Note ON/OFF velocity

[Fury Pilot]

Hi,

I use the note ON/OFF velocity to control the loudness of individual tracks in my MIDI files. Notation Player just seems to play all the tracks at the same level - whereas other MIDI players produce the variation in loudness.

Is there some way of getting Notation Player to response to work in this way?

[Sherry C]

Hi,

Notation Player is designed to be mainly a player for .not files that others have created using Notation Musician or Notation Composer, similar to the way that Adobe Acrobat Reader only reads files created with other programs. As such, it has limited capabilities - the volume levels between staves (tracks) cannot be changed, but you can control the overall volume using the volume slider on the main toolbar.

If you want to edit .mid files for sheet music (and some sound leveling), you can try out Notation Musician (www.notation.com/NotationMusician.php).

If you want to edit both the sheet music and finely edit the performance, you can try out Notation Composer (www.notation.com/NotationComposer.php) It's really a hybrid notation/sequencer application, done in a way that's more friendly toward everyday musicians.

If you have any further questions, please do ask away

ttfn,
Sherry

[dj]

Hi, Fury Pilot:

I think you'll find that Notation Player does respond to and play back note velocity properly.

It, as Sherry has said, isn't intended to edit the data.

Note velocity, though, is intended to deal with performance variation.
Velocity can, depending on the playback instrument, not only affect volume, but timbre, envelope, even pitch in some cases.

To set levels for each track you should consider using Controller 7 (Volume), which is equivalent to the volume knob on your stereo, or Controller 11 (Expression) which is equivalent to the expression pedal on an organ. That way, you can set one level and leave it, rather than setting each note's velocity.

Notation Musician and Composer have a sophisticated graphing function for just that.

Good luck.

David

[Sherry C]

Hi guys,

Minor correction: Notation Musician does not have the MIDI data graphing capability - that is found only in Notation Composer.

ttfn,
Sherry

[dj]

My bad.

David

[Fury Pilot]

Originally Posted by dj

Hi, Fury Pilot:

I think you'll find that Notation Player does respond to and play back note velocity properly.

It, as Sherry has said, isn't intended to edit the data.

Note velocity, though, is intended to deal with performance variation.
Velocity can, depending on the playback instrument, not only affect volume, but timbre, envelope, even pitch in some cases.

To set levels for each track you should consider using Controller 7 (Volume), which is equivalent to the volume knob on your stereo, or Controller 11 (Expression) which is equivalent to the expression pedal on an organ. That way, you can set one level and leave it, rather than setting each note's velocity.

Notation Musician and Composer have a sophisticated graphing function for just that.

Good luck.

David

Hi,

Notation Player may respond to note ON/OFF velocity in some MIDI files, but it doesn't in the ones I've tried it with. Whereas ones I've tried do provide different loudness in other players (e.g. Windows Media Player, my phone...)

I shall see if I can work out why there's a difference. If you could provide a link to a file which works in Notation Player, that would help.

BTW: If Notation Player can support this, I don't understand why Sherry's original reply didn't say so.

[Sherry C]

Hi,

Notation Player does only that - plays back MIDI files, with all the various MIDI controllers as they are in the file. What you will hear when compared to playing the same file in other programs will depend on the fact that you need to be using the same MIDI playback device, and this may be the rub here. Some MIDI playback devices (eg. the default GS Wavetable) are not as "nuanced" as other playback devices, and so playback in such a device may sound as if the player is not responding to note velocity.

But Player still doesn't allow editing Note Velocities

ttfn,
Sherry

[Fury Pilot]

Originally Posted by Sherry C

Hi,

Notation Player does only that - plays back MIDI files, with all the various MIDI controllers as they are in the file. What you will hear when compared to playing the same file in other programs will depend on the fact that you need to be using the same MIDI playback device, and this may be the rub here. Some MIDI playback devices (eg. the default GS Wavetable) are not as "nuanced" as other playback devices, and so playback in such a device may sound as if the player is not responding to note velocity.

But Player still doesn't allow editing Note Velocities

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi,

I understand that Notation Player does not provide the ability to EDIT Note velocities.

As regards playing back pre-canned MIDI files 'as is', I've just created a MIDI file with note velocities varying from 1 (minimum) to 127 (maximum) with no discernible difference in the loudness output from Notation Player. This goes well beyond 'nuance' in my book!

The Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth seems to be the only MIDI device selectable in Notation Player on my (Windows XP) PC. It also seems to be the only available MIDI music playback option in the Windows Sounds and Audio devices properties. I can't find MIDI options in Windows Media Player, but would expect that to use the default system device - so I don't understand why Windows Media Player is FULLY responding to note velocities. (I.e. a value of 1 gave inaudible o/p.)

Is there some way of changing the MIDI music playback device in Notation Player?

David: Are you using Windows XP? If so, what playback device is your Notation Player using? I'd still like to try a MIDI file which works on your system.

Cheers,