Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: forcing midi tracks to one staff? (Read 4525 times) previous topic - next topic

forcing midi tracks to one staff?

I am trying to arrange some piano pieces for guitar, and would like to force both hands onto one staff. The midi import interface does not seem to let me combine tracks onto one staff (although it does allow channels to be multiple.

Does anyone know of a way to force multiple tracks to one staff?

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #1 –
The import wizard gives you complete control over which MIDI channels, and pitch ranges within the channels, get mapped to new staves. The import instructions allow you to specify whatever assignments that you need.

You can also overlap your parts, if you prefer. Disable the experimental file restrictions from Tools, Options, File, then you can layer staves (from Page Setup and Staff Properties) as another way of achieving one visible staff.

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #2 –
>>The import wizard gives you complete control over which MIDI channels, and pitch ranges within the channels, get mapped to new staves<<

I see that, but it appears that the different parts are coming in in separate tracks - and the import wizard only lets me specify one track per staff. When I try to load all channels and ranges into a single staff, it loads the first track information, and loses everything else.

I'll try doing the visual overlap - but I suspect that will make it harder to edit the file.

Thanks.

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #3 –
>> I'll try doing the visual overlap - but I suspect that
>> will make it harder to edit the file.

A little bit... but it's not too bad if you use page up/page down to move between overlaid staves rather than the mouse (which will only select the "top" layer). The selected staff is in a different colour (which you can change).

Also, for the purposes of editing, you can always "unlayer" the staves, then enable the layering only as a final action before printing.

Fred

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #4 –
Here's a rough and ready solution.

MUTE all staves except the ones you want to combine.
(eg. all the guitar strings on six separate staves).

In Tools - Options - Files select type 0 midi file format for export.
This creates a single track file.

Export your single track midi file.

Re-import the file and assign all channels (if you have separate channels) to one staff.

You can then cut and paste the staff into the score.

But it might not be quite what you expect every note entrance cuts off or truncates the durations of previous notes.
Also I'm not sure (because I haven't tried) how many voices the single track midi can handle - I'm sure it will cope with 6 guitar strings.
(Most of the brass players in my band agree that coping with 6 guitar strings requires access to a good set of wire cutters).

Don't forget to reset your midi output back to type 1 after the experiment.

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #5 –
I'll tell you about a shareware program that can merge tracks if you tell me about one that can split parts. ---> email.

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #6 –
> and the import wizard only lets me specify one track per staff.

If your source material has multiple tracks, it would seem like you would want each in its own staff. However, you can combine them, but with some loss. After importing the file, do the following:

- export the file back to MIDI as a type 0 file (in 1.55, you actually have to specify type 1 at the moment, due to a big). All of your song data will now be on one channel.

- reimport the type 0 file and specify import as needed

This will enable the merging of the track data.

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #7 –
If you registered recently, this procedure is also described on page 29 of the current NWC User's Guide.

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #8 –
Thanks, everyone - this gives me several things to try

Mark

Re: forcing midi tracks to one staff?

Reply #9 –
J(ohnti), I know a shareware that does splitting. It is called NoteWorthyComposer...
but if you're talking about splitting as discussed in https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=519 in June, there is none. But writing a small awk/perl script would do the trick with midi2text (mf2t/t2mf, already discussed). Time to do it, anyone?

HTH,
      MAD