Disklavier

I see people are still discussing PianoBench's great summary of the challen=
ges of 
transcribing Disklavier recorded performances want to thank him for articul=
ating so clearly 
the issues confronting the user. I have dealt with all these situations and=
 appreciated 
seeing them organized and explained so well.

I envy Performer users who have this Adjust Beats feature in their sequence=
r and wondered 
if anyone knows if Emagic's Logic audio/MIDI sequencer has anything similar=
? As a 
longtme Mac user, once Apple purchased Emagic I decided to switch to Logic =
from the old 
Studio Vision, so money-wise it would be hard to now justify buying Perform=
er also just to 
get this capability. Switching to a PC to use Cakewalk/Sonar is not a viabl=
e optiion for me 
either.

This is a feature I have wanted to have at my disposal as i would like to b=
e able to play on 
my Disklavier without regard to the sequencer clock and later transcribe th=
e work if I 
improvise something I like or if it is a classical piece played with rubato=
.

I own Finale and Sibelius and have used their live input methods, but this =
only works for 
me in cases where the music already exists -- where I am inputting the piec=
e to transpose 
it, perhaps. In those cases, I usually use the keyboard in combination with=
 the numeric 
keypad method to enter this kind of music most efficiently, because of the =
need for layers 
in piano music (your number 4 item - multiple voices on staff).

I have found Logic to be a dense program and have purchased Apple Pro Train=
ing Series: 
Logic 6, but have not yet had the time to work through it. I would be energ=
ized to dig in to 
Logic if it had anything like the Adjust Beats feature I've been wanting fo=
r years.

Thanks for any info anyone might be able to shed here.

Steve

--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, PianoBench@a... wrote:
> Good morning, everyone.
> 
> In a message dated 6/30/04 6:04:57 AM, Shane writes:
> 
> > I'm trying to find out if there
> > are programs that will allow me to take music I've recorded on disklavi=
er
> > and transcribe it through my computer.  Any help on this would be great=
ly
> > appreciated as this would help me accomplish goals I've been thinking
> > about for years.
> > 
> There are many notation programs that will transcribe a saved MIDI file i=
nto 
> notation and will also transcribe your playing as you play in real time. =

> Examples are Finale, Sibelius, Overture, and MasterTracks. These programs=
 have all 
> sorts of additional features for editing the notation display.
> 
> There are also sequencing programs that will do the same, but sequencers =

> don't usually do as good a job with notation. Their real purpose is to pr=
ovide you 
> with MIDI editing features to correct or improve the MIDI playback.
> 
> There are 4 especially challenging issues when transcribing a piano 
> performance:
> 
> (1) Aligning the Notes to the Beats
> The simplest way to proceed is to listen to a metronome as you play. That=
 
> way, your notes more or less align to recognized beats. Finale and Sibeli=
us also 
> have features for letting you play without a metronome reference. Their 
> features work well but take some practice.
> 
> If you are trying to transcribe existing recordings that were made withou=
t 
> reference to a metronome, you must reclock the pieces. Otherwise, the not=
ation 
> with be an unfixable mess. The reason is that all MIDI files have a built=
-in 
> tempo. Although you may not have listened to the metronome when you made =
your 
> recording, the recording was made with reference to a default metronome, =
and 
> your notes will not align with the established beats.
> 
> Some sequencers have a feature for reclocking (although few, if any, call=
 it 
> "reclocking"). The best one is Performer, from Mark of the Unicorn. This =

> Macintosh program has a feature called Adjust Beats. What you do is view =
your 
> performance in "piano roll" style notation, in which the notes are laid o=
ut 
> horizontally on a grid. On the grid you can see vertical lines that show =
beats and 
> barlines. With the Adjust Beats feature turned on, you can drag the beat =
lines 
> to the notes to which they apply. This causes the notes to become realign=
ed on 
> the grid.
> 
> You might think that realigning on the grid will change the playback of t=
he 
> piece. It doesn't. The reason is that Performer computes a tempo map that=
 
> captures all of your rhythmic nuances.
> 
> Once you have reclocked your piece, you can proceed to the next issue.
> 
> (2) Hand Split
> Notation programs have to guess which hand played which note and which no=
tes 
> should be notated on which staff. If you are playing into a notation prog=
ram 
> in real time, you can specify a split point. Unfortunately, a complex pie=
ce 
> will not have a single split point that works for the entire piece.
> 
> As an alternative, you can edit your performance in a sequencer, again us=
ing 
> piano roll view. The technique is simple. Look at the layout of your note=
s, 
> and then use the mouse to select the notes that belong to either the righ=
t- or 
> left-hand part. Cut them and paste them into a separate track.
> 
> If you plan to save your Standard MIDI File as Type 0, be sure that you h=
ave 
> assigned each hand to separate MIDI channels. (The Disklavier, for exampl=
e, 
> typically assumes that the left hand has been assigned to channel 1 and r=
ight 
> hand to channel 2, so   you might want to make the same choice.)
> 
> If you save your SMF as Type 1, the hands can be assigned to the same or =
to 
> different channels. Either way, you can open the SMF in your notation pro=
gram, 
> and your notation software will be able to assign the separate hand track=
s to 
> different staves. From there, you can edit the look of the notation as 
> necessary.
> 
> (3) Quantization
> When your notation program does its transcription (of either a saved 
> performance or a real time performance), your software needs to know some=
 
information 
> about how short the shortest note values should be. For example, if you d=
id 
> not play anything shorter than an eighth note, you should ask your notati=
on 
> program to quantize your playing to the nearest eighth note. That way, yo=
u will 
> avoid seeing things like triple dotted 64th notes.
> 
> If you want, you can use your sequencer to quantize your playing before 
> sending the performance to your notation program.
> 
> NOTE: Quantization does no good if your file was not recorded to a metron=
ome 
> or has not been reclocked. If you quantize a non-clocked file, you will c=
ause 
> your notes to become aligned to beats that make no musical sense.
> 
> (4) Multiple Voices on a Staff
> This is a tough issue for a notation program. Let's say that your right h=
and 
> holds one note for the duration of a half note and simultaneously plays t=
wo 
> consecutive quarter notes. In proper notation, you should have two voices=
 on the 
> right-hand staff.
> 
> In this sort of situation, many programs will shorten your half note to m=
atch 
> the quarter note that was played at the same time. In this case, you will=
 
> have to edit the notation in your notation program. Other programs may tr=
y to 
> notate the two voices properly. If they are set up to do that, they may a=
lso 
> falsely notate two voices in other places because you slightly overlapped=
 two 
> notes in your recording. Either way, you will probably have some 
> post-transcription editing to do.
> 
> Regards,
> PianoBench