Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 20 Apr 11 - 05:04 PM

Cheers Genie.   
I am going to try several different softwares (?)
When me MIDI thing gets here. Some of the notation stuff seems very dear but on the face of it very similar .

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Genie
Date: 20 Apr 11 - 04:39 PM

The level-2 version (one step above the free version) I have of Finale NotePad can do that, as long as you have a MIDI interface.   It's very inexpensive.

Genie

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 20 Apr 11 - 10:54 AM

Have ordered a gizmo from Sonuus will let you know if it works

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 09:30 AM

Tim, do you wish to note melodies or accompaniments?

If you are writing songs, then music software can be used to get the songs down. Some songs are easier than others, but with trial and error, it can be done. I use Noteworthy Composer, myself.

The pitches are the easy part. It's the note times that can be hard. Sometimes I have to take a guess, tell the computer to play that back for me, say "That's not it," and try again till the timing's right.

However, fingerpicking, which uses so many notes of short duration, not to mention dots and rests, would be very difficult.

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 06:09 AM

Its another possibility Stu. Had comment on another forum about using an mp3 file then read in here has same problem as direct input. I will maybe have to give up sleeping its such a waste of time. Lol

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: s&r
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 04:52 AM

Just as a slightly different thought Tim, you can on many programs, write music in as Tab, and convert it to notation...

Not sure if this helps at all


Stu

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 04:43 AM

Thanks Stu and Will . Sigh.

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 03:49 AM

Tim, I use 'Harmony Assistant' software (a kind of junior Sibelius) to write my guitar and mandolin arangements. I do it manually, using the laptop trackpad. It was a slow process at first as I had to get to grips with the software, but I can get by at a reasonable pace these days.

One of the things that Harmony Assistant can do is to read midi files and present them as scores. What's immediately apparent, as Stu has pointed out above is that the quantization can produce scores with infinitesimal note and rest values from bar to bar - incredibly complicated and laborious to knock into readable shape.

Better by hand, I think...

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: s&r
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 03:01 AM

Here's one of many Most notation programs have a MIDI facility.

There are some inherent difficulties: multi note inputs are harder to achieve than single note melodic lines setting the trigger point is likely to be more critical with acoustic. When I tied this ages ago with finale I found problems with quantization errors - my playing was not as rhythmically correct as I thought, and I had to set the notation software to recognise nothing smaller than a semiquaver.

Stu

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 02:57 AM

Thanks Dave . I was just hoping to save time . I am very slow writing it out by hand.   Seems I will just have to get used to it.

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 02:52 AM

Lol of I could be arsed to look at a keyboard I wouldn't need to know how to conect me martin to Sibelius. ;-)

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Darowyn
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 02:50 AM

Converting Midi data to notes is easy. A midi message consists of some routing information, telling the receiving midi device that this message is for it. Then comes a number to tell the device which note to play, and how loud, then another to tell it when to play and when to stop. There may be several others to cover vibrato etc.
But the point is, that every mid message contains numbers describing the pitch and duration of the note. It has no audio content- it's numbers not music, and not even digitised music, it's computer control codes.
That's why it's easy to show Midi as notation. To write music on the Staves, you need to know the pitch, duration and timing of each note. That is all represented by data in the midi message.
What comes out of your guitar is audio, whether it is air vibrations or an electronic signal.
Guitars do not play one note at a time- midi always does (even if the notes are too close together to tell the difference).
A midi converter for guitar has to detect and record the time, pitch and volume of every sound the guitar makes, decide which are music and which are not, and cope with the many inaccuracies caused by intonation faults, string bending, vibrato etc.. and it has to do this for each string separately, without allowing one to interfere with the next, and produce a result fast enough that you can't hear any latency or delay in response.
Apart from the dedicated midi pickup/processor set ups, none of which are quite perfect as yet, the only software I know that can cope with more than one note at a time is Melodyne Editor. That is like a much more sophisticated of the much abused Autotune, and unless you really need it it would probably be cheaper to hire someone who can take musical dictation.
The human brain is still far ahead of any silicon based software when it comes to knowing a B sharp when it hears one.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 02:39 AM

Here we go again ... peanuts anyone?

B# is a semitone higher than Cb.... look at a keyboard :-P

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 02:21 AM

They are just c flats with a smile ...

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 12:59 AM

"though the accidentals are yet another source of error."

What, those dammed B#s again!

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 12:58 AM

Musicaly disabled ? Hmmm there goes another Thread .
Thanks for the info. I take it direct input via guitar MIDI. Will not work as we as via keyboard ?

Subject: RE: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 06:40 PM

Google something like "Audio to MIDI software" or "Pitch to MIDI".

Sibelius etc. can import MIDI, though the accidentals are yet another source of error.

To notate existing recordings, the software can save some time, though it still requires a lot of corrections by ear. But it is hardly reasonable to use it the way you want to, because you will probably end up slower than with conventional input (unless you are musically disabled, in which case you should not compose at all).

I once saw a "MIDI guitar" with electro-mechanic operation (no acoustics involved), which is a slightly better idea. Google will help you with that.

Subject: Tech: acoustic guitar to notation software ?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 12:26 PM

I have a decent electro acoustic guitar ..reasonable computer and wish to use notation software such as Sibelius to make my efforts a little neater.
Can anyone tell me what additional equipment I might need to be able to play into and have my guitar input recognized as you can with a key board?

Thanks you
Tim