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

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

Only Notation music software programs can read and write files in Notation Software's Notation .not file format. You can export 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 to save your music notation, then you need to save it as a Notation .not file rather than export it a MIDI .mid file.

You can also save the music notation details of a score as a MusicXML file, and import it into another music notation program, such as Finaletm or Sibeliustm.  For details, see Transferring Your Score to Other Music Programs Via MusicXML.

 

prcarrow To save your work in a Notation .not 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\Notation\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 check mark 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. Composer will automatically add the Notation .not file extension if you do not provide it at the end of the file name.

prcarrow To export your song as a MIDI .mid or Karaoke .kar file:

1.Choose the Export as MIDI or Karaok File command in the File menu.

Composer will present the Export MIDI File dialog box:

ExportAsMidiOrKaraokeDlg

A default directory will be opened. It will be \Program Files\Notation\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 check mark by "Set directory as default".

2.Enter the name of the MIDI or Karaoke file you wish to export.
3.Select the File Type: MIDI (.mid) or Karaoke (.kar).

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.Optionally set a check mark 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 have the undesirable effect of making the MIDI performance sound very mechanical.  However, this 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.  If the other program you are working with can import MusicXML files, then you might first try transferring the score from Composer to the other music program using MusicXML.

5.Also, if you are saving a MIDI or Karaoke file, optionally set a check mark by "Write out repeats and separate lyric verses."   For example, if your song has repeat instructions to play four verses, and four lines of lyrics are included, then this option will expand the song into four written-out sections of the verse, each time with one of the four verses.

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