is there a way to automatically "group" songs?

[jeebustrain]

So I just joined a band. They have a few medleys of different tunes they do. Most of them I already have notes and program changes set up for in BH. Is there a way to set up a meta type group of multiple songs/notes to add all 5 of them whenever I need to throw one of these medleys in my setlist? I thought about just linking a medley song to the existing docs in the library, but that doesn't take care of things like program changes and such. Not a huge deal if not, just something I was wondering about.

[arlo]

The best option currently is to make a set list containing your medleys, separated by pauses. Then when you want to add a medley to a set list, you can choose your "medleys" set list from the Set Lists button at the top of the Add Songs popup window and click each of the songs within the medley you want, in order. They will be added to your new set list in the order you select them.

[Neill00]

I think part of what he’s looking for is to be able to link the songs so that when you get to the end of one song it automatically chooses the next song so that it will do the program changes etc.  So maybe a “next song”  triggered by “song completion” that is song specific as opposed to setting it up in the “edit layout”.  As it is in the layout, it will happed for every song not just the medleys.  I suppose the work-around would be to set it up like this in the layout and then put pauses in between all the songs that aren’t strung together in medleys?  Would that work?

[arlo]

Yes, if you want to automatically advance from song to song but not between some songs, adding pauses there is the way to do it.

[Ahiru]

I know this has been discussed before, but it would really be great to support an alternate approach for medleys for those of us that (a) use a second selection to initiate song play and (b) don't want to add pauses between every song.  It would be some option associated with the song in a given setlist that implies 'when done, advance immediately to the next song as if a second selection was made' (or whatever construct would achieve the same result).

[Neill00]

I’m currently experimenting with this.  I am using automation to start the lyrics scroll and have just learned that I’ll need to use the automation to determine the length of the song.  But if you aren’t using automation or a recording this will be determined by “duration” in the song edit.  My idea is to add a bit of extra time to the end of the song and in the setlist “edit details” maybe a 5 second value for “time between songs”.  This strategy may change based on how things play out.  So essentially the song will play through, 10-12 seconds will pass and then BandHelper will advance to the next song. Then after 5 seconds the new song will start.

I find that a lot of the times I’m “restarting current song” as I wait for band members to get ready for the next song.  I have that set up on a foot switch so it doesn’t matter that the song has advanced early.  For the songs that I want to run together, I’ll just lower the values in the song length, perhaps I’ll need to make the duration of the song 5 seconds shorter to account for the 5 second “time between songs” setting. 

I’m sure this will take some trial and error but I also want to avoid putting a bunch of pauses in.

[arlo]

I think part of what he’s looking for is to be able to link the songs so that when you get to the end of one song it automatically chooses the next song so that it will do the program changes etc.

I'm revisiting the topic of medleys. Regarding the idea to auto-advance the song selections within a medley, has anyone tried that and is it practical in the real world? I'm thinking if you have some pause between songs in your performance, the auto-advance would be more practical because it has some timing buffer. But if you are going seamlessly from song to song, the timing would have to be more exact, especially if you are changing MIDI presets when the song changes. It seems like you would either need to click a foot switch, or combine the medley songs into a single song with a single backing track and automation track to automate it with enough precision.

[Ahiru]

(This is probably my #1 desire for a Bandhelper enhancement, so pardon my long rambling)

Background: we play with backing tracks, BH song automation, and attached MIDI files (lighting), with second song selection triggering song starts.  First song selection occurs automatically at the end of the previous song, and is still important since it sets up initial equipment configurations using the default MIDI preset for the next song.

Currently we tap the next song on the setlist on our iPad (which is the 'second song selection') to start each song.  Works great!  But...

What we'd like to accomplish:  After generating a setlist, tag a number of songs in the setlist so they will just play back to back after a previous song is done, with no manual intervention.  (In my old pre-BH full band, we did this all the time, deciding collectively ahead of time which songs do well with a minimal pause between.)

More technically, what we'd want is some way to take a given setlist and associate an attribute to any song in the setlist that effectively means 'initiate second song selection for this song immediately after first song selection'.  It would be an attribute of the setlist for a given song position, not something persistently associated with a song.  (Understood that this might be complex to develop, with perhaps no current 'setlist position' data element to hang this attribute on.)

We're not after literal time-synced song end and start (like a DJ might do); just a very rapid segue from one song to the next (like the drummer knows ahead of time he's to immediately click us in to that next song).

For us there's always a bit of dead time at the end of a song, and an audible count-off (in the backing track) at the start of the next song, so the absense of a pause shouldn't cause an issue with managing changing MIDI presets.  (But some kind of user-set pause duration parameter might be useful in case there are equipment issues with zero delay between first and second song selection.)

Adding an explicit pause between every song (except those that run together) seems like so much clutter to the setlist, and reduces visibility of what's next while playing.

I've tried the 'combining two songs into one' approach but it was a lot of work and a nightmare to maintain (e.g. multiple DAW source files at different tempos, reconciling multiple lighting MIDI files, etc.), and moreover is not flexible if you want to change what runs together from gig to gig.

Thanks for the consideration!

[arlo]

Okay, so I wouldn't call it a medley in your case. And it could be accomplished this way:

- Add a new "link" object between some songs, the same way you can currently add pauses between songs. I'm open to different names for this.

- Add an "...only for linked songs" setting to the layout details after the Next Song layout action. This would flip the Song Completion functionality: instead of moving to the next song except when there's a pause, this would not move to the next song except when there's a link between the songs.

- Add a new Time Between Linked Songs setting after the Time Between Songs setting that would be used to insert a smaller amount of time between linked songs. Because you still need a small pause there, right?

- Override the Song Second Selection layout actions to trigger on Song Selection when a song is auto-advanced. This part seems harder to express as a setting. If you had the first change, could you just use Song Selection instead of Song Second Selection for your layout actions? The only downside is that you wouldn't be able to select a song and view it for a moment before triggering its actions.

[Ahiru]

Okay, so I wouldn't call it a medley in your case.

True, it is indeed more of a group of songs, in contrast to a medley as more of a continuous stream of excerpts of related songs.  If I've sent us out on a tangent, then pardon me and I can branch to a different thread. 

And it could be accomplished this way:

- Add a new "link" object between some songs, the same way you can currently add pauses between songs. I'm open to different names for this.

- Add an "...only for linked songs" setting to the layout details after the Next Song layout action. This would flip the Song Completion functionality: instead of moving to the next song except when there's a pause, this would not move to the next song except when there's a link between the songs.

That sounds great.  Could it also be possible to populate the 'Title +1' field on the layouts with the song after the Link (and not show something like 'Link'), since that field is very useful to know what's about to come up next.  (Extra credit if it could be an an alternate color or some flag if 'linked' as a reminder comin' at'cha fast

- Add a new Time Between Linked Songs setting after the Time Between Songs setting that would be used to insert a smaller amount of time between linked songs. Because you still need a small pause there, right?

For our backing tracks I don't think a pause would be needed, but I can see the use for situations where the MIDI associated with first Song Select might not play well without a gap before the MIDI associated with the second Song Select.  But it would be good to make this something that could be quite small, e.g. 100msecs, if you need something non-zero.

- Override the Song Second Selection layout actions to trigger on Song Selection when a song is auto-advanced. This part seems harder to express as a setting. If you had the first change, could you just use Song Selection instead of Song Second Selection for your layout actions? The only downside is that you wouldn't be able to select a song and view it for a moment before triggering its actions.

I don't completely follow this... I was assuming advancing to a Link object would trigger the behavior to (in effect) generate the next first and second song select back to back for the next song.  If that was the case, it doesn't seem like it involves a layout-level change to existing actions.  Moreover if you just scrolled directly to a song title in the setlist and clicked it, it would behave like a simple first Song Selection regardless of what might be in front of it in the setlist.

[arlo]

I was assuming advancing to a Link object would trigger the behavior to (in effect) generate the next first and second song select back to back for the next song

I would rather leave the layout actions alone and only change the way songs auto-advance. So if you want actions to be fired when a song is auto-selected, you would need to trigger them from Song Selection, not Song Second Selection. In other words, I'm talking about overriding the pause/advance behavior but not overriding the Song Selection/Song Second Selection behavior. "Auto-advance only between linked songs" seems intuitive to me, but "Trigger Song Second Selection actions on Song Selection only for linked songs" seems too obtuse.

[Ahiru]

Sorry I'm still not understanding, but it might be fine and I'm just stumbling on some terminology.

Consider an example setlist:

Song A
Song B
Link
Song C

From a user perspective, I'd want Song A and Song B (that have no intervening Link) to behave like they do today... ending Song A automatically sends the default MIDI preset for Song B (which currently uses Song Selection in our config), but it otherwise waits, poised to play Song B.  Tapping Song B in the set list then launches Song B play (which currently uses Second Song Selection in our config).

OTOH ending Song B would result in all the same things happening except that Song C does not need to be tapped for it to launch into play.

Futhermore it would preferable that scrolling from some other part of the setlist and selecting Song C just acts as a normal Song Selection, requiring a Second Selection to actually get it to launch.  So the Link is very playlist context sensitive, affecting behavior only when Song B finishes in this particular playlist.

[arlo]

In the new app versions released yesterday, you can add a Link between songs, the same way you add a Pause between songs. A link is basically the opposite of a pause: it makes songs appear more grouped rather than more separated. And if you want to auto-select the next song on song completion only for linked songs, you can turn on Next Song ... Only Between Linked Songs on the Edit Details page of your layout. This avoids the need to place pauses between all your other songs.

This does not change the way song selections and song second selections work; specifically, it will not make Song Second Selections fire on Song Selection. You will need to use Song Selection actions instead of Song Second Selection actions if you want actions to fire automatically when auto-advancing through songs.

In yesterday's updates, you can also shift-click to select a group of songs when adding songs to a set list in the website. So going back to the original post here, it's a little easier to add medleys to a set list. If you are selecting songs from a previous set list or a special "Medleys" set list, you can click the first song in a medley, then shift-click the last song, to add all the songs and links in between.

[Ahiru]

This looks like a great addition if you use only Song Select to advance to songs.  Do you think it possible to some day add an independent option to make Song Second Selections automatic for linked songs?  I think that would allow us who use Song Select and Second Song Select to also use links to create automatic medleys.  (For us separating the 'banter and get ready' MIDI commands in Song Select from the 'now play it' automation in Song Second Select has worked very well, so we wouldn't want to abandon that split of responsibilities.)

[arlo]

I still think triggering the Song Second Selection actions from the first selection is counterintuitive, but I'll add to my wish list to think about something that would accomplish the same goal.