Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?

Subject: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 12:44 PM

I was very excited to find a midi of Lorenna McKennitt's Mummers Dance. Unfortunately, when I import it into Noteworthy Composer, everything is off by 1/32nd of a beat. The first measure contains a 1/32 rest, and everything is pushed back by that time increment. It plays fine, but to make sheet music I have to go in and adjust every note, often combining three notes (a dotted 16th, an 8th and a 32nd) into one note. It is very tedious.

Is there any way I can edit the midi file to get rid of the 1/32 rest so that when I import it into NOteworthy everything will line up correctly?

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: Wrinkles
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 01:15 PM

Personally I use the freeware version of Anvil Studio. In that you'd just erase the rest, save, and everything should line up on reload.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: Mitch the Bass
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 01:15 PM

I'm no expert on Noteworthy but I've fixed this sort of problem in other notation editors e.g. Sibelius. It might be possible to do something similar in Noteworthy.

Method 1 - change the length of the first bar to 1/32 and get the program to re-draw the rest of the tune. Sibelius can automatically combine tied notes.

Method 2 - select all but the first 1/32 rest. Copy and paste it into a new file.

Editing the midi to remove the rest can be done with a midi sequencer or you could investigate a pair of programs called midi2text and text2midi which are normally used for posting midis to discussion groups as text. It might be possible to convert your midi to text, edit it and convert it back. This is just a thought, I've never tried it.

Mitch

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 02:40 PM

X:1
T:mummer's dance
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:C
D2A2A2DE|D2C C3CD|E2E E2=D2D-|D6-DD|
w:When in the spring-time of the year When the trees are crowned with leaves__ When
D D A2A2DE|D2C C3(CD)|E2E E2=D2D-|D8
w:the ash and oak, and the birch and yew Are_ dressed in rib-bons fair_

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 02:52 PM

try setting noteworthy import rest resolution to quarter note

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: IvanB
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 03:47 PM

Delete the 32nd note, then save the file as midi (using a different filename from the original). Then open the new midi file in NoteWorthy and it should be correct. MMario's suggestion is also a good one.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 04:12 PM

dang - I knew there was a way I was forgetting!!!

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 11:58 PM

Deleting the note(well, the rest) itself may not actually make much difference, because the music will still be a thirty second note off of where you want it to be on the midi grid--you actually have to remove the time from the midi grid-My sequencer has a "delete selected time" command, and I can just drag the cursor across as many counts as I want--each beat is generally divided into 480 units, so, in 4/4 time, a 32nd note is 30 units--

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 12:41 AM

Garage BAND -

Band in a Box -

Cakewalk -

Sound Forge -

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 02:36 AM

Let Martin Gibson have - he can 'fix' anything...

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: pavane
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 03:17 AM

I am not sure you should 'fix' it in that way. A MIDI file requires a small set-up time at the start, in order to distribute setup parameters and maybe sampling dumps to the instruments.

A good MIDI sequencer will usually leave the equivalent of (at least) one bar length at the start to allow for this. Therefore I would be inclined to INCREASE the size of the rest.

(Fixing the MIDI file itself could be done - I have written programs to do similar changes, but the file format is complex, and you cannot edit it by hand.)

The program importing the MIDI has no easy way of telling where the actual music starts, because MIDI does not encode bar lines. If it assumes the start of the file, then it will be out by the setup time. If it assumes the first Note-on, then all the bars may be out of alignment because the first bar may be shorter than the others.

The bar lines can be calculated from the elapsed time (in MIDI ticks) and the time signature, but only if the person (or program) who sequences the file includes time signature changes for any nonstandard bars, e.g. a few bars of 4/4 in a 3/4 tune. Time and key signatures are optional in MIDI files, so not everyone bothers.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 12:20 PM

Good point, Pavane----Another thing that occurs to me, though, is to wonder if the file is really off in the way that Susan Marie says, or is just needs to be quantized to eighth or sixteen notes--

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 12:24 PM

I've looked at a couple of Mummer's Dance MIDI's on the net, and the all sound alike. I guess one person recorded a MIDI, and others have been downloading it.

The person who made the original MIDI was careless. (S)he got a drone going, then didn't start the tune at the beginning of a measure. Then didn't check the result. MIDI took the sound quite literally and produced a mishmash of dotted notes and strange ties.

I have never been able to fix a recording like this with Noteworthy. I don't blame Noteworthy. How much can you ask for a small price?

Bigger programs might be able to fix this kind of problem, but I would like to hear from a person who has actually done it before I spent the money.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 01:30 PM

Are you looking for notation or sequencing? A good notation program will let you clean up the music staff, a sequencer will let you edit the MIDI to get it like you want--I use(well, when working, which has been a while) Overture, which allows both, to a degree--but is expensive, and, I've had to invest a lot of time in tracking it from one owner to the next--

My suggestion is to simply listen to the MIDI until you've memorized it, then type it into your notation program yourself--it'll save a lot of editing time--

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 01 Feb 05 - 06:13 PM

I'm looking for notation so I can create sheet music, Ted. Thanks everybody for all your suggestions. I ended up fixing the notation note ny note in Noteworthy because I'm making a lot of other changes too, to simplify the arrangement and to transpose it into a lower key. But I will try Ivan and MMario's suggestions just to see if it works. SOunds like actually editing the midi file is beyond my limited expertise - thanks for the warning.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: Bernard
Date: 01 Feb 05 - 07:41 PM

Cakewalk has a tool called 'Quantizing' which can be used to sort that. Perhaps Noteworthy has a similar function?

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: IvanB
Date: 01 Feb 05 - 11:16 PM

I did a Google search on "mckennitt, mummer's dance, midi" and came up with quite a number of files, in several different versions. leenia, in her post above, has correctly identified the problem with most of them. I did find one or two, however, that imported into NoteWorthy as even whole note drones and a melody line mostly in eigths and quarters. The one found here Mummer's Dance has a complex arrangement with many staves, but it scans well to NoteWorthy and could be simplified by merely deleting unwanted parts.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: pavane
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 02:38 AM

Importing a MIDI into a notation program usually works best when the file itself has been output from a sequencer program, and the note lengths are accurate.

Where the file is created by actually, playing the tune on a MIDI instrument, the notes are usually shorter than expected, because of the need to leave slight gaps between them. This is what gives rise to all those 32nd rests. Notes are also of uneven length and variable start time compared to a metronome.

These are the files which cause most problems in import, but are the ones which sound most realistic.

The problems can be reduced by quantisation, as noted above, but this is not a complete remedy. I have been experimenting with an improved 'smart' quantisation, but haven't really solved the problem yet.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 07:45 PM

Thanks for the link to a well-notated file, IvanB. This tune intrigues me, and I'm glad to have a workable copy.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do I 'fix' a midi file?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 03 Feb 05 - 08:25 AM

MMario - setting the rest resolution to a quarter note did not help - BUT setting the NOTE resolution to an eigth note did get rid of the initial 32nd beat rest and most of the rest of the music lines up much better. Strangely enough though, there are still tied 32nd and 64th notes in the middle of the piece - few enough that I can handle them, though.

Ivan, your idea worked too, with the same scattered tied notes as above. Thanks for finding that other midi. It's a more "disco" version than the one I'm working with, and the intro melody is somewhat different, but it's good to have the comparison.

Mitch, Noteworthy isn't as "smart" as Sibelius - when you copy and paste, omitting the 1/32 rest, you get the exact same notation, just minus the rest. Noteworthy does not appear to have a "quantization" function - as someone pointed out, what d'ya want for $40? I may try the text to midi programs just to see what they can do. The file has a dozen staves, so I imagine I'd have to edit each one.