The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Someone on this forum mentioned that when you choose a V7 chord in BIAB, for example an F7, the BIAB song will play back an altered seventh chord, like an F7b9. Is this true? Or, am I remembering this wrongly?

    I ask this because at times, I hear my soloing seem to clash with the BIAB playback, even though I am playing notes that are unaltered.

    Thanks in advance.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    In BIAB Real tracks, it quite often does that and you can do very little to prevent it. Entering a 9th chord seems to reduce it a bit. It's very annoying.

    On the old midi version, you could choose an option 'play chords without embellishments ' or something like that, then it would play exactly what you specified. But Real Tracks does not take any notice of this setting.

  4. #3

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    Does it do it on non-resolving dominants, if it doesn't I would report that as a bug in the software.

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by docbop
    Does it do it on non-resolving dominants, if it doesn't I would report that as a bug in the software.
    It does it about 75% of the time on ALL dominant chords. I emailed them about it a couple of years ago. No response of course.

  6. #5

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    Thank you.

  7. #6

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    Lol.
    It's like Skynet in the "Terminator" Movies.
    The Software is becoming self aware and prefers Altered Dominant Chords.

  8. #7

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    Wow, that is surprising to me too. I thought that is a no go, or one should at least definitely be able to turn it off. Explains why my perfectly constructed solos sound so bad against BiaB

  9. #8

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    I mostly use BIAB as advanced metronome, but hope they have fixed the bug in 2016 version. If not and only a couple of users complain, it will still have low priority. Wierd when they create many jazz real tracks. A way to gain focus could be to create a thread in PG music user forum and keep it alive.

  10. #9

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    Grahambop was the first to draw my attention to this function of BIAB. Now, months later, I decided to delve into the program (BIAB 2012) and see if there was a way to make the song play only the desired chord that I chose, and not substitute chords.

    Here was the answer (as I said, in BIAB 2012, maybe more current versions work a little differently):

    I went to the chords that sounded altered, Right-Clicked, went to the Chord Settings, and then clicked on Chord Subs. I played around with my choices until it offered no substitutions. This caused the song to play only what I wanted.

    I am trying to play around with Jazz Blues and I really did not want to hear some Diminished chord sub for my vanilla Dominant 7 chord.

    I am limiting myself to Mixolydian, according to Richie Zellon's course, and those infrequent altered subs were killing my enjoyment.

    Hope this helps someone.
    Last edited by AlsoRan; 07-18-2016 at 09:55 AM. Reason: changed "builder" to "settings"

  11. #10

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    Thanks, that's interesting, I haven't delved into that bit of the program before. (I have BIAB 2011).

    For a few bars of a C7 chord on its own, it does seem to help. I changed the option to 'best subs only' and this stopped it showing C13b9 and so on. When I played it, it did sound better, just limiting to C7 or C7b5 which is fine.

    Then I tried an actual progression/tune. A terrible example for me is Goodbye Porkpie Hat. It always plays the most awful subs for all the 7th chords when I want it to stick to what I've specified. At first I couldn't seem to make any difference (it said 'no subs available'), but I kept messing about. By choosing 'best subs only' + 'less chords/simplifying' and switching off 'jazz substitutions', I then got a much better result on the first 4 bars. It seemed to play the voicings I'd actually specified.

    So I'll keep experimenting. But thanks very much - I think you have definitely hit on something there!

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Thanks, that's interesting, I haven't delved into that bit of the program before. (I have BIAB 2011).

    For a few bars of a C7 chord on its own, it does seem to help. I changed the option to 'best subs only' and this stopped it showing C13b9 and so on. When I played it, it did sound better, just limiting to C7 or C7b5 which is fine.

    Then I tried an actual progression/tune. A terrible example for me is Goodbye Porkpie Hat. It always plays the most awful subs for all the 7th chords when I want it to stick to what I've specified. At first I couldn't seem to make any difference (it said 'no subs available'), but I kept messing about. By choosing 'best subs only' + 'less chords/simplifying' and switching off 'jazz substitutions', I then got a much better result on the first 4 bars. It seemed to play the voicings I'd actually specified.

    So I'll keep experimenting. But thanks very much - I think you have definitely hit on something there!
    I had the same conclusions as you. Switching off "Jazz substitutions" was part of the answer for me, as well as choosing the other options you chose.

    I just don't know how to do it without having to click on each chord individually.

    Either way, I feel really good about discovering this, and am glad you could benefit as well.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Thanks, that's interesting, I haven't delved into that bit of the program before. (I have BIAB 2011).

    For a few bars of a C7 chord on its own, it does seem to help. I changed the option to 'best subs only' and this stopped it showing C13b9 and so on. When I played it, it did sound better, just limiting to C7 or C7b5 which is fine.

    Then I tried an actual progression/tune. A terrible example for me is Goodbye Porkpie Hat. It always plays the most awful subs for all the 7th chords when I want it to stick to what I've specified. At first I couldn't seem to make any difference (it said 'no subs available'), but I kept messing about. By choosing 'best subs only' + 'less chords/simplifying' and switching off 'jazz substitutions', I then got a much better result on the first 4 bars. It seemed to play the voicings I'd actually specified.

    So I'll keep experimenting. But thanks very much - I think you have definitely hit on something there!
    Well this is very odd. I just tried this again and it didn't work at all! I'm not convinced it really makes much difference, perhaps the first time I got lucky and BIAB happened to play reasonable voicings (by the law of averages, it does that sometimes). Needs further investigation!

  14. #13

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    I think you just turn it off in song settings. Says something like "allow substitutions"

  15. #14

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    I'll have a look. Problem is that a lot of those settings which worked in the older version don't seem to work on the Real Tracks version.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by jasaco
    I think you just turn it off in song settings. Says something like "allow substitutions"
    Checked this option, in mine (2011) it's called allow chord embellishment. Unfortunately this has no effect on Real Tracks, it only works when you revert to midi sounds.

    It still seems to me that the jazz styles have automatic chord substitution built in, and in Real Tracks it cannot be defeated.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Checked this option, in mine (2011) it's called allow chord embellishment. Unfortunately this has no effect on Real Tracks, it only works when you revert to midi sounds.

    It still seems to me that the jazz styles have automatic chord substitution built in, and in Real Tracks it cannot be defeated.

    Well, if your conclusions are correct, then all I can say is.....(Click on link below)


  18. #17

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    Ha ha, yes that sums it up! I suppose for practice purposes it's more of an irritation really. Bit annoying when you want to make a recording or video though.

    When I did 'Stella' for the practical standards thread, I generated a WAV file from BIAB about 5 times until I got one without some horrible subs in it!

  19. #18

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    Once again, and more emphatically....


  20. #19

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    Seriously, this begs the question that I have asked before and still not really gotten a satisfactory answer.

    The question is, what do you do when you play with a band that is like BIAB real tracks, and substitutes all sorts of chords you may not want? Is it agreed on beforehand - for the entire song.

    Maybe a soloist, on the chorus that he/she takes their solo, wants a bunch of altered chords?

    Anyway, just some thoughts. I will have to make due with the annoyance of BIAB real tracks substitution protocol. Man, that's a bummer - just when I was starting to get make good progress with my soloing, my main tool turns out to be deficient.

    I will have to go back to recording my own backing tracks or using my looper.

  21. #20

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    I read somewhere that Chet Baker would shout at his pianists when they played a voicing he didn't like, so that's one way!

    Probably it's down to listening and reacting to what the soloist likes, a bit of ESP probably helps.

    Re. BIAB it may be possible to reassign the piano to non Realtrack (midi) then see if switching off chord embellishments works? If it lets you keep Real bass and drums it might not sound too bad.

  22. #21

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    Guys, as someone who does not yet have a BIAB edition of any kind, can you enlighten me with how often you use the programs and Real Tracks for practice or making home recordings? Daily, every few days, once a week...

    I'm trying to decide whether it should be the next thing for me to aim at improving recordings short of oxygen breathing mirror fogging humans.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Re. BIAB it may be possible to reassign the piano to non Realtrack (midi) then see if switching off chord embellishments works? If it lets you keep Real bass and drums it might not sound too bad.
    Oh well, I tried this and it still didn't work.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by targuit
    Guys, as someone who does not yet have a BIAB edition of any kind, can you enlighten me with how often you use the programs and Real Tracks for practice or making home recordings? Daily, every few days, once a week...

    I'm trying to decide whether it should be the next thing for me to aim at improving recordings short of oxygen breathing mirror fogging humans.
    I don't practise with it much these days, but it's still useful for creating backing tracks for recordings.

    One problem is that my computer is so old and slow now that it can't play back the real track audio in 'real time' without stuttering! (This doesn't apply when I make recordings, because I start by exporting the BIAB output to a WAV file, this always works ok).

  25. #24

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    I use BIAB (with RealDrums but not RealTracks) daily. It is my constant practice tool. Play the tune faster, slower, change keys, isolate a 4 bar segment and work out ideas over just that section, etc, etc.

  26. #25

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    How long roughly does it take to set up a Real Tracks backup trio or something? I really like the results as basic tracks for home recordings short of oxygen breathing human musicians.

    My tech stuff is aging at this point. MacBook is about five years or more now. PC more like three or four.