problem with mid2text and Noteworthy

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Jon W.
Date: 17 Feb 98 - 11:20 AM

I have used MIDI2ABC quite often to convert tunes from Mudcat DT to ABC so I could play them on my PC speaker (using PlayQABC), since I don't have a sound card here at work. There is an option to specify the number of pickup notes, which I have used successfully. Of course, you have to guess at it, if you don't know the tune, but it's usually fairly obvious from the lyrics of the song. And even if you get it wrong, the song still sounds the same.

Incidentally I have since found a DOS program, MIDIPLAY, which will play a MIDI file on the speaker (one track only). I got it from the same page as MIDI2ABC, from a link on the ABC Homepage.

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 17 Feb 98 - 10:47 AM

G'day,
My dry Aussie banter was intended in the same spirit, but then my students don't laugh at my jokes either!

Both Joe and Baz have sent me MIDI files created with NWC and they both have the same problem. I'm sure I can fix this by getting the ABC part of the program to ignore rests. A "restless" song tune should be perfectly useable. I'll try to do this sometime soon.

I haven't had a chance yet to try uploading MIDI to the new version of the forum but hopefully MIDItext will become redundant. Still, it seems to me that some people will want to continue using ABC. So there will still be a need for MIDI to ABC and ABC to MIDI converters. Last time I looked at ABC2MID and MID2ABC they didn't always get it right, particularly with pickup bars. What have other people found?

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Jon W.
Date: 16 Feb 98 - 11:55 AM

Alan, from your description it seems apparent that the problem lies with Noteworthy outputting somewhat strange MIDI files. My guess is that if you rounded the 5/6th beat up to a full beat and ignored the 1/6 rest, the ABC output would be correct. However this might create problems with MIDI files from other programs. Might we prevail upon you to add a command line option to your program to allow us to run Noteworthy MIDI output through with a different behavior than other MIDI files? At your convenience, of course.

As for the other, I'm sure I speak for Joe also in saying we are only kidding you, engaging in friendly banter in the American manner. We really appreciate your efforts both as a stalwart Mudcatter and as a teacher of those future producers of (we hope) outstanding music software. I remember only too well my days as a Computer Science major, and how good it felt--especially after I graduated.

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 14 Feb 98 - 10:28 PM

G'day Baz and other Noteworthy users,
I've reconstructed your test.mid and looked inside it. It seems that Noteworthy puts a gap (i.e. a rest) in between each note. Thus the short piece in question has notes with a duration of 5/6 of a beat plus a rest of 1/6 of a beat. My sequencer (Musicator) rounds that to 3/4 and 1/4 (the closest expected note lengths, at least for this time signature) and shows the notes as dotted quavers plus a semiquaver rest. (ENGLISH terminology, I'm not sure how to say that in American!). If you want to email me your original MIDI file I can confirm this. Send to [e-mail]

MID2txt rounds off the note lengths the same way. One way around this might be to modify MID2txt to ignore the "note off" MIDI signal and just turn off each note when the next note starts. We'd lose other rests too, but I suppose that won't matter much with song tunes. Another way would be to reduce the resolution to quavers instead of semiquavers, but then we'd lose notes in some tunes. This paragraph only applies to the ABC part of the program - the MIDI part faithfully reproduces the original MIDI file with exact timing and expression.

Dan, I presume you are taking the tunes as posted in this forum as input to Noteworthy. Are you using the MIDI part or the ABC part? The MIDI file you get should be identical to the one the original contributer posted. How does it work with Windows media player?

Joe, in another thread you said that the ABC output needed some cleaning up. Can you give me more details?

Jon & Joe, How could you suggest I'd be mean to my students? Would I do that? They're more likely to torture me! If you're a student work hard, get your assignments in on time and save some time for Mudcat!

A bit of background: I (and some of my musical friends) have a considerable hardware and software commitment to MIDI. Therefore I may be biased, but MIDI is able to convey exact timing and expression much better than ABC (and other details I've purposely left out of MIDItext in the interest of simplicity and brevity). ABC is a good way to share tunes in a text only forum and there are programs to convert between ABC and MIDI. The problem with these programs is that they don't always seem to work reliably, particulary with pickup bars (American term!). Having had a go at it myself I can see the difficulties involved in writing these conversion programs - hence this thread! By including MIDI and ABC in the MID2txt output I'm trying to encourage people to use one or the other and avoid a proliferation of different methods. I believe MIDI is the best way to share tunes if you can, otherwise use ABC. By the way all the bugs, imperfections etc. in MID2txt come from the ABC conversion code. The MIDI conversion seems to work fine - the MIDI file you get should be identical to the original file submitted.

Has Max solved the problem of sharing MIDI? Converting MIDI to text and back again was always a round about way of doing the job. If we can upload MIDI directly it will be much easier.

If we are going to use Max's method do we now need more reliable ways of converting between MIDI and ABC or are the avilable programs OK? Last time I looked they left something to be desired.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Dan Mulligan
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 08:39 PM

I have had some trouble with text2midi files when I play them in NWC also.Sometimes it takes the file forever to format the barlines, effectively freezing up my CPU. Other times it just reads the time signature wrong. All in all though it is a handy way to transmit a music file. Dan Mulligan

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 06:04 PM

Hey, Jon - I hope we're entertaining Alan with our comments about his professorial sadism.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From: Jon W.
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 05:40 PM

We think there's a problem with the ABC conversion part of MIDI2TXT. We're waiting for Alan to notice all these complaints and fix it. He's busy torturing students.

Subject: problem with mid2text and Noteworthy
From:
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 05:17 PM

I've been having a problem using the midi2text program.
I type a tune into Noteworthy and export a midi file.
When I then drag the midi file onto the M2T Icon I get a text file ok, but not as it should be.
The ABC file below should look like this
X: 1
T:test
M:4/4
L:1/4
K:G
D|DGG|GFG|AcA|FD3/2D/2|

% Output from ABC2Win Version 2.1 f on 13/02/98
But it seems to be full of 7/4 and z(s)
Can anyone suggest what I'm doing wrong

Sorry to be a pain with all these qestions.

Regards BAZ

MIDI file: TEST.MID

Timebase: 192

Key: G
TimeSig: 4/4 24 8
Name: Staff-1
Start
0000 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 66 110 0160 0 66 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 66 110 0160 0 66 000 0032 1 62 110 0256 0 62 000
End

This program is worth the effort of learning it.

To download the January 15 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here

ABC format:

X:1
T:Staff-1
M:4/4
Q:1/4=120
K:G
D7/4z/4D7/4z/4G7/4z/4G7/4z/4|G7/4z/4F7/4z/4G7/4z/4A7/4z/4|
c7/4z/4A7/4z/4F7/4z/4D2|-D3/4||