Glad you got it working. Doing these PS/PDF exports sometimes is like that - tweak this, try that... I've even seen significant differences in file sizes produced by different PDF conversion programs, for no apparent reason. Then there are all those settings in the PostScript tab of the PS driver - some of which seem to do nothing, and others of which are so arcane it's hard to determine just what it is that they do...
The issue is not, I think which bit of recording software is used; whether it's CoolEdit or MusicMatch or even the awful SoundRecorder, you still have to get the midi audio into the computer's "wave device."
I think NoteWorthy Support pretty much "pinned down" your problem. Here's what I'd suggest: Start a longish file playing in NWC or in your midi-player of choice. Now bring up the mixer applet (double-click the little speaker icon in your taskbar). Click Options -> Properties. Click the "Recording" button. You'll see a window that says "Show the following volume controls" with checkboxes for each. Check them all for now, click OK.
At this point you'll see a bunch of volume control "sliders", with little checkboxes under them. Check/uncheck them one by one, until you find the one that starts the little "LED VU meter" next to the slider lighting up. This will be your midi recording device. It might be called "Midi" or it might (as on my system) share the input with the "Line" or "CD" slider. In any event there's not much point in proceeding until you've got signal to this point, as indicated by the LED "lights" next the the slider in question.
Got it so far? Now go back to MusicMatch or other wav recorder/editor.
Well, you have to start somewhere... this newsgroup isn't purged very often, so there will be many thousands of messages still on the server. There should be an option in your newsreader somewhere to "download all message headers" or something to that effect. Sorry I can't be more specific, I'm not an Outlook user.
But rather than trying to read everything that's presently on the server, I'd suggest just catching up on the more recent activity for now, and "lurking" until you feel comfortable to jump in and participate.
The NWC newsgroup is probably just about the friendliest group you'll find anywhere. Being on a private server makes it considerably more immune to the spam- and flame-fests that seem to be a perennial bane of usenet groups.
On usenet, there's rec.audio.compose, which is ok if you have a thick skin and can stand the select few who hang out there and think they own the place.
The way you describe it [tied eight notes], for the visual aspect you'd still use a [mute] staff with a half note and a tr above, right?
Precisely.
I've gotten to the point where I automatically create hidden-sounded and visible-muted staves for anything that's the least bit unusual. Saves frustration later.
If the midi file contains the time signature, it will be imported into NWC. If it doesn't, NWC will assume the default of 4/4.
You can change the time signature as needed, then use the "Audit Bar Lines" tool to fix up the bar lines to match the new time signature.
Be aware that many midi artists intentionally make their work difficult to import into other sequencers. Even if not intentional, some midi sequences won't import well because of "humanizing" refinements which will look strange on import.
Midi files will also quite commonly have a short rest at the beginning, to allow controller settings to "settle" before the piece starts playing. These can be challenging to overcome in NWC imports also.
Yes, mpc's can be used to do trills, but since there is a maximum of four discrete "event settings" in the mpc structure, you'd still have to repeat the mpc between tied notes. Each mpc could, for instance, do the following:
Set pitch bend to zero
Set pitch bend 1 (or two) semitones low (or high)
Set pitch bend to zero
Set pitch bend 1 (or two) semitones low (or high)
So, if mpc resolution were 1/32nd, this would essentially give two 1/16 notes, alternating. To do a continuous trill, you'd have to have a series of tied 1/8 notes, each with this mpc inbetween (absolute style).
There's a tutorial on the use of mpc's in Section 7 of the user-written and edited "NWC Command Summary", available on the Scriptorium.
To briefly summarise, you can fit multiple lyric syllables under one note by using one or more underscores, fooling the lyric editor into thinking it's just a single word.
Simply stated, you'd need to get access priviledges, or have someone do it who does have them. (I guess that's a good argument for having a Print-to-File option in the File menu.)
The "SB AudioPCI MIDI In" would indeed be your midi input device. Multiple devices will normally only be available for output devices The Midi Mapper only maps which output device is used by default by most Windows applications.
In NWC you can choose the midi input and midi output devices directly, using Tools | Options | Midi (output) and Tools | Options | Record (input).
You might have a look at other threads on this subject, by entering "Midi Input" into the search facility on this forum.
I almost always have a pretty good idea of what timbres I want in a particular piece, and therefore what instrument patches fill which "role" in the composition.
That being said, there's been times when I just played around with different timbres, and "stumbled on" something that just "worked." One of the more unusual ones is Northern Lights.
I think that here, as with other aspects of music, it really helps to know the "rules" so that you can choose to write within the context of what works, or step outside of them as needed.
A corollary to Richard's suggestion: I remember seeing scores in which the negating naturals were placed before a double barline, with the new key signature after the double bar line.
You can implement this effect by placing a key change to the key of C before the barline, and the desired new key after it.
Well, now we're getting to the edge of my knowledge about legal aspects of copyrighting. The main point is proving that you own the copyright to a piece of work. To that end, registration with the US Copyright Office is pretty strong evidence.
But, assuming that you live in the States, and some dastardly Canuck rips you off, I don't know if you'd have to file suit in an American or Canadian court. This is the point at which you'd consult a copyright lawyer. Hopefully it doesn't have to come to that, and the fact of registration will cause would-be plagiarists to back off and settle out of court.
There is more info on copyright than you can shake a stick at, as you'll see if you do a Google search. Probably as good a place as any to start out would be Brad Templeton's Copyright Myths.
1) The spelling is "copyright", and the participle form of the verb is "copyrighted."
2) While it is indeed true that copyright is automatically assigned to the creator in most countries of the world, that doesn't help you much if someone should challenge it. The onus of proof is on you.
3) The urban myth of the validity of registered mail to yourself seems to live on, in spite of efforts to the contrary. It is not considered prima facie evidence of copyright ownership by the courts; if it should come to that, you'll be very disappointed and perhaps annoyed with whomever gave you that advice.
4) The best way to assure copyright status is to file with the Copyright Office in your country of residence. It should be noted that many composers and other creators outside the US still file with the US Copyright Office, because of its solid reputation. It costs a few bucks, but if you expect that you have a major "hit," it's but a small fraction of what you would stand to lose if you don't follow the proper copyright registration procedure.
There's been some discussion on various aspects of printing, both here and on the newsgroup, so I thought I'd detail a method for exporting NWC score files to the popular PDF (Adobe) format. The idea is to use NWC to create a PostScript file (with the help of the suitable Windows driver), then use GhostView to convert the resulting *.ps file into *.pdf.
Here are the gory details (you might want to print out this message). Looks scary, but once you've got it set up, it's a piece of cake. If you haven't got a PostScript printer driver installed in Windows, do so first. In the Control Panel applet select Printers, and click on Add Printer. Select the AppleWriter printer. Follow the dialog as required to copy the drivers from the original Win diskette or CD. Optionally, you can at this time specify "Print to File" and give a generic filename (since these will only be intermediate products.
Win 3.11 users: if you haven't installed Win32s yet, get it now. (It's available for free from Microsoft.) This will let you run the 32-bit version of GhostView (at least twice as fast as the 16-bit version, and not as buggy.)
Then get GhostScript and GhostView. Go to Ghostscript home page and download the following files:
Current version of AFPL Ghostscript
Current version of Ghostgum "GSview"
Download both into the same temp directory. First run the Ghostscript setup program, and when done install GSview. This will set up both GhostScript (a command-line PS file manipulator) and GhostView (a GUI Windows shell for GhostScript).
Familiarize yourself a bit with GSview, then go into NWC and find a file you want to convert to PDF. Select your PostScript printer driver, select "print to file" if you haven't done so already (use the .ps extension), and let 'er rip.
Exit NWC, bring up GhostView, open the *.ps file you just saved. Then go to File: Print. and select the "pdfwrite" print device, select resolution (300 dpi recommended), and again "print to file" (this time with .pdf extension). Print the file, exit Ghostview, and bring up Adobe Acrobat viewer to verify that the magic worked. Voila!
Some additional notes:
It should be noted that current versions of GSview are now registrable, and even though the license still allows you to use the program for free, it's at the "expense" of clicking past a registration screen. The older (and perfectly functional) versions are still out there, but are a little hard to find. As of this time, check out my Ghostscript/GSview info page for links to the programs, and further information on installing them. More tips are available at my PS Tips page.
As a final note, here is an extract from this last page, to help in setting up GSview for optimal screen display:
"Click on Media --> Display Settings. Set Resolution according to your display resolution: suggested values - for 800x600 use 96. For 1024x768 use 120. For 1280x1024 use 144. Set Text and Graphics Alpha to 4 bits. Set Depth to 8 bits, or leave at default."
Yet another update - 23 July 2003
Regular contributor and all-round good guy Robert A. sends an endorsement for PDF Creator, which automates the whole installation process (including the installation of Ghostscript) and results in an easy-to-use "virtual printer". One minor drawback is that it embeds all fonts (including the ubiquitous Times, Arial, etc. fonts) so the resulting PDFs may be a tad larger than using other approaches. However, it's easy, and bulletproof.
Guitar is a challenging instrument to sequence. So I'll write a little mini-tutorial, hopefully without getting too verbose. First off, to sequence for guitar, you have to think like a guitarist... or get a lobotomy ;-) [I can say things like that, I'm one myself...] Joking aside, you have to treat the guitar as six separate instruments - one for each string.
One of the first lessons in classical guitar is "Don't move a finger of the fretting hand unless you have to." A corollary is "Don't right-hand-mute the strings unless you have to."
The way guitar pieces are written are not how they're played, in terms of note duration. I'm attaching a little file that illustrates this. The file guitar.zip (4K) includes the files gitsampl.nwc and study_c.nwc.
The first staff of gitsampl.nwc is how you would more-or-less enter it in from a piece of sheet music (within the limitations of NWC). Go ahead and play the file. The other six staves are muted as supplied. Sound pretty awful and chunky, doesn't it?
The other thing people forget is that guitar music is sounded an octave lower than written. Guitarists, being simple-minded creatures, would find it tough to cope with a grand staff. So, to allow squeezing everything on one staff, the music is written an octave higher. The first staff is with a "regular" treble clef, and the guitar sounds too high and plinky. So be sure to select an octave lower when defining the treble clef for your actual guitar staves.
Back to the other point. Thinking like a guitarist means actually figuring out which string each note is played on, and writing a staff for each string to allow the notes to ring for their full length until a "virtual finger" changes position. See staves 2-7 of the gitsampl.nwc, which represent strings 1-6 of the guitar.
Another refinement is to "arpeggiate" the chords. Most guitarists will intuitively break up chords by running a thumb or finger over the strings. This gives that unique guitaristic "feel" to chords, especially at the end of a piece. Finally, adding dynamics can make a world of difference.
So let's hear what this is all about. Reverse the "mute" status of all the staves; the easiest way to do this is to press the "m" key, then click the "reverse all" button, click OK. (Thanks to Richard Woodroffe for this shortcut suggestion.) Press home, then F5 to replay the file. Sounds more like a guitar now, doesn't it?
Also included is the completed sequence of this little study by Sor (study_c.nwc), for your midi-ing enjoyment. Additional sequences by Sor are available from the Scriptorium.
For the SB16 and similar cards, the short answer is "you can't". These use a much different approach to making midi sounds, essentially they control various sound generators to synthesise (create) the various sounds, rather than playing actual sound samples.
However, all is not lost. If you just want better quality sounds, and if your computer is at least a P133, you can get prety good results from Yamaha softsynth.
If you're bound and determined to experiment with soundfonts, you can do so using Audio Compositor. This lets you render, i.e. "play" your midi files using the soundfont of choice, recording it to disk for listening later. If you have a fast enough computer, it can even do it in real-time (although, even on a fast machine it may stutter on complex passages). Its real strength is that there's no real limit to polyphony (how many voices can play at the same time).
(It's rather interesting to see some of these old threads come back to life, thanks to the new forum layout!)
No, not directly. However, you can use an external karaoke editor to "convert" the midi files generated by NWC to karaoke format. The one I use is by Edwin van Veldhoven, and is called Karakan. It works with Win3.x on up (not sure about Win2k, XP etc.) It's quite easy to use, the hyphenation protocol is very similar to NWC's lyric editor system; so you can highlight the lyrics in NWC, CNTL-C to copy to clipboard, then shift focus to Karakan and CNTL-V to paste it into its lyric editor.
You have to know which midi track contains the lyric notes, so it can align the text to the notes; in general, this will just be which staff number the lyrics are on. For example, if your lyric staff is the third staff from the top, it will export to the third midi track.
No, I'm not a master packet sniffer -- or master much of anything for that matter. :) I should have qualified my statement - a significant portion of the other viri (magistr, etc.) appear to be coming from hotmail.
