| Author | Message | ||
     Danny Unregistered Guest |
Based on my trial results, this software looks impressive but I still have a few questions: (1) Is anyone aware of any competitive software and how this ranks against it? Any industry reviews or testimonials? (2) I'm an amateur guitar player with little music theory. When my output notation was created it defaulted to a bass clef. I poked around and saw the icon to change it to the treble clef: the result was a treble clef with bass notes a few octaves below the bass 'E' string which I'd never seen in any published music. Can I just move all notes up relative to one another? Why did this happen? (3) The midi I used as input had the author's notation which was diffent when compared to what the software created as its output file. Which transcription should I consider more accurate? (4) Does the current 4.0 release entitle me to future upgrades? Thanks! Danny | ||
| Mike Reid (mikenz) Registered Forum User Username: mikenz Post Number: 9 Registered: 11-2003 |
I'm also a guitar player. You might look at my thread on "transpose as read, particularly guitar". To reiterate, guitar music is traditionally written on the treble clef to save space. However, the real range of the guitar goes almost two octaves below middle c. If you compare what you think is middle c on the guitar (third fret of the A string) with a piano (or some other software) you'll find that in fact you are an octave below middle c. Many of us who play guitar went for years without realizing this! So you need to transpose the music up by an octave to make it look sensible. If you don't care about playing it through midi after you transpose it it's easiest to just use "Track > Transpose as-heard" and put in 12 semitones up. If you want to be more sophisticated you can use "Track > Transpose as-read". I found it a little tricky to figure out whether to put "below" or "above", but if you just bring up the dialog box and change the zero to a one in the second to rightmost field then this will do what you want. You may now have to change bass clefs to treble using the clef toolbars. The "transpose as read" is most obviously needed for instruments like saxes (e.g. a tenor sax plays a B flat when you finger a C), where you need the music written in a different key. In answer to your question about other programs, I've only tried a few shareware programs (i.e. I have not tried the expensive notation programs like Sibelius) but I'm very happy with this program. At the moment I'm focussed on improving my reading, so I download classical midi music (Kreutzer's violin exercises are good, as are Bach and Mozart chamber music, and the midinotate site has some links to Suzuki violin studies). Since I'm not a good reader (yet!) I usually transpose to C, F, or G, then tweak the octave range depending on where on the neck I want to practice. This sort of music makes use of all the notes in the key so is excellent practice material. Since MidiNotate doesn't allow composition, for creating my own exercises (scales, arpeggios, etc) I've been using another software called Anvil Studio which is free (you can buy extras). I find it convenient to create the excercises in C, then use MidiNotate to transpose to other keys. I have noticed that MidiNotate is a lot smarter then Anvil and some other shareware/freeware that I've tried in terms of representing the notes as you'd expect to see them written in "real" sheet music, but as I said, I can't comment about more expensive packages. Finally, since you are a guitar player, you might also note my other thread on "Accounting for pitch shifts..." If you export midi from, say PowerTab, then the notes that MidiNotate display are (quite properly, really) the notes before bending the strings. So if you are trying to practice reading by importing an electric guitar solo into MidiNotate you will find that some of the notes don't read right. This is not MidiNotate's fault (it plays the right note!), but a result of the non-standardness of guitar notation... | ||
| Mark Walsen (markwa) Registered Forum User Username: markwa Post Number: 796 Registered: 4-2002 |
Hello Danny, There are not any other music software programs that specialize in converting MIDI files to notation with the various playback and viewing options MidiNotate has. However, there are many notation software programs that have the feature of importing MIDI files and converting the MIDI to notation. In many ways, these other programs are better than MidiNotate because after you convert the MIDI to notation, you can then edit the notation, and in some cases, to a lesser extent, you can also tweak the MIDI in these other programs. However, no other music software program (even very expensive ones) does as good a job transcribing MIDI to notation as MidiNotate does. I spent a couple of years, full-time effort, developing this technology. MidiNotate has options for transposing notes up/down octaves and changing clefs. What do you mean by "the midi I used as input had the author's notation"? I think you probably mean that you have view a MIDI file through some other problem than MidiNotate. Right? If the other program is a music notation program, and the author used that other music notation to create the MIDI file, then the score produced by that other music notation program will be the definitive score. However, if that MIDI file was created not by a music notation program but, rather, by a MIDI sequencer program, then MidiNotate will almost certainly provide a more accurate score than the MIDI sequencer program does. There will be a major upgrade of MidiNotate around April, and it will be free if you purchase MidiNotate now. Cheers -- Mark (the developer of MidiNotate) | ||
| dan bromberg (bromberg) Registered Forum User Username: bromberg Post Number: 1 Registered: 1-2004 |
Hi Mike & Mark, Thanks for your very thorough and prompt reply. I trust that your support will be as responsive when I purchase MidiNotate!?! :-) BTW, your HELP file indicates that the arrow button (1 of the 4) will generate the window from which I can select the instrument which I am interested in (in my case, #26 = steel-string guitar). I think you meant to indicate the button prior to it (since the arrow button hilites the entire score). Please indicate whether I am misinterpreting your intent. Sorry I didn't make my 3rd item clearer, so allow me to rephrase: I downloaded 2 files from a professional guitarist's website: the 1st was a transcription of his midi file to an 'html' file & the 2nd was the midi itself. I would have thought his transcription would reflect his midi and was disappointed that MidiNotate's was not identical to his. I have yet to play either yours or his and judge which is more true to the midi, so perhaps your software will outdo the author?! BTW Mike, I did 'transpose up' as you'd indicated which did make it look more sensible. I'll try your other transposition suggestions in time. Thanks to both of you for your timely and very informative replies. I've already learned a lot. Sincerely, Danny | ||
| Mark Walsen (markwa) Registered Forum User Username: markwa Post Number: 801 Registered: 4-2002 |
Dan If there is a documentation error here, it sounds like you were able to figure things out fine. To be honest, it is unlikely that MidiNotate will produce a better score that the one the author published at his web site. However, the web site score probably just offers the lead sheet. If you want to see the other parts, then MidiNotate is a great tool for that. This is just one example of how MidiNotate is useful to work with both the MIDI and the notation. Hopefully, MidiNotate's documentation the the Knowledgebase at www.notation.com/support.htm will adequately anticipate other questions you might have. But I'm here as a backup if these resources don't answer your questions. Cheers -- Mark Cheers -- Mark | ||
| Jay Coggers (coggers) Registered Forum User Username: coggers Post Number: 1 Registered: 5-2004 |
Absolute Beginner with limited computer knowlege!! I simply want to play melodies on my midi keyboard, through my Roland Studio MV 30 sequencer, and have them notated on the computer so I can print them out for musos to play. Can I do this? In hope Jason | ||
| Mark Walsen (markwa) Registered Forum User Username: markwa Post Number: 1450 Registered: 4-2002 |
Hello Jay, MidiNotate is not a good solution for what you want to do. The upcoming MidiNotate Composer, described at www.notation.com/midinotatecomposer.htm, will be a good solution. The Composer will be released in July. Cheers -- Mark |
