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Topic: Another Drum Question (Read 7366 times) previous topic - next topic

Another Drum Question

HI, I'm guessing that you're probably bored of hearing percussion questions again, but I really need some help.

I am trying to create a score to print, which includes percussion parts. I also would like to be able to hear the piece as MIDI. My problem is, if I write the percussion parts so that they look right, my MIDI gets screwed up, and if I create them to sound right, then it looks screwed up and no-one could play it. How can I do both: have a score which is visiually and audially pleasing? Using transpose doesn't work because every note would have to be transposed differently.

Thanks a lot in advance,

Neeraj Mathur

P.S. Why did they make General MIDI like that? If standards were being made, souldn't they have been just a little more sympathetic to people like me?

Re: Another Drum Question

Reply #1 –
You can control the pitches used for drum/percussion sounds by setting up a custom "Key Map" for your MIDI Mapper device. In Windows 3.1, this is a feature in the MIDI Mapper control panel applet.

In Windows 95, this feature is not directly available, but can be created using a program called "IDFEdit", which allows you to create and edit IDF files (which I think means something like Instrument Definition Files). The IDFEdit utility is provided by Microsoft. I downloaded it a long time ago, so I am not sure where to get it. I recommend trying www.hotfiles.com, www.download.com, and/or www.shareware.com. Once you have this program, you can create a custom instrument that includes your custom key map for drum sounds.

BEWARE: If you use custom patch or key maps, you will not be able to successfully share your songs with others in a MIDI or NWC file format, since your songs will no longer comply with the standard. You could still share your songs, but they will not sound properly on other machines, unless they too use your custom instrument map.

I hope this helps.

Eric, support@noteworthysoftware.com;

Re: Another Drum Question

Reply #2 –
Neeraj said: >My problem is, if I write the percussion parts so that they >look right, my MIDI gets screwed up, and if I create them to sound right, then it looks >screwed up and no-one could play it. How can I do both: have a score which is visiually and >audially pleasing? I'm sure someone dealt with this problem SOMEWHERE, but I can't find it in the NWC history. I thought there WAS a way of configuring a new midi instrument which remapped the notes on the channel using (I presume) some sort of instrument definition file.

Looking up Win95's (I hope you're using Win 95) help was totally fruitless. You may find something in the www.microsoft.com q&a things. Search with keywords like midi and definition.

Failing that, you can (though I know you'd prefer not to :-) create two staffs (staves?). Have one which looks right, which is muted, and the other, which sounds right, in another partition (not absolutely necessary), so that it's automatically ignored when printing.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Andrew

PS: Make a wish on the wish list. I'm sure Eric loves to keep busy! ;-)