Song Chart Builder

Song Chart Builder

The Song Chart Builder is for charting a whole song, bar by bar: sections, repeats, first and second time bars, and the drum part for each bar that needs one. It is a quick way to make the kind of chart a drummer would write out to learn or play a song, and to print it as a clean PDF.

Open it from the Chart Builder button above the notation in the main window, or use File > New Song Chart (Shift-Command-N) or Chart > Open Song Chart Builder. It opens in its own window, separate from the groove you are working on.

Counting A Song

1. Set the song title, artist, time signature, and an approximate tempo.
2. Click Start Counter when the song begins.
3. Click Add Bar on every new bar as you listen.
4. At the start of a section, click Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Middle 8, Solo, Breakdown or Outro (or type your own name). The section button adds the bar and labels it in one go.

BeatBake works out a tempo from how far apart you clicked and offers it as a detected BPM you can apply.

Choose Individual bars or Grouped rests beside the section buttons first. Individual bars gives each bar its own repeat sign so you can come back and add a fill to any of them. Grouped rests keeps a long intro or breakdown as one multi-bar rest.

Building The Chart

Select a bar to change its section, content, repeat marks, time bar or note.

• Count shows rhythm slashes on a five-line percussion staff. Two or more empty bars in a row join into one numbered multi-bar rest.
• Repeat Previous shows a one-bar repeat sign (simile).
• Beat holds a full one-bar BeatBake groove in that bar. Double-click the bar (or choose Edit Beat) to open the normal notation and grid editor for it.
• Start Repeat and End Repeat add repeat marks. End Repeat can be set from one to eight extra passes.
• Time Bar marks one or more consecutive bars as a 1st or 2nd time bar.
• Navigation adds Segno, To Coda, Coda or D.S. al Coda.
• Simile turns the selected bar into a repeat of the one before it.
• Insert, duplicate, delete, copy and paste work on the selected bar.

Selecting And Rearranging

• Click a bar to select it. Shift-click another bar to select the whole range between them.
• Left and Right arrow keys select the previous or next bar and Up goes back to bar 1. The chart scrolls to keep the selected bar in view. These keys do not control the song you are listening to.
• Drag a selected bar (or range) and let go at the blue insertion line to move it. Dropping on the left or right half of a bar puts the selection before or after it. The left and right arrow buttons do the same move without dragging.
• Command-Z undoes a whole drag as one step.

Tempo

The tempo has a slider and a BPM readout you can drag: click and drag right or up to go faster, left or down to go slower, and hold Option for fine control. The arrows still change it one BPM at a time.

Playing A Chart

• Play Chart plays the whole chart once, start to finish.
• Click keeps the metronome going through empty count bars.
• Beat bars play their drum notation and Repeat Previous bars replay the bar before.
• Repeats are followed using the number of passes you set, and first and second time bars are played in the right order.
• The bar that is playing is highlighted.

Saving, Printing And Exporting

• Charts save as .beatbakechart files, with their beats stored inside, so changing a library groove later won't change a saved chart.
• Before New or Open replaces a chart with unsaved changes, BeatBake asks whether to Save, Discard or Cancel. During your trial or with a licence, a recovery copy of the current chart is kept automatically; use Save or Save As to keep each song as its own file.
• Preview and Print lay the chart out as continuous percussion staff systems, four blocks to a line, on as many A4 pages as it needs. Print opens the standard macOS print panel, where you can also save a PDF.
• Export sends the chart to Sibelius, MuseScore, Dorico or Finale. See Sibelius and MuseScore.

Chart shortcuts follow the window you are in: Space plays the chart, Command-S saves, Shift-Command-S saves as a new file, Command-O opens a chart, Command-P prints, Command-E exports, and Command-Delete clears it.