affect the basic accuracy of Chord Detection.

Adjust Fine-Tuning

If a song is significantly off from concert pitch, the notes are “in the cracks,” which makes chord detection less accurate.

If your chords look reasonable, there is no need to bother with fine tuning.  Most songs are recorded pretty close to concert pitch.

But if you see numerous chord errors, it may help to adjust the Fine Tune control.

If you are playing along with a song on your keyboard, you might decide to make an ear-estimate of how far out-of-tune is the song:

For instance, you could adjust the fine-tuning control on your keyboard until your keyboard matches the song’s pitch (according to your ear).  Then you could look at your keyboard’s tuning readout and adjust ACW’s Fine Tune control to match.  Either click-drag ACW’s Fine Tune control (like a slider control), or control+click the Fine Tune control then type in a number.

The Fine Tune control currently does not change the pitch of playback, it only improves chord detection on mis-tuned songs.

The Fine Tune control is calibrated in cents, 1/100th of a semitone.  Therefore, if a song is perfectly in the key of C, but if you set Fine Tune to +100 Cents, ACW would display chords in the key of B.  Similarly, if you set Fine Tune to -100 Cents, it would display that song’s chords in the key of C#.

That simple use of the Fine Tune control is just a backwards way to transpose the chords.  But if you set Fine-Tune somewhere in the middle, ACW looks for notes that are somewhere “in the cracks” between the piano keys.  For instance, if your song SHOULD be in the key of C, but it was unfortunately recorded 50 cents sharp.

There could be many reasons that a song was recorded off concert pitch.  Maybe the recording studio had a broken tape recorder, or the singer couldn’t quite hit the highest note.  Perhaps the vinyl record cutter was off-speed, or some record executive decided that the song was 10 seconds too long for airplay and instructed the mastering engineer to speed it up a little bit.  In such cases, the Audio Chord Wizard can get confused, mis-identifying some pitches too high and other pitches too low, detecting nonsense chords.

So, if your favorite song was unfortunately recorded 50 cents sharp, you can set the Fine Tune control to +50 cents so that ACW will properly display in the “original” key.

Auto Estimate Tuning

ACW can automatically estimate the tuning, which helps in some cases.  Since the estimation is math-intensive, ACW only analyzes one bar of music at a time. Control+click somewhere inside a bar and pick the Estimate Tuning function. After the process is finished, up pops the results dialog. As advised in the dialog, results can be improved by carefully picking the bar.  Bars with relatively long notes are easier to analyze, compared to bars containing flashy fast melodies.

It can be useful to spot-check a few bars.  If several spot-checks give similar answers (within a few cents), you have good confidence that the results are actually meaningful, not being randomly affected by out-of-tune melodies or loud drums.

However, if the first estimate reads +43 and the next measurement reads -12, then it probably means that your song is not a good candidate for automatic Tuning Estimation.

Odd Length Bars and Drastic Tempo Changes

If a 4/4 song contains occasional bars of 3/4, 5/4, or whatever, or if there are sections where the music has an extreme retard or accelerando, sometimes you can just Tap Bar Lines to adjust it.

But it is sometimes more convenient to manually add or delete bar lines.  The following example song has an overall Time Signature of 4/4, but Bar 9 should have a time signature of 2/4.  If you simply Tap Bar Line on 9:3 to shorten the bar, then ACW will mistakenly decide that you wish to make all the following bar lines double-tempo 4/4.

Solution

First, control+click on the beat 9:3, and Insert a bar line.

Now a new bar line is added, and three new GBL bar lines are flagged red.

Control+click on the new shortened Bar 9 and set the Time Signature to 2/4.  

Change Bar 10 to its desired duration.  Hover the mouse over the red triangle marker at Bar 11, and the mouse cursor becomes a drag cursor.  Click and drag the bar line to the location marked 11:3.

 

Now we have edited bar 9 to have a 2/4 Time Signature and preserved the song tempo on both sides of the 2/4 bar.

Note Bars Display

The Note Bars display looks like a MIDI Piano Roll, but it is not exactly the same as a MIDI Piano Roll.  Audio Chord wizard detects the strongest frequencies found in each eighth-note time slot and displays them in the Notes Display.

Sometimes the displayed frequencies REALLY ARE instrument notes played in the audio file.  But they could be spurious information, such as the accidental loudest frequency of a drum beat.  A midrange frequency note-bar might be showing the sum of harmonics from several instruments, each instrument’s harmonics contributing to the strength of that frequency.

The Notes Display information is real and useful but try not to assume that every displayed note-bar is a real note in the audio.

Display Controls

Horizontal Scroll Bar

Scroll forward/back in the wave file.

Plus/Minus Zoom Buttons

  Zoom the display to show more or less detail.

Audio Chord Wizard Utilities Dialog

When you press the [OK - send to BIAB] in the Audio Chord Wizard and return to Band-in-a-Box, a utilities dialog opens.  This dialog can be opened any time from the menu Audio | Audio Chord Wizard Utilities.

The dialog lets you set the song key to the key of the audio file that the wizard has detected, make a tempo map in Band-in-a-Box, or erase the audio from the Audio track. If you check the Enable Style option, you will hear the imported audio as well as the tracks generated by the current style.  If you want to hear just the audio, uncheck this option.

The wizard analyzes a key signature based on the chords in the audio file.  If you agree with the analysis, press the [Set the song key signature to …] button.

When an audio file is loaded into the Audio Chord Wizard, there will be bar lines assigned automatically by ACW, and perhaps modified by you.  If you want the current song to follow these bar lines so that it will play in sync with the audio file, press the [Make a tempo map in BB] button.  You will then see red boxes on the Chord Sheet, indicating tempo changes and the presence of a tempo map.

Press [Erase Tempo Map] to remove the Tempo map, and the red boxes will disappear around the bar lines.