Greetings Dan,
This is going to be a long rambling letter of interest only to those
who like to make informed choices about what MIDI files they play. If
you don't care about playing MIDI files and choosing them from large
collections with information about content then you can stop reading
right here.
As Carol and others have mentioned there are the standard MIDI file
players with playlist capability. Unfortunately there is little
agreement about how to display text information such as title composer
and performer. There is a little more agreement about this if you use
MP3 files but I believe that most Disklaviers (or all) will not play
these but you can add MP3 tags to WAV files and then display the
information nicely in Itunes.
I am very particular about what I play and want to be able to identify
pieces easily so I am not happy with VanBascos unless the names of the
MIDI files are very informative. This means very long file names and
it is still difficult to find or sort by a field such as composer or
performer. For this (and other reasons) my partner (at the time) wrote
a playlist player specifically for MIDI files with informative text
tags. This player is available from my web site. If appropriate text
events are not in the files the player will not show any more
information than others but you can add text events using tools that I
wrote for this purpose. Using these tools, for example, I added
composer performer and title information to all of the E-Comp MIDI
files. It was not as difficult as it sounds because the information
was downloadable from the web site as HTML which I saved as text and
massaged in various ways to get the listings I needed.
I now play files as MP3 because my LX player works with them as well
as WAV. I wrote another tools to add MP3 tags to the MP3 files and can
now make playlists in Itunes of all the E-Comp files which display all
the relevant text information. All of these tools are database driven
so there is virtually no typing which I avoid at all cost. Some day I
might check into what is necessary to add MP3 tags to WAV files but it
is not a high priority because the LX does play MP3. If anyone has an
urgent need for this I'll make it a higher priority.
For the obsessively organized I also wrote a tool that dumps all
keyworded text events in MIDI files to an excel file along with
hyperlinks to the MIDI files. If you are excel and access literate,
you can also create an access database from the excel sheet which is
then searchable and sortable by any of the fields. You can add
comments or edit any of the fields. For example you could add comments
about quality of performance or suitability for certain audiences. are
not piano fanatics. Once the database is created clicking on the link
plays the file with the default MIDI file player such as Van Bascos.
Unfortunately I have not found a way to create playlists or do shuffle
playing from within access. Some day I will write a program to accept
the links copied from access or excel and play them either in sequence
or randomly. Since I know of only one person who uses access or excel
for playing MIDI files this is not a very high priority but I will
probably do it some day.
If anyone has made it this far, let me know if you have any interest
in any of the above.
Friday, November 7, 2008, 6:21:56 AM, you wrote:
> Carol, thanks, but let me clarify my intentions. My piano won't
> record. I am not a musician or singer nor is that in the
> foreseeable future, however, I do appreciate all music and
> especially piano only renditions. What I'm looking for is a
> program, either pre-loaded with DKV playable (MIDI) files or that I
> can load. I want it to essentially be a "Jukebox", like an I-Pod,
> with lengthy playlist and/or shuffle capabilities. The "Cakewalk"
> program I currently use will do this but has no pre-loaded files (of
> any consequence), requiring frequent trips to the computer. Not
> very convenient. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Dan
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Carol Beigel
> To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 12:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [disklavier] Band in a Box software
> Instead of Band In A Box, the other pgmusic.com sequencer is PG Pro
> Audio 10 or whatever their current version is. I t is cheaper than
> BIAB. I have used it to 'render" the MIDI files to audio. When my
> Dad records something on my Disklavier and wants to hear what he
> played on his car stereo, it is a good way to do this. The latest
> versions also allow VST instruments which are better sounding, but
> more expensive, than the piano sounds on my computer soundcard.
>
> You can take MIDI files, "render" or convert them to audio files,
> run them through a VST piano ( I use Steinberg's The Grand) and burn
> them to an audio CD and/or convert to MP3 files.
>
> PG Pro Audio will also convert the MIDI file to score (sheet
> music). and has all the editing features for MIDI files. I think it
> is a great easy to use software and is very powerful considering the price is well under $100.
>
> PG music also produces Slow Gold which will slow down an audio file
> without changing its pitch. Slow Blast will separate the singing
> from the background on an audio file so you can learn to sing the song yourself.
>
> check them all out at www.pgmusic.com
>
> Carol Beigel
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Dan Armstrong
> To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:21 AM
> Subject: [disklavier] Band in a Box software
> Good Morning, Does anyone utilize one of the "Band in a Box"
> software programs to play MIDI files back through yhe Disklavier?
> Apparantly it has some similar properties as "Cakewalk", but it
> comes with a library of music (as I understand it). If so, what
> has been your experience and which version do you prefer? Thanks, Dan
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--
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