Onsong & BeatBuddy Notes Highlight Color

It would be great if BeatBuddy partnered with Onsong to allow for BeatBuddy Notes to be placed over lyrics in a different color than chords. Basically I’m putting in notes in the square brackets just like chords but I also use parenthesis to visually separate them from the chords of the song. It would be nice if these notes could be a different highlight color.

I love Onsong, but I am not sure what you are requesting. What are “Beatbuddy notes”, text, musical notes, midi information?

It is something that I would love too, but I think it’s from publishers of Onsong demane this should be done.

@Psalm40 : notes for start, fills, keep the pedal, release, etc.

Onsong, it makes me think of something. Onsong is also a MIDI controller, for example, it can control the preset change on a multi-effects pedal. If BeatBuddy could receive information by midi that would be great. preset change, and perhaps tempo, etc.

I use the drawing tool for annotating my chord charts in Onsong, and sticky notes for making a note of the BB song used, the tempo and kit. Once the BB is fully midi compatible the possibilities will be endless and I look forward to that - but am aware that this could take some time to implement.

I am not following. Why can’t you just use chordpro comments {c: comment} to add these annotations?

Wow! Psalm thank you, I have just discovered the tool to draw in Onsong. Awesome! Thank you again!

I simply mean “Directions”. When I program the BB to play a certain song, I put small instructions/directions in parts of the page in Onsong… things like (Pause), (Accent), (Fill) or (TF2) which is Transition Fill for 2 Bars.

I actually didn’t know how to put in chordpro comments, but I can’t use those either because when you add them to the middle of a sentence (say you want a “Fill” to start on a certain word) the chordpro comment hides half of the sentence. Plus I’d like it to be a completely different color of font than the lyrics.

That will be a feature request you will need to direct to Onsong, they usually are quite accommodating - depends if they feel it will see the benefit of another ‘comment line’ for instructions for external gear.

I added Emoticons to Onsong and used them for this purpose. There is and endless variety of Emoticons. Not just smiley faces. Like arrows, numbers, letters. Right off you can see using P emoticon for pause, A emoticon for accent, etc. They look different and stand out, but are compact, not taking up a lot of space. I put them in the lyrics line with a space before and after.

That’s a really good idea never thought of that, thanks Pineears

The ap to get is the one that allows text to emoticons. You get an A in a round cornered red tv like box. Stand out well and takes little space.

What application you use to emoticons Pinnears?

Emoji 2 I think. It has a text to Emoji function. Put in and A, refresh a couple of times.

I’m not sure if anyone is using notations over their lyrics like I am, but I asked OnSong about a glitch that was causing notations to disappear when you transpose keys. I use these notations to remind myself when to use Fills and Transitions in songs. They’ve fixed this in their latest update. Next step… to see if notations can be placed in their own highlight color. :slight_smile:

This should be in the Tips & Tricks section. The emoticons are great for these cues as they inline with the song lyrics. On the iPad I found some small blue and yellow diamonds that I use to mark transitions and fills (matches the visual cue on the Beat Buddy). I use a red up arrow to indicate a pause and a red down arrow to indicate unpause (used seldomly though).

I reviewed a few apps and among them found OnSong too cumbersome for someone who just wants a direct easy iPad reference on the mic stand and went with UnReal Book. Easy to DL pdfs, assemble into sets, etc. I use only a few markings with the pen tool (e.g., red hash marks for where to start/stop drums). I want to be as free of trappings when I play as possible but not forget words and chords to 200-300 songs :slight_smile: Also Aron Nelson who wrote the code is incredibly accessible by email if you have questions - and even as straight forward and intuituve as his SW is mental blockage occurs at times. BTW - K&M (Konig & Meyer) makes a great clamp for the iPad.

Awesome suggestions as I have been contemplating ways to annotate BB part changes in Onsong.
Does anyone know if Unreal book allows you to change keys or is it simply a pdf viewer that allows notes?

Beacuse using the Comment code won’t actually place it in the exact spot you need (ie. Fill, Stop, Start, Transition fill, etc.) it only places it at the beginning of a new line. Unless I’m missing something in how to use the comments. Also, having them in the chord format also allows for easier reading because you can highlight the chords. So I put in a comment like this [(Fill)] which looks great, but it blends in with the same color as the chords. All I’m saying is it would be nice to have another color option.

Even better would be if the midi suggestion above worked for all of this. :slight_smile: