Message
Re: [disklavier] Re: Problem ESEQ2MIDI resolve: But tempo question remains!
2003-10-30 by PianoBench@aol.com
In a message dated 10/30/03 4:50:07 AM, Sam writes:
However, I don't understand the tempo -- it says 117bpm for all the
songs; yet, they all play at different actual tempos.
Can anyone advise me on how to get the midi file to show the correct
tempo and time signature or otherwise correct the timing of the files.
Note: they all sound correct. But the notation (seen on the screen
of my Clavinova or in a sequencer) looks strange and I think this is
due to the fact that the midi tempo is always set to 117 in the
conversion.
The earliest model Disklaviers did not respond to tempo changes in the song file. It was true that you could change the tempo on the front panel of the instrument, but you could not create a song with embedded tempo changes and have those changes recognized by instrument during playback.
So, most recordings for Disklavier were made at a default tempo of 117 "in the old days." If it was a piano solo, the pianist recorded without listening to the metronome. Therefore, the notes did not line up musically with the beats as defined by the metronome.
Today, modern Disklaviers can recognize and respond to tempo changes in either an E-SEQ file or a SMF. This means that if you make a Disklavier recording, you can set the tempo to any number when you start recording, you can play to the metronome if you wish, you can further edit or insert tempos later in your sequencer, et cetera. Any such recordings will play fine on a modern Disklavier and some of the intermediate models (at least from the Mark II onward), but the tempo changes will not be recognized on the earliest Disklaviers and will not play properly on them.
NOTE: The modern Disklaviers do have a disk conversion function that will convert songs to "Piano1" type. During this conversion process, the song data will be changed so that it plays properly at a single default tempo of 117.
When Yamaha masters modern Disklavier recordings, it runs them through a tool that changes the data stream so that the song files play the same way at the single tempo setting of 117. That way, the Yamaha-published Disklavier software is backwardly compatible with the earliest Disklaviers.
Let's say that someone makes a MIDI file for Disklavier in which all of the notes line up to logical beats and barlines. That file will be readable by any device or software program with a notation display--such as a CVP 200 series Clavinova or Finale. However, if that same file is mastered and published by Yamaha specifically for Disklavier, the data will be altered so that it plays properly on all Disklaviers, but the notation will not be displayed in a musically readable way, and there will be a single tempo of 117.
Regards,
PianoBench