BigBand
Composing music for small ensembles
W.Boeke
Contents:
bigbandThen enter some notes in window score: instruments and click the play button at the bottom. You can listen to your first composition.
If you want to add drums, then click inside the score: percussion window and enter some dots. Before you can listen to the result, first one or more samples must be loaded. These are supposed to live in directory samples under the current working directory, or, in case checkbox dir: ./samples is off, in /usr/share/bigband/samples. Click menu Wave file and make your choice.
The tabs right from the instrument and percussion panels do not contain names, because BigBand was called without project file. Via menu's, names can be assigned. These will be incorporated in the project file provided that the custom checkboxes have been checked. This is also valid for the patch panel. If you want to see all default names, then click the show names button.
There is a demo project in the tunes directory. In order to listen to it, go to this directory. This can be done 2 ways: close BigBand, go to the directory, and type:
bigband dance.bbor: click menu Settings, click working dir..., and type ../tunes in the dialog panel at the bottom. Then click load project... from the File menu, and enter dance.bb in the dialog panel.
When you enter notes, they are from the instrument that is on top in the instruments panel. Each instrument has its own pan and amplitude controls, whereas its sound is dependent of its patch nr. There are 15 patches available, a patch is controlled from panel patches. There are 15 built-in patches, reachable from the Built-in patches menu. You can modify and/or rename them if you want. The midi ampl value is used during export to MIDI.
You can get notes displayed also on a regular staff, by enabling checkbox staff display. The black lines form the treble-clef staff, the green lines the bass-clef staff.
Percussion sounds can be controlled from the percussion panel. You can load different sample files, rename the sounds, and control the panning and the amplitude. As stated above, the pitch and the duration of a percussive sound is dependent of the vertical position of the dot. If you don't want this, place all dots on the middle-C line (beneath the black triangle). If you check the alternative display checkbox, you will get a more distinctive display.
Chord names can be entered in the lower part of the annotations, chords window. These chords can be
shown in postscript scores. Annotations (A, B, ...) are entered in the upper part of this window. Clicking
is sufficient, no dialog needed.
Two display modes: regular and alternative. If in regular mode, then percussion notes are entered
on a piano-roll background, so their pitch and duration can be altered. In alternative mode, moving
or copying is not supported.
The lower part of the window is for entering chords. One measure can contain 2 chords. Chord names
are entered at the dialog box bottom-left, and can appear in postscript scores.
Similar to the score windows the content of the annotations window can be shifted. Clicking with the
middle mouse button will select the area at the rightside. Clicking with the right button will
shift this area such that it starts at the clicked point.
Checkbox monophonic sets the patch in monophonic mode. If checkbox short sinus
is checked, then the basic waveform of the FM-modulated signal will not be a pure sinus, but a
shorter waveform. This can
yield interesting sounds especially for low frequencies. Checkbox short notes will turn
the steady phase to nearly zero, which is good for piano-like sounds.
There are 2 menu buttons. With the first one a suitable name for the patch can be choosen.
Menu Built-in patch opens a list of 15 built-in patches which might be used as a start.
The GUS patch file menu opens a list of the available patches. The checkboxes monophonic
and short notes, as well as the slider decay operate the same way as for FM synthesis.
If checkbox info only is on, then information about the patch is shown in an alert window, or
it is written to the terminal if the according checkbox is on.
At the bottom of the panel there are 2 checkboxes. If add chords is checked, then the chords from the
annotations, chords window will appear in the postscript score for this instrument. If slashed notes
is checked, then no normal notes are drawn in the postscript score, but slashed notes. E.g. bass players are
accustomed to these.
The pan and amplitude sliders act as expected.
You have entered a catchy melody and maybe 1 or 2 other voices. Now, what are suitable chords to be played by
the piano or the bass? First select the relevant voices and select the relevant notes. Then click
chord hint. A list of fitting chords will be printed. If checkbox info to terminal has not been
enabled then this info is displayed in an alert window, else it is sent to the terminal from which Bigband
was called. The list looks like:
Entering, selecting and modifying notes
The operation of the mouse buttens can be in 2 different modes:
for entering/modifying notes, or for selecting notes. The 2nd mode is valid if the S key has been pressed.
You can check staff display. Then it is easier
to read the notes from the screen and play them on your instrument.
Flat and sharp notes are indicated with a kind of
small extensions. You can enter (or remove) sharp or flat notes by pressing the up or
the down key before clicking the mouse.
Moving or copying of selected notes is not supported in this mode.
If you click on an existing note, then it will be erased. Dragging also works, the erasing action
will stop at the end of the note.
If the cursor is on an already selected note, then this will be unselected until its end.
If the button is clicked on a place where there is no note, then all notes above and below will
be selected. Dragging the mouse also works in this case.
Entering, selecting and modifying percussion notes
Similar to instrument notes, however the notes are single note units.
The 'annotations, chords' window
When you click into the upper part of this window, a letter 'A' will appear. If you click again at
the left of this, then the 'A' will appear at this point, and the former letter will be modified
to 'B', etc. These letters will appear as annotations in the postscript scores.
The 'patches' Panel: instrument patches
For each instrument a patch can be choosen. There are 3 modes, dependent of the active tab.
There is an Options menu, containing the following items:
The 'instruments' panel
You can choose a specific patch with slider patch nr. The panning position and the amplitude are
controlled with 2 sliders. The Options menu opens a list with the following items:
If custom is checked, then the instrument settings will be saved in the project file.
The 'percussion' panel
The Options menu opens a list with the following items:
The WAVE file that BigBand uses when it plays a percussion note, can be choosen via menu Wave file. The
contents of directory samples (under the working directory) will be shown, or, if not found there,
in /usr/share/bigband/samples.
If you only want to listen to the available sounds, then first check the listen checkbox.
^g,up
The first character specifies the form of the note head:
'^' will create a cross (indicating e.g. a foot-controlled hihat),
'_' will create a circled cross note head,
'=' will create a diamond-shaped note head (indicating e.g. a ride cymbal).
If no such first character is present, then a normal round note head will appear.
The 2nd character specifies the vertical position of the note. Useful values are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, c, d, e, f, g
The word after the comma specifies the stem direction: 'up' (stem will be upwards), 'do' (stem will be downwards).
The duration of the notes is calculated by the program, it will be quarter or 1/8 or 1/16.
Global controls
File menu
Settings menu
Swing feel
Swing feel (as opposed to straight feel) can be set for instruments and/or percussion. In this case
the notes starting at the 2nd half of a beat will be delayed a small amount. The effect is also valid for
MIDI output, not for postscript output.
Chord hints
In
www.fromthewoodshed.com/blog/2007/10/05/constructing-jazz-scales-from-chord-tones/
a simple and effective way was proposed to match melody and suitable chords. A short description, taken
from the site:
Here's the pattern in constructing the scales from the chords. Start with the chord tones in the scale.
Those will obviously be the most consonant. Now add the note one whole step above each chord tone.
Whenever this results in consecutive minor 2nds in the scale, lower the new note by a half step. That's it.
This has been implemented in BigBand. The idea is as follows:
chords (key F): [1-3-5-b7] G7 (2) scale:[1-2-3-4-5-6-b7] "Mixolydian" [1-3-5-7] FM7 scale:[1-2-3-b5-5-6-7] "Lydian" [1-3-5-7] CM7 (5) scale:[1-2-3-4-5-6-7] "major" [1-b3-5-b7] Dm7 (6) scale:[1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7] "Dorian" |
What if no fitting scale can be found? Then the program searches for scales that would fit if one pitch was omitted from the selection. Then (if output to terminal) the list could look like:
chords (key F): [1-3-5-b7] C7 (5) scale:[1-2-3-4-5-6-b7] "Mixolydian" avoid:7 [1-3-5-b7] G7 (2) scale:[1-2-3-4-5-6-b7] "Mixolydian" avoid:b3 [1-3-5-7] BbM7 (4) scale:[1-2-3-b5-5-6-7] "Lydian" avoid:b2 [1-3-5-7] FM7 scale:[1-2-3-b5-5-6-7] "Lydian" avoid:4 [1-3-5-7] CM7 (5) scale:[1-2-3-4-5-6-7] "major" avoid:b7 [1-3-5-7] FM7 scale:[1-2-3-4-5-6-7] "major" avoid:b5 |
If the a keyboard key has been pressed, then all possibilities are shown, with 0, 1 or 2 avoid notes.
The selection of chords and matching scales is built-in (file: bigband.cpp), and oriënted to chords
that are most often used in jazz. The available items will be printed to the screen if key i has been
pressed. This list also can be used if the chord progression
was given beforehand and you want to investigate the suitable pitches.
Exporting an ABC file
The ABC format is a well-known textual representation of music scores. For info go to
abcnotation.org.uk.
BigBand uses a slightly extended format, which can be read by a ABC-to-postscript translator
program, e.g. abcm2ps (moinejf.free.fr).
A somewhat modified version of this program is included
in the BigBand distribution. In order to prevent confusion it has been renamed to abbc2ps.
Only the notes for enabled instruments and percussion instruments are present in the postscript scores. Each instrument gets its own staff, the percussion gets one staff (with a percussion clef). Eights notes followed by an eights rest are drawn like a quarter note with a dot above or below the note head, which often yields a better readability.
If only one instrument is enabled, and all percussion instruments are disenabled, then the score is supposed to be meant for one musician, so the name of the instrument is shown clearly beside the title of the composition. Also, consecutive rest-measures will appear in the form of a thick horizontal line. If all instruments are disenabled, and one or more percussion instruments are enabled, then the score is supposed to be meant for the drummer. Then only the measures that are different from their foregoing measure will contain notes. All other measures are empty. This yields a score that is easy readable.
The meter will depend on the nupq and meter slider values. The key is dependent on the value of the key slider. Normally the generated ABC file can be used as is, however for special whishes it could be edited before being fed to abbc2ps. An example ABC file:
X:1 T:Kitten's Dance C:W.Boeke M:4/4 L:1/8 K:C %%staves [sopr alt1 alt2 tenor barit tromb bass perc] V:sopr nm="soprano sax" snm="sopr" clef=treble V:alt1 nm="alto sax 1" snm="alt1" clef=treble V:alt2 nm="alto sax 2" snm="alt2" clef=treble V:tenor nm="tenor sax" snm="tenor" clef=treble V:barit nm="bariton sax" snm="barit" clef=treble V:tromb nm="trombone" snm="tromb" clef=treble V:bass nm="bass guitar" snm="bass" clef=bass V:perc nm="drums" snm="drums" clef=perc V:sopr [K:C]z8|z1AFA cedc|A2z6|z8|z1AFA ce-ed-|dcAz1 z4|ef-fg cd-de| .... .... |
Especially the %%staves item is interesting. If you modify it, then the order of the voices can be altered, or voices can be omitted or combined.
Program abbc2ps can take several options, you can try option -h for help. Also a so-called format file can be read.
Importing a MIDI file
Usually in a MIDI file the data for one instrument is mapped to its own 'track'. You will want to map a track to
a certain BigBand instrument. Thus if you import a fresh MIDI file, a default mapping file will be created. Via the
dialog widget you will be invited to edit this mapping file. A generated mapping file might look as follows:
format=4 # channel nr | track name | mapped instr | (transpose) # midi perc nr | perc name | mapped perc instr 1 "Alto Sax" 0 2 "Tenor Sax" 0 3 "Baritone Sax" 0 6 "Trumpet" 0 7 "Trombone" 0 8 "Electric Guitar (jazz)" 0 9 "Acoustic Grand Piano" 0 11 "Acoustic Bass" 0 42 "Closed Hi Hat" 1 40 "Electric Snare" 2 38 "Acoustic Snare" 2 57 "Crash Cymbal 2" 1 36 "Bass Drum 1" 5 49 "Crash Cymbal 1" 1 |
Listed are 2 kinds of data: names of tracks, with their default mapping to BigBand instruments, and names of MIDI percussion instruments, with their default mapping to BigBand percussion instruments.
You are supposed to edit the 3rd column. Instruments range from 0 upto 11, percussion from 0 upto 7. The default mapping of percussion instruments is such that lower sounding MIDI percussion instruments are mapped to higher-numbered BigBand percussion instruments.
You can add an extra number indicating a shift (in octaves), which would be useful if the MIDI file contains frequencies outside the range as supported by BigBand. Don't alter the order or the number of lines. The line 'format=4' specifies the version of this mapping file. Files with format 3 are still supported.
The modified mapping file might look like:
format=4 # channel nr | track name | mapped instr | (transpose) # midi perc nr | perc name | mapped perc instr 1 "Alto Sax" 1 2 "Tenor Sax" 2 3 "Baritone Sax" 3 6 "Trumpet" 5 7 "Trombone" 6 8 "Electric Guitar (jazz)" 10 9 "Acoustic Grand Piano" 7 11 "Acoustic Bass" 11 42 "Closed Hi Hat" 0 40 "Electric Snare" 2 38 "Acoustic Snare" 2 57 "Crash Cymbal 2" 6 36 "Bass Drum 1" 4 49 "Crash Cymbal 1" 6 |
Now click the dialog okay button, after which the imported tune will be shown.
The command-line translation tool is called gus-patch. First locate the directory where the patch files are
located. This could be /usr/share/midi/freepats/Tone_000/. If these files are not present on your
system then you can get them from freepats.zenvoid.org.
First create a directory wave-files under your working dir. Then call gus-patch e.g. as follows:
Now look at the information written to the terminal. Especially the item root freq is important.
These root frequencies should spread across the pitch range of the instrument that is emulated. If everything
is okay and gus-patch doesn't complain, then a .bb-pat file can be created, e.g.:
If you want to use only a selection of the available root frequencies, then use option -sel, e.g. as follows:
Beneath the spectrum window 1 or 2 sliders are present for choosing an audio chunk. Its content is displayed in
the lower window titled fft window. Going to the next or the previous chunk also can
be done by clicking the left or right mouse button inside the spectrum window. The middle window
depicts the complete wave.
Here you can select the start of an audio chunk using the left mouse button, it is sync'ed with the position of
the slider(s). At the bottom there is a play button. When you click it, the sound will start at the choosen audio
chunk.
For the creation of a patch 3 timing marks are needed, which can be choosen with the mouse inside the lowest window.
The left button sets the start of the patch. The middle and the right buttons set the begin and the end of the
sound loop. Three loop modes are available: normal (for sounds with a stable spectrum), pingpong (for noisy signals
and a longer loop), and up/down (sometimes better then pingpong). Fine-tuning of the end of the loop is done
with the 2 small buttons labled shift end-line.
The sound of the patch can be heard after the choice box play mode has been set to 'looped patch'.
Slider freq mult is for listening to the patch at different scanning speeds, in order to get an impression
of the sound as it will be used later. The basefreq div slider serves a different purpose:
sometimes the base frequency
is calculated wrong, which might occur if the 2nd or 3rd harmonic is much stronger then the fundamental.
The patch will be written to a file after the write patch... button has been clicked and a file name has
been entered in the dialog box. The print spectrum button is for writing the frequency peaks to the screen.
There is also an info window, displaying values that you might be interested in.
Wav2patch should be called from the command line:
Translating from GUS patch to BigBand patch
Maybe you wonder why the standard GUS patches aren't used by BigBand. The reason is that these contain much
control data that is not supported, at that a dedicated format leaves the possibility to extend it in the future.
gus-patch /usr/share/midi/freepats/Tone_000/067_Baritone_Sax.pat
Now the contents of the control part of the patch file will be listed to the screen, and also the provided
wave forms are written as WAVE files to directory wave-files. You can listen to them e.g. with
'aplay', or investigate them e.g. with 'mhwaveedit'.
gus-patch /usr/share/midi/freepats/Tone_000/067_Baritone_Sax.pat -o 68-BaritonSaxe.bb-pat
The number 68 denotes the GM (General Midi) instrument number for this instrument. You can move (as root)
the .bb-pat file to /usr/share/bigband/samples/, where Bigband is expecting them.
gus-patch /usr/share/midi/freepats/Tone_000/067_Baritone_Sax.pat -o 68-BaritoneSax-hard.bb-pat -sel 0
In this case a patch for a rough sounding bariton sax will be created. The -sel parameter can
be a comma-separated list of numbers.
Wav2patch, from WAVE file to BigBand patch
A 44100 Hz, mono WAVE file can be translated into a BigBand patch file. The sound data inside
the input file is split into overlapping chunks, and e fast Fourier transform (FFT) is applied to each
of them. This is to get an impression of the harmonic spectrum of the sound, and also to derive the
fundamental frequency. The result is displayed in the upper window, with small triangles indicating the
calculated frequency peaks.
wav2patch [options] <wave-file>
The options:
| -win n | FFT window = n samples. Values between 512 and 8192, default: 2048.
If the given value is not a power of 2, then internally
it will be rounded to the next-higher power of 2. Small values yield better timing accuracy, bigger values yield better low-frequency accuracy. |
| -th n | Threshold for spectrum peaks, default: 0.2 (the red dotted line in the spectrum window). |
| -h | Print usage info and exit. |
In directory src/samples one WAVE file sax-g3.wav is present to try out this program. Good starting values: -win option: 1024, loop 554,2286,2371 (patch-start,loop-start,loop-end: see the info window).
An interesting site to collect samples: www.freesound.org.
Tips and tricks for BigBand