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Tech: Mudcat MIDI files
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 05 Jun 18 - 12:59 PM This has now been corrected: Incomplete list of MIME types |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,ripov Date: 03 Jun 18 - 07:09 PM @Grishka; sorry missed that you were only speaking of MIDI. So it's basically for synchronisation of parts; as in avoiding the harmony of the first complete bar being played under the anacrusis? Although in the unlikely event that you were playing from a raw MIDI file, you would spot the first beats by the accents (or increased loudness) just as you would in a live performance (yes I know not always, I have sung madrigals!), so in that sense bar lines are redundant. NWC deals with anacruses and mid bar repeats by requiring the next bar-line to be a double bar to reset the sequence, after which it fills them in automatically when told. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 03 Jun 18 - 05:31 PM @FreddyHeadey and DaveRo: we have found the reason for this problem in our previous posts; it is now up to Max to apply a very simple fix as indicated above. If he refuses, there is no point in repeating. @Ripov: padding a MIDI file at the beginning is necessary because this format (but no other format I know of!) does not cater for for an anacrusis at the very start of the file, although it knows about metric signatures. Software importing MIDI files should tacitly delete the padding, exporting software should add it, so that many users won't notice at all. In fact, unpadded MIDI files seem to be a specialty of ancient Mudcat software. @Jack Campin: Sibelius and absolutely all notation software I have ever seen can deal with anacrusis and repeats in the midst of a measure; reading the manual may help in such cases. The tool abc2xml will translate this correctly. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 03 Jun 18 - 04:04 PM That's much the same as Firefox on my Android 7 tablet, except that tapping a link on GUEST's link https://www.mfiles.co.uk/midi-files.htm I get this: screenshot (expires in 21 days) Chrome is similar. But you may have told Android to download such files in the past and remember the choice. That site, as mentioned earlier, serves midi files as audio/x-midi which I think is the one to use. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: FreddyHeadey Date: 03 Jun 18 - 06:04 AM On the chrome browser on my android tablet clicking the the link opens a browser page with text and lots of black diamonds with white question mark or a 404 : https://mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/WayToBeHappy-HC.mid opens as MThd?MTrk1?X?Y??Q ?@??d?;?>?Cd??C ?Ed]?E?Hd?;?H?Fd?;?F?>d?;?>?@d?;?@?Cd?;?C?Ad?;?A?d?;?>?Cd??C ?Ed]?E? etc Waltzing Matilda (Queensland version) https://mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/WM-QLD.mid MThd?MTrk l?$Waltzing Matilda, Queensland Version? ?New Midi?X?Y ?d @[(]edcb@cb @cb @cb @cb!@cbc@cbd@cbf@?d @[(]edcb@cb @cb @cb @cb!@cbc@cbd@cbf@?d @[(]edcb@cb @cb @cb etc but from > DT > CLICKTOPLAY > https://mudcat.org//media/WALTZMAT.MID MThdMTrk??Q '??Y?X?Bc?B?Bc?B?Bc?B?Bc?B?@c?@ etc Wallaby Stew from the midi list shows MThd?MTrk5?Wallaby Stew? Generated by NoteWorthy Composer?Q? ?n?? @?X?Q??Y??X?Y??`? - that's it, two lines but from > DT > CLICKTOPLAY > =404 ~~~~~~ = 404s https://mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/Ae_Fond_Kiss.mid https://mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/air_falalalo.mid ~~~~~~~~~ re GUEST Date: 27 May 18 - 12:52 AM link to https://www.mfiles.co.uk/midi-files.htm ... tapping the links there downloads a .mid file which I can play as expected. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Greenie Date: 03 Jun 18 - 03:14 AM "Sibelius seems to have a similar problem - you can't write a section that starts with an upbeat and ends with a matching incomplete bar" If you're writing directly to Sibelius you can. When you set-up the first page it asks you if you want to start with a pick up bar and you can define its length. The irregular length bar at the end of the section is then created by adding a bar from the 'Home' task bar. Repeats can be added from the 'Notation' task bar and you can also repeat any bar as many times as you want from 'Repeats' on the 'Play' task bar. Greenie |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 02 Jun 18 - 08:00 PM Sibelius seems to have a similar problem - you can't write a section that starts with an upbeat and ends with a matching incomplete bar, then tell Sibelius it's to be repeated. For most of the trad tunes I've put into ABC, I've done exactly that because it's a more economical way to write it. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Ripov Date: 02 Jun 18 - 07:35 PM Pad the anacrusis?? Why (unless there are special rhythmic reasons). The last bar of the piece should be adjusted. eg if 4/4 has a crotchet anacrusis the last bar should have only three crotchets- so possibly a dotted minim rather than a semibreve: otherwise the rhythm will jump when you repeat. nwc annoyimgly insists on padding the last bar with rests! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 02 Jun 18 - 04:28 PM Mudcatter "Stewart" posted on another thread a good hint which I believe to be relevant here as well: NWC to ABC conversion. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 31 May 18 - 09:54 AM Jack, people here (and elsewhere) use MIDI files to import them into their notation system such as Noteworthy Composer. But indeed, there is also software for simply playing MIDI files that displays normal MIDI file lyrics more or less in real-time, for karaoke or other purposes. The ".kar" format was a specification designed to suit very old standalone hardware "Karaoke players"; it should be avoided nowadays. People tell me that abc2midi actually produces that format - hence some ordinary notation software cannot treat the lyrics properly. (I cannot confirm this statement at the moment; ABC specialists will know.) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 31 May 18 - 08:43 AM Midi karaoke files(officially .kar but doesn't have to be) is one way. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Jack Campin Date: 31 May 18 - 08:34 AM I have never seen a MIDI player that did anything with lyrics. How does that work? Clear formatting is most useful as a correctness check when creating ABC - you can usually reconstruct it - so it's not that important if it gets lost in conversion. Losing the metadata you have in printed scores or ABC headers is a different matter. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 31 May 18 - 07:34 AM Collections of MIDI files are better than nothing. Good software exporting it will pad any anacrusis with rests so that the result starts at the beginning of a bar (measure). This should be a minimal requirement. MIDI and ABC both support lyrics, which is very important to make use of. If the lyrics and the tune come separate, the result may well be useless if the scansion is not completely obvious for absolutely everybody. We seem to agree that collecting ABC code would be a good idea as well. Fortunately, a lot of it is available already. Incomplete collections in either format are better than nothing. If the primary source comes from "modern" notation software such as MuseScore, Sibelius, or Finale, the file can be exported to MusicXML, which in turn can be converted to ABC by a tool called xml2abc (by Wim Vree - do not confuse with an old programme of that name). For many older notation software products, there is a tool called MidiZyx2abc which does the same job, but may require more work from its user. Either way, the result will usually be "correct", but not "idiomatic" enough to satisfy Jack Campin's refined taste buds. He may volunteer to edit the ABC code for more prettiness and readability. - Converting ABC to MIDI is much easier, but not trivial either. Some software discards the lyrics, which would be disastrous for the purposes of this thread. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 30 May 18 - 03:49 PM Many years ago (2002 from the post I can find - Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?), I converted the 2002 DT to abc and John In Brisbane was tidying them up. I think I've got that stored in a Prolog (language) data base, but I could write it out as an abc file if you'd find it useful. (it's literally just writing it out, so no real effort). I did have interfaces to it in Prolog and I think I did a java version too. I've just had a look at the Prolog db. There appear to be 3996 songs in there (that's the last X: header) - abc with matched lyrics. I've also got the full lyrics and the keywords in there. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Joe Offer Date: 30 May 18 - 03:10 PM Can't say I'm thinking of converting to ABC format, although I wish we had started out with ABC and stuck with it. I almost had ABC mastered, but I've lost it all since I haven't used ABC for years. Back when Alan of Oz started Mudcat MIDIs (maybe 1998?), people seemed to prefer the MIDI format - or at least Alan did, and he was doing the work. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: MMario Date: 30 May 18 - 03:06 PM I have about 1300 NWC AND ABC files of mudcat midis...many of the midis were produced by the "great tune search" and the midis were made from the NWC or the ABC files... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 30 May 18 - 02:59 PM If you're notating what you hear, these days you can almost always provide a link to what you heard, or something very close to it as performed by actual human beings. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 30 May 18 - 02:35 PM I'm not sure I get what's going on here. I am used to, and comfortable with, notating what I hear. That is notating, either pen or pencil on paper, or putting data into a computer program like Sibelius or Musescore. I can do this from midi as long as I can get the midi track to play. Software that helps convert midi to other formats is welcome. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Tootler Date: 30 May 18 - 02:17 PM I think that's a bit ott, Jack. Midi can save a lot of transcribing time but you ned a copy of the original notation as well to enable you to include the bits that midi leaves out. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 30 May 18 - 02:03 PM There are no experts on recovering information that has been thrown away. When the sources used for making the MIDI files still exist, that's a different story. But the MIDIs themselves are useless for building on. It was a waste of effort creating them in the first place. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 30 May 18 - 01:41 PM EasyABC, and I vaguely remember other software doing the same, asks in a preliminary screen about anacrusis, time signature, key and other stuff. Of course this is no use if you do not have that information about the piece. In the absence ot this information you can go forward by listening to the music and getting what you need and then doing the import again. A sort of double import. Joe started the thread. Joe are you asking for volunteers to transcribe the midi tracks to ABC. Jack Campin seems to be the expert. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Tootler Date: 30 May 18 - 11:41 AM Converting anything from midi to a human readable form has problems with an anacrusis because midi data appears to discard barline data although it stores the time signature. As a result when you import it into another format, the first note is treated as the first beat of the bar. This can lead to unreadable rubbish further along in the music. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 28 May 18 - 07:33 AM Can't be sure of that but you may be right. I can't remember all the fiddling I may have done there (and some memory is quite confusing, years ago, I used to use some plugin to let me use something like pmidi inline but I've forgotten how that worked) and am not even sure where along the line vlc became an option for this on both Firefox and Chromium but can be sure that I used Edit/Preferences/Applications on Firefox to make the midi editor (Rosegarden) an option. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 28 May 18 - 07:23 AM I reckon Firefox recognizes the official IANA mime-types and then looks at the ones here. So it will recognise audio/x-midi but not audio/midi. That's probably why you had to tell Firefox what to do with it - and it added it to mimeTypes.rdf. Maybe. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 28 May 18 - 06:59 AM Ah. Midi is one I have mucked about with although not directly in that file. I certainly added the option to prompt and let me choose Rosegarden. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 28 May 18 - 06:51 AM GUEST wrote: I only spot audio/midi in my Firefox mimeTypes.rdf file ...I think that may store choices you yourself may have made in the past about opening audio/midi - perhaps because Firefox didn't recognise it. mimeTypes.rdf I don't have any reference to midi in mimeTypes.rdf. I recognise references to stuff I've mucked about with in the past. You could be right that if Firefox does not recognise foo/bar it tries foo/x-bar. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 28 May 18 - 05:59 AM I've just done a bit of hunting and reading and found that :| gives an end repeat with double bar lines and that |] gives a final bar line. Thanks for the hint. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 28 May 18 - 05:43 AM Jack, the files I posted were my interpretations of the original EasyABC translation of the midi file.When I looked for the original I cluldn't find it so I imported the midi to EasyABC again. This time I knew enough about the tune to be able to set the time signature, bars per line and anacrusis correctly. A much nicer ABC file ensued. X:1 T:Waytobehappy-hc M:1/2 L:1/8 K:F C | FE G>F | ED G>A | cB DE | GF C>C | FE G>F | ED G>A | cB DE | F2>C2 | FE G>F | ED GA | cB DE | GF C>C | FE GF | ED G>A | cB D c=B B>B | AG D_E | E2>G2 | Gc c=B | dc =BA | G^F =FD | C2>C2 | FE G>F | ED G>A | cB DE | GF C>C | FE G>F | ED G>A | cB D< E | F3 | As you pointed out earlier midi treats repeats as twice through. The repeats in the previous versions were my efforts. What do you find wrong with :||? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 28 May 18 - 05:22 AM I only spot audio/midi in my Firefox mimeTypes.rdf file which is supposed to control how the browser responds. Yet my browser is coping with the x-midi version. Perhaps I've just missed something or I guess that it is possible that that browser will strip an "x-" prefix (which seems to stand for experimental) from a mime type? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 28 May 18 - 03:58 AM Stanron's conversion (by EasyABC, it seems) has a lot of problems. It's unreadably formatted, syntactically incorrect (":||" is not ABC) and it looks like the barlines have all been inserted on a second pass over an unbarred first version - no human would write a dotted construct across a barline, though I don't think any rule forbids it. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 28 May 18 - 03:07 AM I wrote: I suspect that the reason that midi has never been registered is that there is no official body in control of it.Well, I was wrong about that: http://midi.org So I guess that audio/x-midi existed before they did. FWIW nobody has registered audio/flac either. Firefox recognises both audio/flac and audio/x-flac so maybe that's true of midi. Browsers - Firefox certainly - will try and make sense of misconfigured media types. The problem here was a valid, usable, but wrong mime-type - text/html. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 27 May 18 - 05:06 PM Well, I think that MDN article is wrong, and the correct mime-type (aka media type) for midi is audio/x-midi. audio/midi does not exist on IANA's list_of_registered_media_types. x-prefix media types are described here I suspect that the reason that midi has never been registered is that there is no official body in control of it. And I don't think a file can have two mime types - even if they were both sensible. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 27 May 18 - 04:56 PM The reason you lost those characters was, as Grishka hinted, that you included a "<" sign in the ABC source and it was interpreted as the start of a (nonexistent) HTML tag - you need to replace all occurrences of < with "<". Also, if you use monospace to make the tune's metrical structure more readable as I do, you need to replace every space character with " " and enclose the tune in <tt> ... </tt> tags. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 27 May 18 - 04:28 PM Posting ABC stuff on Mudcat takes some preparation, such as replacing all "<" by "<". Also, users can have difficulties copying it from the browser to their ABC software. Nevertheless it is Mudcat's preferred method, for quite a number of good reasons. Nothing wrong with offering MIDI files (of the DT etc.) on top, though, since they take up very little space. Max should have no problem fixing the "bug" Joe observed in his OP. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 27 May 18 - 03:43 PM Also, every browser can be configured to react to any MIME type declaration as the user pleases But asking the browser to use a midi program for type text/html makes no sense... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 27 May 18 - 03:33 PM Maybe third time lucky. The last bar and a bit are missing from my second attempt. Third time lucky perhaps. X:1 T:Waytobehappy-hc M:2/4 L:1/8 K:F C|FE G>F|E D G>A|cB DE|GF C>C|FE G>F|ED G3/2A/|cB DE2<|F2 :|| G|Gc c>d|c=B B3/2=B/|AG D_E2<|=E2 G|Gc c=B|dc =BA|G^F =FD2<|C2 C| FE G>F|ED G>A|cB DE|GF C>C|FE G>F|ED G3/2A/|cB D There is something queer going on. Three, or is it nine?, characters < E|F3 || are missing from the end. They did not take on the previous attempt and they didn't take this time either until I put a space between the < and the E. Strange. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 27 May 18 - 02:52 PM MIDI leaves out a lot of information which can be included in ABC source or staff notation: - repeat structures - mode - time signature - rhythm type, for player software to use when adding swing - text underlay - metadata (composer, times and locations associated with the piece, publication details, discography) - comments (which may include stuff like editorial changes, copyright and usage conditions, or in the case of one of mine, the whole long tune written out in canntaireachd) You can throw all that away when generating MIDI from ABC but you can't get it back when converting the other way. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 27 May 18 - 12:57 PM Oops, big boo boo. The abc file I posted sounds OK but the Notation isn't. The key signature should be 2/4 and the anacrusis or upbeat is missing. This is what it should be and it was a pain getting there. X:1 T:Waytobehappy M:2/4 L:1/8 K:F C|FE G>F|E D G>A|cB DE|GF C>C|FE G>F|ED G3/2A/|cB DE2<|F2 :|| G|Gc c>d|c=B B3/2=B/|AG D_E2<|=E2 G|Gc c=B|dc =BA|G^F =FD2<|C2 C| FE G>F|ED G>A|cB DE|GF C>C|FE G>F|ED G3/2A/|cB D If every file needs this kind of editing someone has a load of work to do. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 27 May 18 - 12:40 PM To sum up: the server declares a misspelled file type. A quick remedy in case of the most popular server system might be found at http://bignosebird.com/apache/a1.shtml (- no blue clicky on purpose). (Leeneia's method always works, on almost all systems and browsers. Also, every browser can be configured to react to any MIME type declaration as the user pleases.) I second Jack Campin's plea for ABC versions if available, not instead of MIDI, but additionally. Important for both formats: precisely matched lyrics, at least of the first verses, would be great! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 27 May 18 - 10:01 AM EasyABC can import a midi file and display it as ABC> I got this that way. X:1 T:Waytobehappy-hc M:3/4 L:1/8 K:F CF EG>FE | DG>Ac BD | EG FC>CF | EG>FE DG3/2 |A/c BD E2 DG>Ac BD GG cc | =Bd cB AG | ^F=F D2 DG>Ac BD | EG FC>CF | EG>FE DG3/2 |A/c BD It sounds OK to me. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Jack Campin Date: 27 May 18 - 06:27 AM Is there an ABC alternative for all of them? (genuine human-readable ABC, not auto-generated crud). I can't see myself ever wanting to download one, any more than I would have done with the old SongWright files. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 27 May 18 - 03:18 AM The mime type for midi is audio/midi according to this_list - though I think x-midi is technically more correct because audio/midi is not registered with IANA. Windows historically has used extensions rather than mime-types and either .mid or .midi should work. IE used to do that but I don't know if Edge still does. So Firefox might be ignoring audio/mid because it's invalid and passing on to the next - but I'm guessing. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: DaveRo Date: 27 May 18 - 02:13 AM GUEST wrote: I'd guess then that there is a mime type issue on the mudcat server.Yes. This one works - from GUEST's link: chopin-nocturne-op9-no2.mid Content-Type: audio/x-midi This from Mudcat: WayToBeHappy-HC.mid Content-Type: audio/mid,text/html; charset=utf-8 I've never seen two mime-types on a file before - I'm not sure if it's valid but it's certainly wrong here. Looks like my browser (Firefox 60 OpenSuSE Leap 15) accepts the second for some reason and displays text. But I'm not surprised if other browsers behave differently. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Stanron Date: 27 May 18 - 01:01 AM I use Linux Mint with a Firefox browser. When I click on the file I get the text symbols. If I right click and save it, with a '.mid' extension it works as a standard midi file. I'd say that the files themselves are good but different systems treat them differently. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 27 May 18 - 12:52 AM I've just looked around and tried this site which offers its midis with the .mid extention. These are working for me as described for the joeoffer site above. I'd guess then that there is a mime type issue on the mudcat server. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST Date: 27 May 18 - 12:23 AM Not working here on Opensuse 42.3 with Firefox and Chromium. A left click is displaying the midi as html (or gobbledegook). As a comparison, the midis on your site are working as I might hope. Firefox is giving me the "open" options of Rosegarden and vlc and Chromium is opening them with vlc An obvious difference is that the mudcat files use the .mid extension and yours use .midi and there may be something in my setup there - I'm not sure - maybe the server mime types are wrong? - I really can not remember how it works. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: Joe Offer Date: 26 May 18 - 11:18 PM Seems to work normally in Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Left-clicking displays text in Google Chrome and Firefox, but a right-click downloads a file that can be played in any player. Safari works best, I think. A left-click opens the music right on the page. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: leeneia Date: 26 May 18 - 09:52 PM It worked well for me. I selected "Across the Blue Mountain" as a test. Right clicked and selected Save Link As. The MIDI player appeared, playing the song, and when I opened Noteworthy Composer and told it to open the file, it opened the sheet music. Looks good. The trick is to right click. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Ripov Date: 26 May 18 - 07:56 PM win 8.1 wmplayer12 FF60 Left click downloaded not gibberish, but a midifile (header MThD), displayed as text. Saved file as .mid and it opened ok in wmplayer. Seems fairly normal behaviour. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat MIDI files From: GUEST,Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 26 May 18 - 06:27 PM Joe The page is fine in both Firefox and Chrome in Ubuntu 18.04. Files download fine from RightClick. If you haven't set your browser up to play midi files then clicking the midi link will try to display the file as text, producing as you say gibberish. Neither of my browsers is set up to play midi, so if I open the midi file links in a new tab I get what you got - gibberish. (All other links on the page - thread, DT and midi Index letters - work fine. Mick |
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