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Topic: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files (Read 6358 times) previous topic - next topic

NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

When I export to MIDI from NWC the resulting MIDI file has some size.
If I load this MIDI file in Cakewalk (3.0 Pro) and save it inmediately, the file size shrinks by about one-third. It gets shorter without any perceptible loss in sound quality.
How is it possible? Does NWC put in MIDI files some stuff which is not really needed there? Are MIDI files from NWC and Cakewalk really the same format?

Puzzled,

Ramon
http://www.nil.es/rpajares/

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #1 –
You are probably changing the time base of the file to a lower resolution. This could reduce the size requirements for the timing data in the file.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #2 –
It is also possible that you are changing the channel assignments, thus changing the way the MIDI running data can be utilized. The only way to know for sure is to compare the tracks, events, and timing in the two files.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #3 –
A great way to do that is using MF2T (see "Free Midi to Text Converter" thread in this forum).

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #4 –
I change nothing in file. I just save in Cakewalk after having loaded the NWC MIDI file. Obviously something changes but it happens automatically.
Well, I was thinking that this was a rather known fact by the NWC community. But now I wonder if somebody has made the same experiment I've made and if he/she has found the same results.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #5 –
Eric was right. I took my own advice and used mf2t to compare two files, the first as exported by NWC and the second as imported and re-exported through Cakewalk (the version I have is Express 3.01).

The difference is immediately obvious. NWC exports at a resolution of 192 ticks per beat, whereas Cakewalk exports at 120 ticks per beat.

This won't make a perceptible difference in most music files, but it *can* make a difference in files that contain fast notes (e.g. sixty-fourths). Such notes will sound choppy at the lower resolution because 120 isn't evenly divisible by 64.

The only other discrepancy I found is that if you have more than one tempo assignment at any given point, NWC faithfully exports both. However, Cakewalk only exports the second of such simultaneous events in the master track.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #6 –
So yet again, NWC does the job more thoroughly than the competition. More power to their elbow!
Incidentally, Sibelius for Windows is now available (at 30 times the price of NWC!). It looks
excellent on the demo CD (so it should be at that price), but at the moment there are no cut down
versions advertised, so it's definitely for the dedicated/professionals . . . . I think I'll stick
with NWC!

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #7 –
I use Cakewalk for MIDI production after entering data in NWC.
I have found that you can import MIDI's in the 192 division format.
In fact that is the default import in my setup although I normally use 120 if using Cakewalk alone.
You dont need to convert your MIDI file to text in Cakewalk thats all provided in the Event List.
The flexibility, global and filtered editing in Cakewalk make it an ideal tool for MIDI production.
I'll stick to NoteWorthy Composer for note entry and printed output though since I find it both faster and superior in quality.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #8 –
Fred, great reply! The difference of resolution in the saved MIDI files is somewhat important.
I don't know if the latest release of Cakewalk bears this limitation.

Thank you very much the time spent in doing the comparison.

Ramon

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #9 –
Barry wrote:
"You dont need to convert your MIDI file to text in Cakewalk thats all provided in the Event List."

Yes. I only converted the input and output midi files to text for easy comparison. (A lot easier than trying to make heads or tails of it in a hex editor).

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #10 –
This is very interesting for me! But what does the 120 and 192 ticks mean?

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #11 –
It's the smallest time division that a midi event (usually a note) can have. An analogy is screen resolution; you can see finer details at 1024x768 than, say, 320x200.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #12 –
Cakewalk's Event Lists will also show all the parameters, in the form of a table of MIDI event messages. Most of its "View"s would let you pop up windows &c where one could also glean the info ... however, there are advantages to using a dis-assembler utility to see a text output of the messages ... when Cakewalk's "user friendly" interfaces fail you, you really need to see more like what the MIDI message stream "REALLY" contains, period. After spotting what's going on, it becomes more obvious which "View" in Cakewalk lets you get at control of the element/s in question.
Midi files can be very small anyway, just as a piano roll doesn't need to weigh as much as a piano -- it gets its sounds from the next player piano you put it into (and hope it's in tune), and MIDI files get their sounds from a sound card or keyboard or &c (and hope it ain't dorky). However, still doesn't explain, by itself, how one program vs another can come up with such a difference in file sizes -- neither of them would contain anything but (theoretically) the same plain MIDI messages ...
There are also MIDI type zero & type 1 &c formats ... in some cases it makes a difference, not every target application considers the same basic format to be universal. Perhaps the most universal version is the one where all the events' messages are mixed into one big stream; since one's "tracks" are usually assigned to channels, and all that is fairly visible in Cakewalk's Track View, Cakewalk will include the channel parameter when it saves the file, and the messages will still play normally. (I believe I'm talking about type zero there? Cakewalk's Help screens ought to delineate which are which.) Perhaps there are different format types afoot here, I haven't ever looked at identical tunes saved to different formats & looked at the file sizes comparison.
Cakewalk does let you choose and set your time division, it's just that it defaults to 120. Like many a software quirk, it will assume the default, and then may adjust tempo to fit that value, so a slow passage might take up a standard amount of screen space as you watch the playback, but the "now" cursor will slow down during a slow section, and then snap back to "normal" speed if the tempo goes back to "a tempo" ...
If you don't make some settings to take control of such things, you may wonder for a while where the program gets the ideas you THOUGHT YOU were supposed to have been putting in there. The tune would most likely sound exactly just as good because none of the sound's wave profiles or info are ever actually in the MIDI file, all that is produced by the soundcard or &c. Unless the time resolution is just plain not apropos of the piece to the point where it simply trips over itself somehow, there would never be a difference in sound quality per se.

Re: NWC and Cakewalk MIDI files

Reply #13 –
Hi My problem is Im trying to take song midi files and clik on them then save into cakewalk programCan u tell me how to do this ? Thankou Michael tHOMAS