I am having trouble understanding and successfully saving a song to a midi file.
1. I have some staccato notes in the opening,(of a song) and when I save to a midi it loses the staccato markings. How come?
2. Also it is putting in extra instrument patches that I don't have in the nwc version. How can I get rid of them?
3. What do "channels" mean? do they corrallate (sp?) with each staff? (1st staff=channel one?)...
4. Am I suppose to "record" first then put that into a midi file somehow?
I have a degree in music (many years ago, now)-but I don't use this very often, so I am struggling with this. All this "midi" stuff is after my time. :-)
1. MIDI files are not the same as notation files (such as NWC produces). A MIDI file, in simple terms, is just a list of commands to your MIDI sound source to tell it what to do. There are no "markings", such as stacatto, or what-not. The MIDI file will just tell your computer to play this note at this time for this long. Yes are other commands, such as pitch bends and volume and velocity, etc, but basically it is just telling your sound source how to play the piece. When you export to MIDI from NWC, NWC is merely taking what you input and converts it to the appropriate commands. If you had a staccato marking on a note, well, the MIDI file will just have a shorter note in it. It doesn't know anything about staccato markings, just how long to play the note.
2. I don't know about the "extra" patches in your MIDI file. I've not seen that before. My MIDI files only have the patches I defined in NWC, so I'm not sure where that is coming from.
3. As far as channels are concerned, MIDI has 16 channels to work with. Channel 10 is reserved for percussion. In NWC, you can assign your staffs to any of those 16 channels. In fact, if you right-click on a staff, and select Properties from the popup menu, then on the MIDI tab, you can see what channel the staff is assigned to. If you create a song with more than 16 staffs, you'll have to share some of the channels. What some do is to put like instruments on the same channel. So trumpets 1, 2, and 3 might be on channel 4; clarinets 1, 2, and 3 might be on channel 5. That way, you can pretty much get a whole orchestral score to playback pretty well in MIDI.
4. I'm not sure exactly what you are asking in question 4. To create a MIDI file from your NWC file, in version 1.75 all you have to do is Save As, then select either type-1 or type-0 MIDI. If you are using version 2.0 beta, then you would export to a MIDI file, instead.
I hope this helped a little.
-- John
Thanks John. some of your explanations help.
If I have staccatoes in quarter notes, would changing them to eighth notes with rests in between work? I tho't I would try that.
The patches are on the screen (score) in light gray. I have inserted the ones I want. When I open the midi file, it will have extra insertions of another patch indication. I don't know where they are coming from or what I might have done for them to show up.
Thanks for the explanations on the channels.
I have version 1.70 right now. Just discovered tonight when getting on the web that a newer version had come out...
Then perhaps Jeff Glatt's MIDI is the language of gods (http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/) web page will unstruggle you. :)
Thanks, Adam.
That did help.
sg
Well... maybe it's a great site when it comes to learning Midi. But I tend to get seriously sidetracked by the (wildly absurd) humour. I'm sure I will get to the real Midi bits in due time.
I mailed the author the following:
title = "I didn't laugh..."
body = "... but I distinctly heard some floating ribs part from their moorings under the strain."
Rob.
I still need someone to tell me, step by step, how to save a song to a midi file. I have written a song and saved it in a nwc. file. Now what to I do?
Nothing I try works. (Help is no help.)
In NWC 1.75, with the desired piece open, click File-Save As. Click the down arrow in the drop-down box "Save file as type" and select either Type 1 MIDI or Type 0 MIDI. I don't have the NWC2 beta but I think you click File-Export and choose the options from there.
I have nwc 1.70. I saved in save-as as type 1, to my floppy disk.
I can't find export. ANd when I open the file back up it will not keep the value of my notes in the opening measure. I've trying to do this now for almost 2 weeks (on my day's off). Ive successfully saved before but can't seem to do it now. I figure there's something I'm not doing or doing right.
PS
It is also throwing in one measure of a new staff!!!! Where'd that come from!
Noteworthy always adds a tempo staff to an imported midi file. Even if there are no tempo changes within the piece, it adds an initial tempo.
A single tempo change at the start of the piece, or none at all, would be better handled without a conductor staff. This will be considered.
Much appreciated!
The next release of NWC2 will not create a conductor staff if there is only a single tempo at the start of the piece.