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Topic: saving chords with ties as midi (Read 2684 times) previous topic - next topic

saving chords with ties as midi

I have measures in a piano piece where some notes in a chord last longer than others. For example, the top note in a chord is a 16th. A middle note in the chord is a 16th tied to another 16th. If I save the file as a Type I midi, that midi file doesn't recognize the tie. The note that should be tied (last for an 8th) is only a 16th. Do I have to write another staff to get inner voices to translate properly when saving as MIDI? Thanks for your help.

Re: saving chords with ties as midi

Reply #1 –
Dan, I tried but I can't reproduce your problem. I suspect that the generated MIDI is correct and you may be basing your complaint on the way the MIDI file looks when you re-import it into NWC. This is misleading; NWC has some funny ways of handling rests in imported MIDI files that I don't quite understand but that can play havoc with niceties like this.

If you have a MIDI disassembler (there's a link to one at the NWC Scriptorium), you might want to run your MIDI file through it. I think it will confirm that NWC is doing the right thing - on output, at any rate.

Re: saving chords with ties as midi

Reply #2 –
Thanks for your reply. You're correct! The midi is really OK. It's when I import the MIDI back in to Noteworthy that it get's messed up.

Re: saving chords with ties as midi

Reply #3 –
Noteworthy won't "correctly" import two notes with the same starting point and different ending points on from the same MIDI track. Its behavior is documented--always give both notes the shorter duration--so I don't know that you can call it "incorrect." But it's never been what I wanted to happen.
 

Re: saving chords with ties as midi

Reply #4 –
Writers of software (myself included) regularly document behavior that's objectively incorrect, if only to insulate ourselves against customer complaints. This doesn't make the documented behavior any more desirable.

In the case of MIDI import, I don't think there's any reason NWC couldn't be better at handling simultaneous notes of different duration, except perhaps that it wouldn't be particularly easy code to write. Maybe this is an area where we could hope for improvement in version 2.0. (Although it isn't particularly high on my personal wish list.)