Maestro MIDI to ABC converter for LOTRO

[Digero]

I use Anvil Studio (free edition) to edit my midi's but I can't figure out how to increase the volume or decrease the volume in a track.

I don't have Anvil available at the moment, but going from memory, there's a slider near where you pick the note length (quarter note, half note, etc) that lets you change the velocity of that note. I don't know how you change the channel volume though. You might want to start a thread about using Anvil studio; other people might be able to help you better and won't see your question buried in this thread.

I'm going to say a big 'Thank You' again Digero, as now our band can play a song at a proper fast tempo that we hadn't been able to achieve before due to a 'note too short' error. We'd tried a few ideas, but nothing worked until it was put through Maestro, which came up trumps, yay!

One other thing I have discovered is that for clarinet the low C gets transposed up an octave, because technically it's out of range (it would happen for the horn to I guess). That's well and dandy! (except if you deliberately wanted the clarinet 'cough' sound )

Cool! Yeah, Maestro will lengthen short notes (and split long notes) to make sure there are no errors in LOTRO, even if you crank up (or down) the tempo. Though LOTRO doesn't tend to handle fast notes very well; the note timing in game seems less precise (sloppier) than Maestro's ABC preview. So be sure to try those songs in practice with your band before performing them to make sure they sound good.

And yes, Maestro will transpose the bottom two Clarinet notes (as well as the bottom Horn note and bottom two Pibgorn notes*), just like it does with notes that are out of range. There's no way to get the breath/cough sound using Maestro, so you'd have to manually edit the ABC if you wanted that.

(* It'll also highlight in red any Pibgorn notes that will play at the wrong pitch: A#2, G#2, and A#4, but won't transpose them for you.)

[AvalonMists]

Oh yes, the group tested the song in-game. I was worried how it might have sounded, guessing that for it to be played at a faster tempo something else would be sacrificed, but we were all happy with the result

Ah yes, MIDI type 0 files I've come across and used, but I guess I've never had the issue of tracks being combined in ABCs since I always edit in Melody Assistant and if I'm not converting it to ABC straight from my editor I always export as MIDI type 1.

Libera I discovered there's a number of ways to edit note velocities in Melody Assistant, there may be more than one way in Anvil. Had you tried 'help' or looked for tutorials about it?

[ToppDog2000]

Thanks, Digero! I was finally able to find & fix some errors using the other program, & now my songs sound much better. I had a hard time with timing issues before, but redoing the abc files using this new app got rid of them. Maybe I'll redo the audio & put my videos back up now

I do have a couple questions though:

1. Is there a way to have the volume levels of the different tracks transfer from a midi composer app, such as Anvil Studio, to Maestro?

Or, if not:

2. Is there a way to adjust the volume of the tracks in Maestro so it will convert to the .abc files?

If neither of these is possible, I guess it could be done by manually editing the .abc files. I was just wondering if there was another way by using any of the apps themselves.

Awesome Job !!!

[ToppDog2000]

Ah, I noticed that the volumes are transferred, it's just that the differences are very subtle.

[Belriel]

Whoah, Digero! I can hardly wait to give it a spin!

[Orlor]

I've written down some of my thoughts on this program here.

In short:

This is a major update from Lotro Midi Player and I'd like to thank Digero for working hard to provide us with another tool to help us create quality ABC's. Howvever, given the negatives, (mainly the volume lvl negative) I can't really recommend this over Firefern just yet. It is good for some of the simpler stuff if you are not too concerned about instruments blaring out at you drowning out all the others. It's also good for when/if the Firefern server crashes as a off-line alternative as long as you know how to work around the negatives. Until Digero updates it to fix some of those negatives, I'll stick with Firefern.

[SchorschiSchrumpf]

Didn't check the forums for a while and voila ... very sweet .. a new option on the conversion horizon and a good one.

Apart from the issues (volume control - which can easily be fixed, and some multispeed-midi problems) I have to say:

Very nice, for the straight forward conversion of midi's without tempo changes I can see this one will beat fireferns once the volume is adjustable. It suits my way of transcribing because it is possible to listen to every change and decide on wether it sounds good or not - in real time!

The most important thing with this new transcriber are the drums. The idea to make every single drum sound adjustable - in real time - is just brilliant. Using the same drum conversion map for all songs does not work perfectly, but using a good default one and having the option to switch sounds while listening to the song - that is the final answer to drum conversion - kudos for that, Digero!

It took me exactly 3 minutes from installing the program to obtain a good sounding 6-part ABC file - so from my point of view the interface is designed in a good way. Also (this is one of the critics I have with respect to fireferns) I think it is good not to propose a default conversion - this way the user is forced to actually listen into the tune and decide which instruments to pick for the midi tracks ... so finally the following discussion will not happen anymore:

Why do you play harmonics on a theorbo? Should be better to play it on a lute or a harp! - But fireferns said it's a theorbo - (facepalm)

Some minor problem from my point of view is that I didn't understand how to get the numbering of parts as I'd like to have them - maybe I was just too impatient there.

I'm eagerly waiting for the next updates

[Mirarkitty]

• Convert MIDI files into solo or multi-part .abc files for playing with your friends in game.
• Listen to a live ABC preview of the song, which automatically updates as you choose tracks and arrange the song.
• See all of the notes in the MIDI file, with notes that are out of range of the LOTRO instruments highlighted in red.
• Choose how to map drum notes between MIDI drums and ABC drums.
• Open existing .abc files to change the arrangement, transpose tracks, change drums, etc.

Nice! I like the standalone stuff. Fefeconv mainly ended up web-based because it was the only
interface I could hack together quickly - the first year or so I ran that converter, it used a meta-scripting language,
very very far from a user interface.

How do you find the pacing?
Do you do a proper resample? One of the trickest problems I had with Fefeconv is handling tempo changes,
and things like notes hitting a little before and a little after - I'll be happy to share my algorithm ideas if you want.
(Or source. But since it's rather obscure and hard to read Pike it might be less interesting.)

/Mirar
(Fefeconv)

[Mirarkitty]

Why do you play harmonics on a theorbo? Should be better to play it on a lute or a harp! - But fireferns said it's a theorbo - (facepalm)

Heh, that was a very simple midi-sound-to-instrument table, it looks like this (low, medium, high range):

// 25-32 GUITAR
   24:({"theorbo","harp","harp"}), // Ac.Guitar (nylon)
   25:({"theorbo","harp","harp"}), // Ac.Guitar (steel)
   26:({"theorbo","harp","harp"}), // El.Guitar (jazz)
   27:({"theorbo","harp","harp"}), // El.Guitar (clean)
   28:({"theorbo","harp","harp"}), // El.Guitar (mut)
   29:({"theorbo","harp","harp"}), // Overd.Guitar
   30:({"bagpipe","clarinet","clarinet"}), // Distortion Guitar
   31:"no", // Guitar Harmonics

so harmonics shouldn't actually generate a line... but ah well.

/Mirar
(Fefeconv)

[Digero]

Thanks for all the comments everyone. To be completely honest, I wasn't expecting people to care as much about volume dynamics as y'all who've posted in this thread do . That's not a bad thing, but I just didn't put as much effort into that feature as I might have if I'd known how important it was. It will be the next thing I work on, but just to set expectations: it could be a few weeks before I have time to work on Maestro.

And just a quick note about Firefern's converter. I didn't create Maestro with the intention to "compete" with or be better than Firefern's converter. I actually started on Maestro a few years ago just for myself to make ABC files to play with my kin. I'd been working on and using Maestro for quite a while before I heard about Firefern (when someone asked if that's what I used to make ABC songs). So I'm not very familiar with the features in Firefern's, since I'd been using my own program for the most part.

(For the interested, I started working on Maestro before ABC Player. I knew I could polish up the ABC Preview part of Maestro much more easily, so I released that first as ABC Player. I only recently decided to put in the effort to fix up Maestro and make it usable by people other than myself. )

1. Is there a way to have the volume levels of the different tracks transfer from a midi composer app, such as Anvil Studio, to Maestro?

Or, if not:

2. Is there a way to adjust the volume of the tracks in Maestro so it will convert to the .abc files?

Ah, I noticed that the volumes are transferred, it's just that the differences are very subtle.

Yes, as you noted, the volume levels do transfer. Maestro maps the full range of MIDI volumes (1-127) onto almost the full range of ABC volumes (+pppp+ to +fff+). In reality, LOTRO instruments don't have as much dynamic range as MIDI instruments: the ABC volume +pppp+ is not as quiet as MIDI volume 1% (it's closer to 50%). So that could make it sound like the differences in volume are more subtle.

[Digero]

I've written down some of my thoughts on this program here.

In short:

This is a major update from Lotro Midi Player and I'd like to thank Digero for working hard to provide us with another tool to help us create quality ABC's. Howvever, given the negatives, (mainly the volume lvl negative) I can't really recommend this over Firefern just yet. It is good for some of the simpler stuff if you are not too concerned about instruments blaring out at you drowning out all the others. It's also good for when/if the Firefern server crashes as a off-line alternative as long as you know how to work around the negatives. Until Digero updates it to fix some of those negatives, I'll stick with Firefern.

Thanks for your comments. Just to reply to a few things in your review:

2: The Drum Map: I know I listed this as a positive but there is a problem with it as well. While sorted nicely, the names are not always clear cut as to what you should use. I had a piece that had two congas in it. A Low Conga and a Mute High Conga. While Maestro had a drum listed as Low Conga, it had no drum listed as Mute High Conga. I loaded the piece into Firefern and looked at the drum map I made for the piece on that program and it had both congas clearly listed. I took note of the note that it had mapped and looked at the drum map on Maestro and found that what it called a Slap 2 was the Mute High Conga.

It's not a huge problem but if I have to load up Firefern to compare drum maps, I might as well use Firefern in the first place. The only alternative would be to write down the Drum Map from Firefern and use that, or make it into a .config file to import into Maestro which Maestro allows you to do.

The drum names were actually something I came up with quickly myself one night when I was working on the drum mapping feature and needed names for the drum sounds. I'm not a percussionist myself (or a musician at all ), so most of the names were guesses, and some involved going to YouTube, e.g. to figure out what the difference between a Conga and Bongo drum are :P. Any drums that have the same name between Maestro and Firefern's is just a coincidence (and based on your comments it sounds like there might be a few with the same name, which is actually pretty surprising). I'd meant to crowdsource the names to come up with better names before releasing Maestro but I didn't get around to it.

Does Firefern's converter let you import/export drum mappings? If so I can see about making Maestro load/save the drum maps in the same format as Firefern's to make it easier to switch between the two programs.

4: THE MYSTERY NEGATIVE!: (Actually, I couldn't think of a name so I used that. ) This is a very minor negative and it is not really a negative but something that will cause a lot of confusion to first time users.

Different instruments in the game are recorded at different octaves and the program knows this and makes adjustments to compensate. Unfortunately, it does it to all tracks and not just to the track you are working on. So, you started out with a lute track, got it in the right octave so that all the notes in range and want to make a new flute track. You make your new track and choose flute. All of the sudden, the lute track you made is showing it self at a different octave with most of the notes out of range! What happened?

Like I said, the program makes the octave changes to all the tracks and when you chose flute for the new track, it shifted all the tracks to compensate for the flute. However, don't panic. It didn't actually change the octave of your lute track, just the display. Your lute track is still at the octave that you chose for it.

Again, not a minor negative. Just a bit confusing.

Yeah, when you have the flute part selected, it's showing you all of the tracks in the MIDI as if they would be played by the flute. You're not seeing any of the tracks as they were transposed for the other ABC parts. I think it would be really nice if you could see all of the ABC parts at once, to tell if they have any notes out of range, but so far I haven't been able to come up with a good UI design to accomplish that (or at least, the designs I've tried are confusing in other ways).

5: The whole Triplets/Swing thing: On the program, there is a checkbox Triplets/Swing Rhythm. This is for the drums. The idea is that you leave it unchecked unless your drums sound off and then you check it and it should fix the problem. The first song I tried, the drums sounded off and I checked the box and they did indeed sound better. My one big problems with this is why is this even necessary? I never had a problem with the drums being off on Firefern. Why do we need it on this program?

The Triplet checkbox affects all instruments, not just drums. I added this as a relatively simple fix to a problem that Maestro's conversion engine has with notes that don't fit the timing grid that's based on quarter/eighth/sixteenth/etc. notes. It tweaks the timing grid so that it's based on third/sixth/twelfth/etc. notes, which allows you to play triplets and swing rhythms accurately.

I don't know how Firefern's converter is implemented, but I'd imagine that his algorithm either figures that out automatically based on heuristics, or works in another way that doesn't rely on a timing grid based on quarter/eighth/sixteenth/etc. notes.

I suppose I could try to detect whether the Triplet checkbox should be checked based on some heuristics, but I'd still need to leave the checkbox there in case the heuristics are wrong.

6: Track mixing: This was a problem on Lotro Midi Player and it drove me crazy on it. Sadly, it's carried over on Maestro as well. LMP and Maestro have this tendency to mix different tracks together into one track. It is not a big problem if the tracks are the same instrument. It becomes a problem when you have two completely different instruments on the same track. On one song, Maestro mixed together a guitar track and a choir aah track. One a string instrument and the other a woodwind. The only way I could fix this was to import the midi into Melody Assistant and then export it again as a midi. Only then, did Maestro see them as different tracks. Not a huge problem but annoying. And since Firefern will treat them as different tracks automatically, just another reason to choose Firefern over this program.

Please log a bug about this. Be sure to attach a MIDI file that has this problem to the bug (or attach multiple MIDI files to make it easier to see a pattern with what's wrong). In the bug description, list what you expect the list of tracks to be, as well as what it actually is.

[Digero]

Didn't check the forums for a while and voila ... very sweet .. a new option on the conversion horizon and a good one.

Apart from the issues (volume control - which can easily be fixed, and some multispeed-midi problems) I have to say:

Very nice, for the straight forward conversion of midi's without tempo changes I can see this one will beat fireferns once the volume is adjustable. It suits my way of transcribing because it is possible to listen to every change and decide on wether it sounds good or not - in real time!

The most important thing with this new transcriber are the drums. The idea to make every single drum sound adjustable - in real time - is just brilliant. Using the same drum conversion map for all songs does not work perfectly, but using a good default one and having the option to switch sounds while listening to the song - that is the final answer to drum conversion - kudos for that, Digero!

Listening to the changes (and even seeing them) in real time is definitely my favorite part of Maestro (and so, something that I spent a lot of time to make it work well ).

Regarding the issues with tempo changes in MIDI files, it's something I'd really love to fix. Unfortunately it's a difficult problem to solve because some early design decisions I made on Maestro make assumptions that the tempo is the same for the entire song. I'm not sure if/when I'll have time to fix it.

Some minor problem from my point of view is that I didn't understand how to get the numbering of parts as I'd like to have them - maybe I was just too impatient there.

What's the specific problem you have and maybe I can help you? I had a hard time figuring out the best way to let you configure the automatic part numbering was. The main goal of automatic numbering is to use the same part number for a given instrument in every song you compose. That way your flute player (for example) only needs to know that they play part 4 in every song, rather than having to look it up for each individual song.

[Digero]

Nice! I like the standalone stuff. Fefeconv mainly ended up web-based because it was the only
interface I could hack together quickly - the first year or so I ran that converter, it used a meta-scripting language,
very very far from a user interface.

How do you find the pacing?
Do you do a proper resample? One of the trickest problems I had with Fefeconv is handling tempo changes,
and things like notes hitting a little before and a little after - I'll be happy to share my algorithm ideas if you want.
(Or source. But since it's rather obscure and hard to read Pike it might be less interesting.)

/Mirar
(Fefeconv)

Hey Mirar!

I find the export BPM based on tempo events in the MIDI file. The tempo used to export the ABC file is just the tempo that covers the longest time (in seconds) of the MIDI file. So if the MIDI file has 120 BPM for 1 minute, then 130 BPM for 1.5 minutes, then back to 120 BPM for the last 1 minute, the exported ABC file would use 120 BPM. (The function is findMainTempo).

For each note in the MIDI file, I convert its start and end ticks to microseconds based on the true tempo in the MIDI file.

Based on the primary tempo (120 BPM in the example above) and time signature, I calculate what the duration of the shortest playable quarter/eighth/sixteenth/thirtysecond note is, in microseconds--or if the triplet option is enabled, the shortest playable third/sixth/twelfth/twentyfourth note. (See the TimingInfo class).

That shortest note length is used as the timing grid for the entire song. I quantize notes by rounding their start and end times to be an exact multiple of the shortest note length (see combineAndQuantize).


And I handle tempo changes by.. not handling tempo changes. The notes at 130 BPM in the example will be quantized onto a 120 BPM timing grid, and the rhythm will be incorrect.

I'd like to be able to support changing timing grids during the song. Apparently even though LOTRO doesn't support tempo changes, you can "fake" them. For example, if the ABC file has 120 BPM and you're at a 130 BPM section, you could write a note as B,120/130 to play it at an effective tempo of 130 BPM. I'd love to be able to support that, unfortunately the way Maestro works right now, it's not easy to make that work. (I haven't actually tried a proof of concept for this yet, so if you know that it does or doesn't work, let me know. )

[SchorschiSchrumpf]

For that matter Digero, maybe it would be possible to add another "conversion" module that does the multispeed conversion:

What my converter (which is still basically a command line tool) does with multispeed midis is to take the midi events (measured in miditicks) and converts them using a map of the tempo changes into a list of events at constant bpm - that leaves you with a lot of pretty strange note durations (fractions of ticks even) and starting times that have to be converted.

The main problem is that the lotro music system cannot play notes below a duration of 1 beat at 250bpm 4/4, but it can play a duration of 1.0001 beats at 250 bpm 4/4 and the next beat will then start at 1.0001. So it is possible to play a 90bpm piece at 250bpm within the lotro system .. sounding as if it was played at 90bpm - that is actually best to most closely match the true midi timings with an abc. Using the midi time resolution for the abc time unit ends up with notes like 480/960 (which is reduced to 1/2 ofc), for multispeed it gets a little messy as there will be stuff like 491/960 etc. It is still necessary to keep track of round off errors to avoid long time loss of synchronicity.

So if you have a midi track that plays just one tone at a time and it's at 125 bpm maximum with changing speeds, you can perfectly match that in a 250bpm abcfile ( good old Nyquist sampling theorem), loosing some precision on note duration you can also go higher.
If you have multiple voices joined into that one track it gets complicated. I do some priority based gridding of the parts, so the lower priority tones will be moved a little to be synchronous with the high priority tone to make it possible to play them in a chord [...].

I made some conversions of synphonies with douzends of tempo changes and it turns out quite nicely with my converter.

I would imagine that it is possible to generate the input files that my converter needs with your program (it's basically a list of midi tracks per abc track) - or even extend your program by a module doing basically what I described here for multispeed midis - I think for constant speed midis your program is already perfect (apart from the volume things).

[Mirarkitty]

And I handle tempo changes by.. not handling tempo changes. The notes at 130 BPM in the example will be quantized onto a 120 BPM timing grid, and the rhythm will be incorrect.

I'd like to be able to support changing timing grids during the song. Apparently even though LOTRO doesn't support tempo changes, you can "fake" them. For example, if the ABC file has 120 BPM and you're at a 130 BPM section, you could write a note as B,120/130 to play it at an effective tempo of 130 BPM. I'd love to be able to support that, unfortunately the way Maestro works right now, it's not easy to make that work. (I haven't actually tried a proof of concept for this yet, so if you know that it does or doesn't work, let me know. )

Since it was the first main reason to write my own converter, I spent a lot of time on it... I can dig through exact figures later, but I did this:

1. find out the highest tempo that the ABC in lotro can handle (240 I think)
2. use multiples of the BPM (or BPMs!) used in the MIDI that is as high as possible
- least common divisor stuff
3. convert the MIDI BPMs to possible fractions of the selected output BPM
- ie, 120+100 will give 240 * 1/2 and 240 * 8/20, rounded to the best closest possible BPM
(lots of heuristics went into that)
4. if the tempo slot is too short, don't alter the BPM, it's a slow-down or speed-up part
5. resample everything into the shortest possible samples slots (1/16th?)

so the output of Fefeconv is usually fairly strange in 240-ish (was it?) BPM.
But you can see it change the tempo from the MIDI to the ABC samples depending on the selected output BPM, it should be printed at the graphical output.

I actually started doing all the resample math for one single song: Concerning Hobbits.
(Firefern is a hobbit.)

[Fionnuala]

Only found the time to put some midis through the new converter this morning and I definitely like it!

I never really had trouble making good abcs with LOTRO midi player, but then I always put pristine midis through it and made sure it didn't mess around with them any more than necessary. Still, this new one is impressive. I love the abcs that come out. It's SOOOOO easy to edit dynamics now. And I didn't have to do the fadeout on one of the midis I put through it myself. I love that. I'm such a slacker when it comes to fadeouts so I'm glad you've made a tool to do it for me! I'm looking forward to testing these files in game now.

[JaxV]

I've only recently started creating ABC files so have nothing else to compare it to, but I love this!

I especially love that you can add extra parts that didn't exist in the original midi (for example adding a 2nd flute part and putting it up an octave to get a lovely flute sound) and i've been happily creating some great ABC files for our new kin band - thank you for all your hard work!

[Ingleton]

Being able to save project states would be nice, it sucks having to re-do each entire song from scratch when it comes to upgrading a song for more players etc. Or even when you find out ingame there's an error in the abc that wasn't there when you played the abc thru maestro/standalone abc player (eg pipes that attack fast notes nicely in maestro/abc but suck hard at it when the same is played ingame).

I for one would be happy to live with extra disk usage caused by Maestro saving a copy of all the midi's I put through it into its own little save folder/cache/file/whatever (like firefern's does) if it means I can go back to a song and make minor adjustments to it instead of having to re-do the whole song from scratch.

Edit;
I understand that a person can right click a abc file in windows and select "edit with maestro", but that is a very limited type of edit as it is editing all the tracks you placed on one instrument (eg lute) at once - when sometimes its just one single track from the midi (out of the several tracks that you may have squashed onto that lute) that you may want to move up or down an octave. So the edit abc function in Maestro as it exists at present, isn't all that clever, hence my request for better functionality with that aspect.

[uplTE0WbrP]

Hey man, i was wondering if you could reply to my PM i have sent you?

[Splik]

Awesome tool, love it. Thank you many times for making it.

[Valamar]

I have stumbled across this while hunting for some bagpipe music for my Mini.

First let me say, I am Mac based and can tell folks what they need to do to run the Java under OSX Mavericks -- but that is a separate issue.

I started out by cutting and pasting: Jig Medley: Speed the Plough, Miss Monaghan, The Last House in Connacht, Collier’s Reel
from http://lotromusic.mymiddleearth.com/...lfolkcultural/
This is an ABC file.

I stuck that in my Music folder for the Mac Client calling it "Jig Medley"; type /music and /play - duh... nothing but a constant repetition of one note.

So I launch the Maestro.jar file and drag the file into it. Very nice sounds like a whole band.

So I select "I" -- Bagpipe -- and click play -- bingo -- bagpipes!

Next I click Export ABC and try the new file in LOTRO -- same one-note sounds.

The ABC file has changed from X:11 to X:7 and the notated cords have been changed.
However, when compared to a file for GaryOwen which was "transcribed by LotRO MIDI Player" according to the Z record; the "style of notation" is different.

So... am I simply totally confused in my expectations? Doing something wrong? Not doing something?

My overall goal was to take this ABC file and "convert" it such as necessary to allow it to be played on my bagpipes!

[Digero]

I have stumbled across this while hunting for some bagpipe music for my Mini.

First let me say, I am Mac based and can tell folks what they need to do to run the Java under OSX Mavericks -- but that is a separate issue.

I started out by cutting and pasting: Jig Medley: Speed the Plough, Miss Monaghan, The Last House in Connacht, Collier’s Reel
from http://lotromusic.mymiddleearth.com/...lfolkcultural/
This is an ABC file.

I stuck that in my Music folder for the Mac Client calling it "Jig Medley"; type /music and /play - duh... nothing but a constant repetition of one note.

So I launch the Maestro.jar file and drag the file into it. Very nice sounds like a whole band.

So I select "I" -- Bagpipe -- and click play -- bingo -- bagpipes!

Next I click Export ABC and try the new file in LOTRO -- same one-note sounds.

The ABC file has changed from X:11 to X:7 and the notated cords have been changed.
However, when compared to a file for GaryOwen which was "transcribed by LotRO MIDI Player" according to the Z record; the "style of notation" is different.

So... am I simply totally confused in my expectations? Doing something wrong? Not doing something?

My overall goal was to take this ABC file and "convert" it such as necessary to allow it to be played on my bagpipes!

Maestro is intended to convert MIDI files to ABC format for playing in LOTRO. If an .abc file is already written for LOTRO, then "converting" it with Maestro won't change how it sounds.

LOTRO's bagpipes tend to clip notes if they're very short/fast, and that song has a lot of short notes (Maestro's preview doesn't exactly match how it sounds in game). It might just not be a good song to play on the bagpipes.

[Valamar]

Maestro is intended to convert MIDI files to ABC format for playing in LOTRO. If an .abc file is already written for LOTRO, then "converting" it with Maestro won't change how it sounds.

Ok. So what tool does one use to "arrange" parts of an already existing ABC file?

Specifically, how does one change the instrument defined?

Related then to Maestro -- what changes was it making to the ABC file. It clearly changed "something" in the ABC notation.
It was just, that new notation did not reproduce in-game any differently than the old notation.

In case you haven't guessed, I really know very little (bordering on nothing) about how ABC works in relationship to LOTRO.

[Visionseer]

Maestro can change the instruments (and the instrument numbering that bands use to assign parts to people). It can also shift a part up or down an octave at a time. Very handy.

For fine tuning, I often edit the ABC file by hand using a programmers text editor (because it provides multiple undos in case I mess up, and some comparative tools so I can see two files side by side, etc.). The format really isn't too hard to parse. Knowing what bar (line) number you need to adjust is important, and I use the player that comes with Maestro to cue in on that, shuttling until I find the number.

Most often I hand-edit to adjust volumes of individual instruments. I understand the next version of Maestro may have that ability in the graphical interface, and that would save all sorts of time!

[Katiepie]

Hello!

I wanted to extend an invite to a rehearsal or performance of The Starlight Orchestra. We are a full raid LOTRO Orchestra playing classical music.

Myself and Bruzo (arrangers) would be interested in chatting with you about some aspects of converting with Meastro. I am really looking forward to the proposed volume control. I wonder if it was possible to count the total amount of tones? What we do, is make two files of the same piece, one covers strings and percussion tracks and the other wind and brass, we sync these all together and play. With varying results.

Thank you for a wonderful converter!

If you'd like to come listen you'd be an honored guest!

Kind regards,

Lilikate Buggins: Assist Conductor and 2nd Clarinet to The Starlight Orchestra.