Saving Your Work in a MidiNotate .not or MIDI .mid File

MidiNotate Musician and MidiNotate Composer use and share a music file format that includes not only MIDI performance data but also notation data. Normally, you should save the song in the MidiNotate file format, used by Notation Software's MidiNotate family of music software products. A MidiNotate file has the .not filename extension.

Only MidiNotate Musician and MidiNotate Composer can read and write files in Notation Software's MidiNotate .not file format. You can save the music performance of a song as a MIDI file. There are many music software programs that can play MIDI files.

NOTE:       MIDI files contain almost no information about the notation of the music. If you wish the save your music notation, then you need to save it as a MidiNotate .not file rather than a MIDI .mid file.

Notation Software currently has plans to support a standard music notation file format, called MusicXML. This file format supports exchange of music notation and performance data between music software programs offered by different companies. For more information about these plans, visit the KnowledgeBase at Notation Software's web site at www.notation.com/faq.htm, and search for "MusicXML".

To save your work in a file:

1.      Choose the Save As command in the File menu.

Composer will present the File Save As dialog box.

A default directory will be opened. It will be \Program Files\MidiNotate\Songs, unless you installed Composer in a different directory. You can change the default directory, if desired, by navigating to another directory and then setting a checkmark by "Set directory as default".

2.      Enter a new file name, or use the same file name if you are certain that you want the newly saved file to replace the old.

3.      Select the File Type: MidiNotate (.not), MIDI (.mid), or Karaoke (.kar).

Choose the MidiNotate (.not) file type if you want to save not only the performance of the music but also the notation.

Choose the MIDI (.mid) file type to make the song available for playback by other MIDI software programs.

Choose the Karaoke (.kar) file type if the song has lyrics that have been formatted with Karaoke line breaks.

4.      If you are saving a MIDI file,optionally set a checkmark by "Quantize the note locations and durations as notated".

Choose this option if you are using Composer as a tool for transcribing MIDI-to-notation, and wish to import the results into another music notation program. This will "drain the life" out of the MIDI performance, but it will adjust the notes so another music notation program can more successfully import and transcribe the MIDI performance. Said another way, Composer will do the hard work in transcribing the MIDI to notation, and the other music notation program can take advantage of Composer's MIDI-to-notation transcription.

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