Guitar strumming

[Chickinox]

I have a question for MIDI experts ...
Is it possible to "tweak" in some way the guitar part of a ready made midi file to make the chirds sound "strummed" and not played as a "block"? I am thinking about a sort of "arpeggiator", maybe. I have searched a lot around, but, with no results.
Thank you for your advices.

Paolo

[Sherry C]

Hi Paolo,

Yes - in both Notation Musician and Notation Composer (see the website at www.notation.com) you can use the Arpeggio ornament to change the performance of "block" chords to sound strummed.
You can find that feature in the Notes palette, Ornaments button, Upward Arpeggio button (there is also a Downward Arpeggio).

Enjoy
Sherry

[dj]

Hi,

You can use the Arpeggio ornaments in the Trills submenu (TR with a tilde under it) of the Notes And Rests menu.

"au" adds an upward "strum" to a group of 3 or more notes. "ad" adds a downward strum.

You can also use the "Edit as performed notes" section of the Piano Roll view to edit the attack and release of selected notes, moving them around in time.

After that, you can edit individual note velocities under the Note Velocity view to bring out different notes in the strum -- remembering that no two notes are ever struck exactly the same.

If you want to have some real fun, clone your guitar track and pan the original and the cloned track to opposite sides, then shift the cloned track about 6 or 7 ticks right. Instant double tracked echo. You might want to decrease the volume of the cloned track a bit.

Add some fret noise with General Midi Instrument #121 and you can get very realistic.

Here's a .not file of a piece of mine that uses these techniques, called I Remember The Setting Sun. Watch it in Page view rather than Window view. Enjoy.

David

[Chickinox]

Dear David,
thank you very much for your attention.
The arpeggio seems to be too slow to imitate guitar strumming. Editing all the guitar part chord by chord would be an enormous effort. I think that the cloned part would be the best compromise. I have not understood how to move the part right 6-7 ticks. Could you explain me, please?

Thank you

Paolo

[herbert]

Hi Paolo,

To get reasonable sounds, you need to do a lot of midi editing. There are several good books available on this subject. Percussive and strummed or plucked string instruments need attention at the very least, to spread out the instruments’ attacks of each note.

When you play several percussive instruments (strings) with the attack of each note not exactly at the same time, most people hear distinctive separate notes, if they are played more than 5 msec apart. If you play a chord on the guitar, you are likely to play first the lowest note, followed by the higher notes in sequence. Separating notes slightly in time, will give you a full round sound. Separating the notes much further apart will give you an arpeggioated chord.

The smallest amount of time you can vary a note is one tick. Composer has 480 ticks for each beat. If you play a song at 100 beats per minute, each beat is .6 seconds long. This amounts to 1.25 msec per tick. If I separate the attack of notes by one or several ticks, I will get a fairly round sound.

I use frequently a double bass and an acoustic guitar as part of the rhythm section. I set the double bass in this case to -4 ticks (-5 msec), The lowest string of the guitar remains at 0 time. The next higher string is set to +4 ticks and the next one to +8 ticks or 10 msec. You can change the timing to your preference.

Midi editing is very time consuming. Perhaps Composer will have some functions in the Future, to reduce the work load.


Best Wishes,

Herbert

[Sherry C]

Hi guys,

David and Herbert (good to see you here!) have both made some excellent points about editing for a good performance. It does take time to do it well, and Notation Composer does provide a lot of tools to help with that.

One way that you could speed up the task a bit is to create a "library file" of chord types (eg. Maj, min, 7, etc), which you can then simply pull up and copy/paste into a new file that you're working on. In other words, you could create a library of the chords you most commonly use, and tweak the performance of those chords in the library file (as David and Herbert have both expounded on). Then whenever you are working on a new file, have that "library" file open in a second window (you can use the Window menu to put them side-by-side either horizontally or vertically), and copy/paste chord "blocks" (with their performance already tweaked) from the library to the song file. It's then easy to quickly adjust the pitch of the chord (say from "C" to "D" chord) just by holding the "P" key and pressing the Up/Down arrow key as needed to adjust pitches up/down a half-step at a time.

Granted this method gives the same duration adjustments for each time you use a particular chord type, but it's a way to save time editing for quick composition.

Some years ago we had a member (Fred Winterling) who used to collect pitch bends in such a library file, for use in his other compositions, so my idea isn't exactly original

ttfn,
Sherry

[dj]

Hi, Paolo:

As Herbert said, midi editing is time consuming. On the other hand, far less so than learning and recording a new instrument, so there is a trade-off.

To edit attack and release of notes, go to Piano Roll, type "ep" to enter "Edit As Performed" and select the notes you want to edit by click-dragging.

When notes are selected, the sub-pallete of 9 icons will become active, letting you shift the "attack" (i.e. when the note begins to sound), the "release" (i.e. when the note stops sounding), and the overall duration of the note. You can also snap selected notes to the nominal default attack/release/duration.

By judicious editing, you can shift notes slightly before and after the beat.

If the built-in arpeggio "strum" is too much, you can also edit the attack and release of the arpeggiated notes with the method described above.

One important thing for realism is to figure out the actual rhythm pattern of your "strum" and alternate up and down arpeggios (arpeggii?). You can then copy and paste those into the appropriate bars to minimize editing.

Here's another piece where I used the techniques above. "I Remember Friday Nights (In '71)" is from my musical The Day We Flipped Mike's Chev. An old timey rock-y roll-y thing-y.

David

[Chickinox]

Dear David & other friends,
thank you very much for your attention and your valuable suggestions. Now I understand tha "tweaking" a given midi guitar track is almost an impossible job, especially when the part is many dozens of bars long ... It would be probably quickerto play it again or buildin it from scratch using the clever tricks you were talking about. Nevertheless, I guess that it should not be so difficult to produce a bit of software able to "read" a midi track and "translate" all the block chords into tight ARPEGGI (since arpeggio is an italian word, the plural is that, no excuses ...), maybe with the possibility of adding some casual disorders in velocity. This would suit a decent result in 90% of cases, I am sure!
Thank you again, God bless

Paolo

[herbert]

Hi Paolo,
Most music for motion picture and TV drama is now produced at the computer, using sample libraries and advanced software. Some programs have a humanizing function built in. However, for realistic results, you do not get away from extensive midi editing. For any project to be successful, you need to put the work in. It is not impossible. As a rule of thumb, you will spend an hour for each minute of music produced. Wagner needed 20 years to create the “Ring” and he truly was a genius. If he had a computer, he may have spend another 20 years to do away with the orchestra.

Best wishes,
Herbert
PS The last sentence above should read: If he had a computer and “Notation Composer”, ...

[Chickinox]

Dear Herbert,
one hour of midi editing for a minute of music is for sure a professional approach to the job. An amateur would not afford this in most cases, I think, unless your hobby is midi intself and not the joy of playing music with your fingers!
Thank you again for your kind interest!

Paolo

[dj]

Herbert said :PS The last sentence above should read: If he had a computer and “Notation Composer”, ..."

Yes, Wagner would have used a computer.

Beethoven, on the other hand, would have said, "Nein! I vill use ze qvill und ze parchment! Now, speak up! Qvit mumbling!"

[herbert]

Quite so, David. - Let me also commend you on your near perfect German. Could be useful with the new German owner of "Notation Software Germany UG"
Best wishes,

Herbert