Disklavier

<python error when sending from yahoo groups, please ignore if duplicate>

I've got an audio CD that happens to be a very high quality rendering
of some MIDI files, and I also have the MIDI files themselves.  I'd
like to be able to sync the MIDI file to the CD so that I can play
them back on my MarkIV and have the piano part play acoustically.

The primary reason I want to do this is that the MarkIV's MIDI sounds
are no where near as good as the hardware that was used to render this
MIDI to the audio CD, and the piano part would likely sound better
live than the rendered version (or, at least that's the hope).

I can see from the manual that it will allow me to record a new MIDI
file to sync to the CD (but that doesn't help), but I can't see any
way to tell it that the two are the same thing (of course, I would
probably have to tweak the beginning offset of the two, but I'd be
happy to do that to make this work).  Is this possible?

Short of that, I've begun investigating MID2PianoCD to move the MIDI
onto the CD...but, so far, MID2PianoCD tells me that all of these MIDI
files are invalid (it work's with other MIDI files, and these MIDI
files work on every other piece of software I've tried them with
including cakewalk, winAmp, and the Disklavier itself).

Thoughts?

Thanks.
-Kevin

Good afternoon, everyone.

Kevin, the only way to match up an existing audio recording with an  
existing MIDI recording is to follow a considerable number of steps:

(1) Import the MIDI file and the audio recording into a sequencer on  
your computer--a sequencer that works with both file types.

(2) Then, in the sequencer, use the MIDI editing tools to line up the  
first note of the MIDI data correctly with the audio.

(3) Do a lot of work to vary the tempo of the MIDI file so that it  
matches the audio recording throughout. It takes a professional  
sequencer to do these things.

(4) When you are done, you have a file whose format is specific to  
that sequencer, and you will have to play back the recording from your  
computer if you use that file.

(5) Alternatively, you can save out the edited MIDI portion of the  
file to a new MIDI file and use a program like MID2PIanoCD to convert  
the MIDI data to an analog encoding.

(6) At this point, you can take the tempo adjusted MIDI file that is  
now a wave file and combine it with the original audio recording in an  
audio editing program, putting the analog MIDI wave on the right  
channel and the original recording on the left channel.

(7) In theory, you can burn the combined audio data to an audio CD and  
have it play in the Disklavier.

During this torturous process, you will need to keep in mind the fact  
that the piano plays 1/2 second late. If you test playback in steps 2  
and 3 you probably have that problem licked.

Regards,
PianoBench

On Dec 11, 2007, at 8:28 AM, kgoroway wrote:

> <python error when sending from yahoo groups, please ignore if  
> duplicate>
>
> I've got an audio CD that happens to be a very high quality rendering
> of some MIDI files, and I also have the MIDI files themselves. I'd
> like to be able to sync the MIDI file to the CD so that I can play
> them back on my MarkIV and have the piano part play acoustically.
>
> The primary reason I want to do this is that the MarkIV's MIDI sounds
> are no where near as good as the hardware that was used to render this
> MIDI to the audio CD, and the piano part would likely sound better
> live than the rendered version (or, at least that's the hope).
>
> I can see from the manual that it will allow me to record a new MIDI
> file to sync to the CD (but that doesn't help), but I can't see any
> way to tell it that the two are the same thing (of course, I would
> probably have to tweak the beginning offset of the two, but I'd be
> happy to do that to make this work). Is this possible?
>
> Short of that, I've begun investigating MID2PianoCD to move the MIDI
> onto the CD...but, so far, MID2PianoCD tells me that all of these MIDI
> files are invalid (it work's with other MIDI files, and these MIDI
> files work on every other piece of software I've tried them with
> including cakewalk, winAmp, and the Disklavier itself).
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks.
> -Kevin
>
>
>

George, 

Thanks for the reply.  As I understand it, I shouldn't have much of a problem syncing the two since the MIDI file *is* the audio on the CD, so they should be in perfect sync.

I think I'm going to have to figure out why MID2PianoCD doesn't like these file...but so far the author hasn't responded to my questions.

Thanks (I wonder why they make this so difficult?)

-Kevin

----- Original Message ----
From: George F. Litterst <PianoBench@...>
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:09:23 PM
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Syncing CD to MIDI file










  


    
            Good afternoon, everyone.


Kevin, the only way to match up an existing audio recording with an existing MIDI recording is to follow a considerable number of steps:


(1) Import the MIDI file and the audio recording into a sequencer on your computer--a sequencer that works with both file types.


(2) Then, in the sequencer, use the MIDI editing tools to line up the first note of the MIDI data correctly with the audio. 


(3) Do a lot of work to vary the tempo of the MIDI file so that it matches the audio recording throughout. It takes a professional sequencer to do these things.


(4) When you are done, you have a file whose format is specific to that sequencer, and you will have to play back the recording from your computer if you use that file. 


(5) Alternatively, you can save out the edited MIDI portion of the file to a new MIDI file and use a program like MID2PIanoCD to convert the MIDI data to an analog encoding. 


(6) At this point, you can take the tempo adjusted MIDI file that is now a wave file and combine it with the original audio recording in an audio editing program, putting the analog MIDI wave on the right channel and the original recording on the left channel. 


(7) In theory, you can burn the combined audio data to an audio CD and have it play in the Disklavier.


During this torturous process, you will need to keep in mind the fact that the piano plays 1/2 second late. If you test playback in steps 2 and 3 you probably have that problem licked.


Regards,
PianoBench



On Dec 11, 2007, at 8:28 AM, kgoroway wrote:

<python error when sending from yahoo groups, please ignore if duplicate>

I've got an audio CD that happens to be a very high quality rendering
of some MIDI files, and I also have the MIDI files themselves. I'd
like to be able to sync the MIDI file to the CD so that I can play
them back on my MarkIV and have the piano part play acoustically.

The primary reason I want to do this is that the MarkIV's MIDI sounds
are no where near as good as the hardware that was used to render this
MIDI to the audio CD, and the piano part would likely sound better
live than the rendered version (or, at least that's the hope).

I can see from the manual that it will allow me to record a new MIDI
file to sync to the CD (but that doesn't help), but I can't see any
way to tell it that the two are the same thing (of course, I would
probably have to tweak the beginning offset of the two, but I'd be
happy to do that to make this work). Is this possible?

Short of that, I've begun investigating MID2PianoCD to move the MIDI
onto the CD...but, so far, MID2PianoCD tells me that all of these MIDI
files are invalid (it work's with other MIDI files, and these MIDI
files work on every other piece of software I've tried them with
including cakewalk, winAmp, and the Disklavier itself).

Thoughts?

Thanks.
-Kevin









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On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Kevin Goroway wrote:

> Thanks for the reply.  As I understand it, I shouldn't have much of a
> problem syncing the two since the MIDI file *is* the audio on the CD,
> so they should be in perfect sync.

This is correct, as long as whatever rendered the MIDI performance to CD
audio maintained accurate time.


> I think I'm going to have to figure out why MID2PianoCD doesn't like
> these file...but so far the author hasn't responded to my questions.

(Hmm, I replied twice by email; maybe a spam filter is intercepting the
responses?  They didn't bounce back.)

Anyway, the reason MID2PianoCD is having trouble with your particular
MIDI files is because they use a time division of 1920, which is
considerably higher than the more typical timebase values of 96, 192,
and 384 that I had observed when writing my MIDI file handling code back
in the 1990s.

As a result, MID2PianoCD was incorrectly assuming that any file with a
timebase that high (over 1024) must be damaged.  I have raised the limit
for this sanity check and the fix will be included in the next release.

For the next release of MID2PianoCD, I'm also adding support for the new
Live Performance LX player system (http://www.live-performance.com),
including transcoding Disklavier XP mode recordings for high-res
playback on the LX with proportional pedaling.  I look forward to
comparing the same XP files played on a Mark IV and LX system!

Mark Fontana

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, George F. Litterst wrote:

> Kevin, the only way to match up an existing audio recording with an existing
> MIDI recording is to follow a considerable number of steps ...
>
>    . . .
> 
> (5) Alternatively, you can save out the edited MIDI portion of the file to a
> new MIDI file and use a program like MID2PIanoCD to convert the MIDI data to
> an analog encoding.
> 
> (6) At this point, you can take the tempo adjusted MIDI file that is now a
> wave file and combine it with the original audio recording in an audio editing
> program, putting the analog MIDI wave on the right channel and the original
> recording on the left channel.
> 
> (7) In theory, you can burn the combined audio data to an audio CD and
> have it play in the Disklavier.


The current version of MID2PianoCD (1.05) has the ability to do step #6
for you automatically.  It will combine a MIDI file and a corresponding
accompaniment WAV file into a composite WAV file that has the piano
control signal on one channel and the accompaniment on the other
channel, appropriately delayed to sync with the MIDI data.

To use this feature, the WAV file must be in the same directory as the
MIDI file and must have the same filename (other than the extension),
for example:

    sonata.mid
    sonata.wav

The WAV file can be stereo or mono but must have the same sample rate as 
the type of disc you're encoding for in MID2PianoCD- 44.1 KHz for CD, 48 
KHz for DVD.

The MIDI file and WAV file are assumed to start at the same point in
time (they should not be pre-offset from each other).  This makes it 
easy to use exported tracks from a professional sequencer like Sonar.

Mark Fontana

Mark, thanks for the reply!

I'll have to check my spam catchers at home (where I originally emailed you from) [I also tried to contact you on pianoforums].

FYI.  That MIDI file came out of a Yamaha Clavinova 309.  And the audio cd was recorded directly from the same clavinova via it's optical digital output directly to a wave file.  I'm hoping they are in sync. :-)

I'm looking forward to your next release.  Thanks!

-Kevin

----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Fontana <mfontana@...>
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 3:55:10 PM
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Syncing CD to MIDI file










  


    
            



On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Kevin Goroway wrote:



> Thanks for the reply.  As I understand it, I shouldn't have much of a

> problem syncing the two since the MIDI file *is* the audio on the CD,

> so they should be in perfect sync.



This is correct, as long as whatever rendered the MIDI performance to CD

audio maintained accurate time.



> I think I'm going to have to figure out why MID2PianoCD doesn't like

> these file...but so far the author hasn't responded to my questions.



(Hmm, I replied twice by email; maybe a spam filter is intercepting the

responses?  They didn't bounce back.)



Anyway, the reason MID2PianoCD is having trouble with your particular

MIDI files is because they use a time division of 1920, which is

considerably higher than the more typical timebase values of 96, 192,

and 384 that I had observed when writing my MIDI file handling code back

in the 1990s.



As a result, MID2PianoCD was incorrectly assuming that any file with a

timebase that high (over 1024) must be damaged.  I have raised the limit

for this sanity check and the fix will be included in the next release.



For the next release of MID2PianoCD, I'm also adding support for the new

Live Performance LX player system (http://www.live- performance. com),

including transcoding Disklavier XP mode recordings for high-res

playback on the LX with proportional pedaling.  I look forward to

comparing the same XP files played on a Mark IV and LX system!



Mark Fontana





    
  

    
    




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