.ABC File Troubleshooting

[Ara007]

is there anyway around note to high or to low errors?

[durinsbane]

is there anyway around note to high or to low errors?

Only way around is to either change the offending notes to a rest (z), or try to bring the notes up or down one octave to make them legal.

While many lower notes will sound just fine if you change just them, ie. |A,A, B,, B,, C, C, B,,| will (most of the time) sound perfectly fine if you change it to |A,A, B,B, C, B,| Higher notes are harder to change to make sound right, ie. |c'c' d' d' a b| to |c'c' d d a b| would 99% of the time sound awful.

Of course changing seperate notes could make the any song sound completly different, best thing to do is bring the whole song up or down one octave, If possible. This could make other notes not playable though!

It really is a matter of playing around with a song. Some parts (read Instruments) will transpose perfectly, but then other parts of the same song will be out of range, so they won't merge properly with the other part. Those are the parts you should raise or lower by as a whole by themselves and then merge into the other part.

There is a lot of things that can go wrong when changing notes to fit into the music system, But again, keep playing around with it and you will find a way for the song you want to transpose to work.

[AvalonMists]

Another option could be to transpose the whole piece (and if you are doing it in different parts for different instruments, then those too) to a different key signature. If you don't have much of an idea of music though it's probably more of a headache you don't need! Doing it in abc too might be more of a hassle than you really want.

I have just started arranging songs to play in-game in abc from midi files. Basically I open a midi file in another program, select the parts I want or combine instruments to reduce the number of parts, then have a look at where the notes are. With one particular song I changed the key (from A to Eb) so the notes that were too high in the melody would then fit to the game's requirements. Bass notes were too low for the theorbo then, so I put that whole part up an octave. Then it's put into abc. Then of course you also have to watch out for those C, and D, notes that a clarinet in reality doesn't play, and sound like a boar grunting when you play them in-game!

Oh, and while I'm at it...
Is it documented anywhere what abc notes play what percussion sounds for the drums in lotro? I've searched the net and tried searching here (search function is playing up for me at the moment though for some reason), and I haven't been able to find anything. I had a memory of coming across something a while ago, but didn't bother making note of the info as I wasn't interested in it at the time.

[durinsbane]

Oh, and while I'm at it...
Is it documented anywhere what abc notes play what percussion sounds for the drums in lotro? I've searched the net and tried searching here (search function is playing up for me at the moment though for some reason), and I haven't been able to find anything. I had a memory of coming across something a while ago, but didn't bother making note of the info as I wasn't interested in it at the time.

We have all been screaming (or asking nicely) for a map to the drum sounds for a while now. Alas, no one has offered it yet.
I tried to listen and map them myself, but there are some sounds that sound the same or are just a tad different, or, the "is that a tom-tom or a floor bass".

I would love not only to have the drums mapped, but I would also love to get some better drum sounds. I know Turbine is trying to keep everything "lore correct" but I think they can get away with some better sounds for the drum.

[AvalonMists]

Ah, thanks for that. I know one of our other band members attempted to do a bit of mapping himself, and I was going to have a go too if I couldn't track anything down elsewhere. Not being a percussionist myself I was imagining there would be some sounds I just couldn't quite place. Looks like it will have to do for now!

[AvalonMists]

I'm currently working on We Are The Champions and am having problems with the tempo of the song. The song originally had these fields
M:6/8
L:1/8
Q:1/4=99
but it plays way too slow in-game (plays fine in the program I use to work with midi/abc files though). I've tried altering a few things, and combinations of things, but it essentially comes down to just Q I can get to 1/4=125 or the equivalent before I get a 'note duration is too short' error. I could alter the rhythm a little and remove the hemi-demi-semi quavers that the game obviously doesn't like at faster tempos, but considering there's a number of them in the drum part I'd like an alternative if possible.

Any ideas?

[vestansan]

Any clue to how to do this if you didn't install the game in the default location?