Macros

Macros are a convenient way of mass editing chords in BandMaster. They can be selected from the application menu, the chord grid context menu and as seen above via the macros popup menu in the main song window. They are such an important tool and time saver that they deserve their own chapter in this guide.

 

Applying Macros

The macro menu is grouped somewhat arbitrarily into 4 groups:

• II-V macros
• II-V-I-I macros
• compound II-V macros
• miscellaneous macros

There are two things that need to be understood regarding macros. The first and a bit complex rule is that a macro can only be applied to a selection of beats that is cleanly divisible by the number of items in the macro. The first three macros in the macro menu for instance all have two items (II V). Therefore these macros can be applied to any selection of beats that is divisible by 2. All macros after the first three have exactly four items and can thus only be applied to selections that are divisible by 4. While this may seem somewhat strange at first, it allows us to apply macros to selections as small as two beats, but also to selections much larger like 12 measures for example.

The second rule regarding macros is that the first chord in a selection of beats determines the tonic (or I) of the progression applied. This also may seem a bit weird. It does however streamline the application of macros, because otherwise an additional step would be necessary. So, keeping this rule in mind, applying the first macro in our menu (IIm7 V7) to a sequence of: CMaj / / / results in: Dm7 / G7 /.

That is really all there is to know about macros. Applying a macro to an invalid selection only results in a beep. Below are some examples that show in each row before and after the application of a two-part macro.