Changing the speed...

Topic: Changing the speed... (Read 8508 times) previous topic - next topic

Changing the speed...

2011-02-09 07:10 pm

Hi everyone, you may remember last year you guys on here were a great help enabling me to play hymn tunes through the MIDI church organ for use in church services.

This has been a great success, but a number of the congregation are complaining it is a little too slow. The way I set up the speed was, at the beginning of each staff, I pressed "t" and in most cases entered a tempo of 120. Ideally this now needs to be about 150.

To save me having to go through all 1075 tune files to modify this tempo figure, is there any way I can :
a) over-ride this tempo figure, and play each tune faster, without physically changing any files, or if not,
b) is there a quick way to modify all the Noteworthy files in one hit?

I'd be most grateful for your help once again!

Stephen

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #1 – 2011-02-10 01:46 pm

G'day Stephen,

Yes there is now a way to change speed reliably, but it involves using "User Tools" with nwc 2.x. There is one tool called "Global Modification" that will change the playback speed of the whole score by a given fraction regardless of the number of tempo changes along the way. Unfortunately it's way past my bedtime so I can't set out the procedure for you at the moment. If no-one else replies I'll set out the procedure for you tomorrow.

Meanwhile why don't you use the new Viewer version 2,5 to play your hymns? It is now really powerful and one of its features is that speed can be changed with a single keystroke !

Bill.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #2 – 2011-02-10 06:22 pm

Thank you, that will be very useful! I have Noteworthy version 2.1!

I haven't used the viewer, because the way I've set up the tunes is to play the first 2 lines of the hymn as an introduction, then repeat the tune 6 times (with the assumption that most hymns have 6 verses or less), but there is the occasional need to change the repeat to more when the odd hymn is longer! So I need to modify the NW file!

Stephen

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #3 – 2011-02-11 12:15 pm

Hello again Stephen.

The more I think about it the more I am convinced that the Viewer 2.5 (with all its new facilities) is the way for you to go. The suggested procedure is:

Start play, then at the end of your introduction (eg after Bar , click the "Play" icon at the bottom left-hand corner of the window (or type F5). Play will re-start at the beginning.
Now click the "Repeat" icon at the bottom right-hand corner of the window, and the full score will be repeated until you click the stop button to stop play

Changing the speed of play is easy. To slow it by 10%, type Alt- (ie ALT+minus). Repeat this if necessary. To speed it up by 10%, type Alt+ (ie Alt + plus). If you are using a laptop without a numerical keypad of course you will have to type (Alt + Shift =) on the qwerty keyboard to to achieve Alt Plus. If you want to change the speed by a specific percentage, type Alt = and insert the desired percentage change.

Eric has done a wonderful job with the new viewer, and it's well worth learning how to use its features.

Best of luck.

Bill

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #4 – 2011-02-11 12:56 pm

Thanks Bill,

I've downloaded Viewer 2.5 onto my PC and had a play, and yes, I think this could solve our problems! The only problem is the laptop we use at the church does not have internet access - I'm not very technical minded, do I just download the setup_nwc2.5_viewer_pre5.exe onto a USB stick, then run this file on the laptop?

The people at the church have only just got used to operating the Noteworthy software, so it might be easier to stick with this, and use the "Global Modification" tool you mentioned earlier. Would it be too long-winded for you to set this procedure out for me (in idiot's terms!!!) so that at least I've got both options to try?

Stephen

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #5 – 2011-02-11 03:50 pm

I would hazard a guess that your hymns generally each have only a single tempo directive throughout the entire piece? And that that directive is normally right at the very beginning of the first staff? If so, I'd think that "global mod" (or any user tool for that matter) was a bit of overkill - I'd simply train the users a bit more on the interface of NWC so that they could select and edit the tempo directive manually.

Note that "global mod" (or any other user tool) applies only to a single song at a time, and is not at all useful for "bulk" changes to multiple songs. If you are willing to run a tool manually outside of NWC, such bulk changes are possible.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #6 – 2011-02-11 06:32 pm

Unfortunately the users are a lady in her 70's and another couple who'd never touched a computer before!!! It was hard enough getting them confident enough to do the basics!!!

You are correct the tunes have the same tempo all through, set right at the beginning of each staff, it would be ideal if I could have a way of changing a whole folder of tunes in one hit instead of having to modify each one individually.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #7 – 2011-02-12 04:42 am

I'm not aware of any tool that will modify more than one song file at a time, so I doubt GlobalMod is what you need. I too assume you have only one tempo in each song file, at the beginning of the first staff. If so, just open a whole bunch at once, work through them one at a time, it's only a couple of key strokes, and you should be able to do each one in 10 or 15 seconds. As soon as you change one song, save and close it so it's out of the way.

The work will be repetitive, so after the first few edits, you'll speed up.

When you finish the first batch, open a bunch more, until you finish the lot of them. You can identify the unedited files by sorting the files by date last saved.

If you think you may want to use the original tempos again sometime, start by copying all the files to a new folder before starting to edit them, and only edit the one set.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #8 – 2011-02-12 05:07 am

This link is a transcription of a Semware script I've had for a while to change the total duration of a NWC piece. While the piece is loaded in NWC and that link is open:

Start to play the piece and note how long it will currently play.
Cut the staff containing all the tempo commands and MPC tempos to the textarea.
Fill out current and needed durations OR a conversion factor. Click on the appropriate "Submit" button.
Paste the already selected textarea back onto the clipboard and return it to the NWC staff.

Sorry, it can only do one at a time--no batch processing.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #9 – 2011-02-12 12:37 pm

Stephen,

Yes, as you suggest, you could copy the <setup_nwc2.5_viewer_pre5.exe> file to a USB stick and load it onto the laptop at your church, if you wanted to use the Viewer. In making my suggestion I was assuming that there would probably be tempo changes during the hymns so you would need a global percentage speed change to cope with this.

If there is only one tempo setting at the beginning then there is merit in the suggestions to use the nwc 2.1 program and to edit the tempo in each hymn. During playback you could create your introduction by typing F5 twice in rapid succession at the end of the second line of the lyric.

My personal view is that for unskilled computer users in cases like yours the Viewer is the preferred program because it is much simpler, but still has all the essential features for playback and shows a much more pleasing view of the score. For speed changes it invokes the equivalent of a very sophisticated "Global Mod User Tool" requiring only the keystrokes <Alt Minus> or <Alt Plus> to make 10 percent changes, regardless of which staff the tempo marks are located on or where they occur during play (even if the staff is hidden!). Very little training would be needed for your application and (very important in my opinion) there in nothing the operator can do to corrupt a NWC file! This is very easy to do with the full program (eg by touching the space bar).

So you can see you have plenty of choices, each with some advantages. Good luck.

Bill.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #10 – 2011-02-12 01:32 pm

There is a free program called PSR MidiPlayer that just might do what you want. I believe that you can edit batches of midi files with this program including the tempo parameter. It was designed to work specifically with the Yamaha PSR line of keyboards.
Here is the author's email (Michale Bedesem), if you want to ask him just to make sure: mpb@sover.net <mpb@sover.net>

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #11 – 2011-02-12 02:16 pm

Ok thanks everyone for your suggestions, various options for me to try!

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #12 – 2011-02-12 08:30 pm

Forgot to give you the URL for the midiplayer program:
http://www.psrtutorial.com/MB/midiplayer.html

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #13 – 2011-02-14 08:06 am

You can batch convert to nwctxt all your files at once using nwc-conv.exe, then somehow (a windows script, an editor script, a php program...) automatically change the time in it and then batch convert all to nwc.
Of course the catch is in the "somehow"...

I'm surprised Rick didn't propose such a solution. :-)

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #14 – 2011-02-15 01:19 am

Flurmy, that's precisely what I was thinking. I've been toying with the idea of writing something like that up myself .. but I don't know if I can spare the time this week. Stephen, if you can wait until this weekend, maybe I can whip something up for you on my bus ride to Canada.

Re: Changing the speed...

Reply #15 – 2011-02-15 02:48 am

The link I mentioned earlier works on both ordinary tempo markings as well as MPC tempos. The conversion factor can either be calculated from the current and requested timings, be entered directly, or be entered as an inversion. Timing may be off a little because of round off error.