PG Music Band in a Box - 2012 (Macintosh) User's Guide download pdf (Page 187)

Chapter 12: Tutors and Wizards 187

Press the [Open (Change)…] button to select

the MIDI file that you'd like to import. If you select the “All” checkbox, then all

files will be displayed. If you deselect the “All” checkbox, then only filenames

ending with .MID will be displayed.

Note: Any Band-in-a-Box song can quickly be converted into a MIDI file by pressing

the [.MID] button, or with the keystrokes Option+S, or from the menu File | Save

Standard MIDI File. The song will be saved in the Band-in-a-Box folder with the

same file name, but the file type will be “.MID.” For example, the Band-in-a-Box song

Violet.MGU becomes the MIDI file Violet.MID.

Once you've selected the file, you can press

the [INTERPRET CHORDS NOW] button. When you do that, the chords will

be interpreted from the MIDI file, and written onto the chord sheet.

Prior to pressing the button, you might want to make some custom settings.

When you load in the MIDI file, Band-in-a-Box interprets many things from the

MIDI file for you automatically. Normally you'd want this to happen, but if for

some reason you'd prefer to make the settings yourself, you can set “Auto

Interpret settings from MIDI file” to false.

The settings that are determined automatically for you are:

- The key signature of the song (MIDI file). Some MIDI files contain a

special event that states the key signature of the file, but most don't. For the

ones that don't, Band-in-a-Box analyzes the tracks and makes a “best guess”

at the correct key signature for the song. It usually gets it right, but if it’s

wrong, it’s likely out by a 4th or 5th interval.

- Tempo, time signature.

- The channels used for the Bass part, Piano (comping) parts.

- The channels used for the Melody parts.

- The number of bars in the song to import, including the number of lead-

in bars in the song.

Once you have loaded in the MIDI file, (by pressing the [Open (Change)…]

button), and assuming that you have the “Auto Interpret” set to true, you'll see

that the dialog displays the settings that the Chord Wizard has found in the MIDI

file for the key signature and channels used for the song.

Let's work with an example song called Violet Song.MID.

This should be included in your Songs folder. For this example, we're going to

interpret the chords of this MIDI file and read them into Band-in-a-Box.

- Start with a blank chordsheet by choosing File | New.

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PG Music Band in a Box - 2012 (Macintosh) User's Guide Page 187