Maestro MIDI to ABC converter for LOTRO

[Digero]

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.

Hi Lilikate! Glad you like it. I'm not sure what you mean by count the total number of tones? What exactly do you want to count, and for what reason?

If you output the song into multiple ABC files, they aren't guaranteed to line up exactly. Maestro removes silences greater than 1 bar's length before the first note of the output file. So if the parts in the second file don't begin until (say) 4 bars into the piece, then the second file will be out of sync with the first. I'd recommend you export the entire song into one file, and split it into multiple files later if necessary.

[Digero]

Version 1.4.1 is here! It adds the ability to adjust the output volume of each track.

• You can now modify the output volume (+pp+, +mf+, etc.) of each track in the ABC file. When a track is selected, there is a volume bar beneath the octave transpose.
• While you're adjusting the volume, the display shows the volume of each note, instead of the pitch like it normally does.
• If you adjust the volume past the minimum or maximum volume, the note will be drawn in red and the volume will be clipped to +pppp+ or +ffff+.

Visit the Maestro page to download the latest version.


This screenshot shows adjusting the volume of the Harp track:

[SchorschiSchrumpf]

Hi Lilikate! Glad you like it. I'm not sure what you mean by count the total number of tones? What exactly do you want to count, and for what reason?

If you output the song into multiple ABC files, they aren't guaranteed to line up exactly. Maestro removes silences greater than 1 bar's length before the first note of the output file. So if the parts in the second file don't begin until (say) 4 bars into the piece, then the second file will be out of sync with the first. I'd recommend you export the entire song into one file, and split it into multiple files later if necessary.

The purpose of TSO is to play classical tunes in an arrangement for 24 people (there is a video of TSO playing a tune with 23 ppl on youtube - beethovens fifth allegro con brio if you want to know how that works out).
There is some limits we encountered when arranging for this kind of setup - this is why Lilikate is asking for the counter of total tones.

By default the music system of the audience will have that maxsamples value in their userpreferences set to 64, so whenever there is more tones than 64 playing at the same time the music system will not play them - which is typically only a problem for arrangements for large bands. For that it's necessary to know the release time for all the instruments (the duration the tones continue for after they actually stopped in the abc). So far only my converter calculates that value approximately and it would be nice to have it in your converter as well, especially considering that my converter is not at all userfriendly ( and I'm not going to change that ).

The second issue is of course the number of tracks, having 24 would be really nice - I assume this is an internal constraint due to the way you are playing the abc as a format 0 midi with a soundfont player?

Like I said earlier in this thread it would be really nice to combine our efforts. All that's needed is an understandable format to save a project, which could be imported by my converter as well - after all it would combine the best GUI (Maestro) with the precisest way to deal with midi timings (BruTE).

[Libera112]

Can I just plain out kiss you! lol...Your program has given me so many hours of enjoyment I can't begin to thank you and let you know that your hard work is SO SO appreciated!

[Katiepie]

Thanks so much for the recent update: More fun will be had creating arrangements

Yes with our new project of a full raid orchestra we have been taking the music system to extremes. Our concert is on the 12th April at 4pm EST on Landroval. You would be considered an honored guest if you were able to attend.

All my arrangements are worked out using Maestro. I love your program. I also arrange for smaller groups too and I really couldn't thank you enough. I agree with the above post, hours of fun and pleasure are made on Maestro.

[Belriel]

I would like to second Bruzo's suggestion (SchorschiSchrumpf) regarding combining efforts. I use both BruTE and Maestro for conversion and both have their own cool unique features, which afforded together in one tool would be simply incredible.

[Dalothriel]

I would like to second Bruzo's suggestion (SchorschiSchrumpf) regarding combining efforts. I use both BruTE and Maestro for conversion and both have their own cool unique features, which afforded together in one tool would be simply incredible.

I'll third that request. I like the simplicity of the GUI in Maestro, but I prefer Bruzo's BruTE for accuracy.

[Okokdir]

Like I said earlier in this thread it would be really nice to combine our efforts. All that's needed is an understandable format to save a project, which could be imported by my converter as well - after all it would combine the best GUI (Maestro) with the precisest way to deal with midi timings (BruTE).

This would be amazing.

I am currently using BruTE for all my abcs as it is the only way to get perfect drums, but I would love to see a better GUI and an upgraded abc player to go along with it

- Eukwen's Player

[Strovolas]

Hi,

I'm using Maestro for converting MIDIs to ABC and it's been working great! Thanks to the creators of this program.

Mostly I've been doing rock songs, but am also interested in doing Classical music. I can't find a good site to find classical midis though (not ones that sound good after conversion to ABC anyway). Can anyone suggest a good place to find these?

Thanks.

[Ingleton]

My band "Birds of a Feather" offer you many thanks and much gratitude for the update, Mr Digero, volume levels within Maestro/ABC player are much closer to ingame than ever before making it much easier to gauge where to set dynamics. Wonderful job kind Sir!

Will you be thinking about adding the ability to save project states in a future update? If that is possible I think it would be a wonderful addition.

[Belriel]

Seconding what Ingleton said about saving projects as well as suggesting ability to create two versions of same instrument on one track (higher/lower pitch), then merge so you have only one of that particular instrument in the final abc.

Edit: I did figure out that you can save a work in progress by assigning a separate instrument to each track and then exporting. So, if you have 12 tracks and you only want to end up with 5 instruments, you will export your work in progress, for example, with 2 flutes, 2 lutes, 2 clarinets, 3 harps, 3 horns. It's little inconvenient but will allow you to open and rework without having the tracks combined on a single instrument. When you think you have everything the way you want it, then combine the tracks on one instrument and export to a new file with only 1 flute, 1 lute, 1 clarinet, 1 harp, 1 horn.

[Bolderbrook]

Hoi! Been workin with Maestro fer sev'ral months now, an gen'rally find it t' be quite a pleasure t' use! Thank'ee fer all th' effort that's been put in t' help us musicians!
Unfortunately, tho, I'm writin here b'cause I seem t' have discovered a bug o' some sort (or recently developed one—hard t' say...).

I'm th' Leader of a Band on Crickhollow, an folks in th' Band will sometimes submit songs they'd like us t' add t' our repertoire. An sometimes these songs ain't quite as good as I'd like our pieces t' be, so I'll open 'em up in Maestro an make adjustments. But just this past week, I've found that when I save a file I've "fixed" as a ABC with a different name, Maestro refuses t' open th' new file, stubbornly returnin t' th' original file. Say I start with Song.abc, an modify it, an export th' new arrangement as SongNew.abc. When I then ask Maestro t' open SongNew.abc, what opens is Song.abc.

I've tried savin th' new version into a different folder, I've tried renaming th' new file something that don't use any parts o' th' original name (like TryThis.abc), I've tried re-startin Maestro, I've tried re-bootin my computer, I've deleted th' Song.abc file entirely—none o' that makes any difference. Any file I try t' open that originated with Song.abc opens in Maestro AS Song.abc, even when there ain't any such file in th' folder...

Any clue as t' what might be goin on here?

[Belriel]

I have had this happen when using BruTE. In the case of BruTE it was because of something I didn't do correctly in the conversion process which involves inserting text. Now that can't be your problem if you're just opening an existing abc in Maestro as Maestro doesn't use any text to screw up but it does make me wonder if maybe something is wrong with the abc file that someone else created which you are tweaking.

I would try opening an abc in Maestro that you've had from the past, before this started happening, and see if you are able to export/save it with a new name and then successfully reopen that file with new name in Maestro. If so, then it sounds like maybe something is going on internally with the files you received and are trying to tweak. I would then try opening the problem file you received in notepad and compare the coding in it to that in one that works in Maestro. If you aren't able to open an old abc in Maestro, save with a new name and successfully reopen, then I would try uninstalling and reinstalling Maestro in case something there got corrupted. (I just tried opening one of my older abc's in Maestro and exporting with new name. It's working ok for me.)

Did the person who made the abc you're tweaking make it with Maestro or some other program or did they download it from the net?

I hope I understood the problem correctly. Let us know. Now you have my curiosity piqued.

[SchorschiSchrumpf]

A little word of warning concerning the ABC-Import of Maestro.

Maestro is not just reading the ABC-file, it is also doing a requantization, meaning it may change the timings in the process. If the original ABC-file wasn't made with Maestro, be sure to carefully check the exported ABC - the problem is rare and should only be a problem if advanced settings in Fireferns for multispeed midis were used.

A secondary but more demanding path of retaining a midi from an abc file is to use the abc2midi command line tool, but for that the lotro-ABC file needs to be adjusted to comply to the real ABC-standart, which means that the parts (X: ...) need to be changed to be voices inside one part.

[Bolderbrook]

Thank'ee fer th' advice, ,but I actually figgered it out this morning —well, th' second half of it anyways. Th' first half was that Maestro's readin th' T: line, not th' File Name, an as I hadn't changed th' T: line in th' ABC headers, it LOOKED like Maestro was just goin back t' th' same file, but actually it was openin th' new file, just with th' same T: line.
But th' reason that I was tryin t' re-do th' song in th[' first place (which I realize I didn't actually mention in m' other post) was that th' person what created it was unable t' get th' 2nd Bagpipe part t' open as a bagpipe; kept openin as a Lute. An that's also why I was thinkin that I was re-openin a previous file, b'cause when I changed th' default Lute t' a Bagpipe in th' Instrument field, then exported a new ABC, with a different name (but not a different T: line) an then opened th' new file up, th' 2nd Bagpipe was STILL bein played as a Lute.
But I figgered out why just this morning: Th' person that built th' original had NAMED th' part "Bagpipe2"; an, as I ought t' have known, Maestro don't recognize that format. It's got t' be "Bagpipe 2" with a space in there. But I hadn't noticed that fer all th' time I spent messin with it. /smackhead

So, mystery solved, user error, no problem with th' program

[Katiepie]

I wanted to express my delight at the variable volume sliders! Such an improvement to anything I transcribe using Maestro. Thank you!

I was wondering if there were any plans for a "fadeout" option?

[Elwenwing]

I want to express my thank for this wonderful program as well!

Makings songs with Maestro, as far as im concerned, is nothing but grand!

A small improvement for me personally though, would be an option to mute instruments individually during playback!

I tend to end up with several combined tracks for lower player numbers, and it would be nice to be able to mute them without having to uncheck all music tracks assigned to them.

An option like that would save me many trips to the ABC player!

[Achy]

hello

I have been a little absent lately,. and havent really had the opportunity to create a lot of new files in ABC with my own song. I did a few before the Weatherstock 2014 though (recently) and then I discover this program.

I cannot express how great this program is, and how much time it spare me. Is absolutely fantastic.

So from a musician and old-school ABC transcriber. I WANNA EXPRESS MY THANKS!!


Well done Digero/Mastro!! *Clap clap*

-Achazia Songweaver-

[zedrock]

Hello Digero

First, many thanks to U for your useful softs as Maestro and ABCPlayer.

I think i found a way for an update of ABC player : playing more than 16 tracks.

I really do not know well JAVA so I did not dare to make any changes in the source SVN on code.google.
And perhaps the 16 channels limit is here for something else that i don't know.

But seems to work fine for a playback render under ABCPlayer.

I sent you a private message on this forum with my slight modifications.

Best Regards

Zedrock(k) from Bara Bahau

[zedrock]

ok, I'm excited.

Unfortunately, after many test, my fix does not work.

sad

Zed'

[Digero]

Hey all, I'm back again, and I bring Maestro 2.0 that has two major new features!

1. Much improved support for MIDI files that change tempo. No more stuttered output when the tempo changes.
2. You can now save Maestro Song files, and continue working on them later.

Download - Visit the Maestro project page to learn more and download the installer.


Here's a more detailed list of the new features:

• Maestro now works with songs that change tempo! I've overhauled the MIDI-to-ABC conversion logic, so the exported ABC songs play at their original tempo and don't stutter after the tempo changes.
  • When a song contains tempo changes, you'll see an extra row in the track list that shows you how the tempo changes over the course of the song.
  • Because LOTRO doesn't understand the ABC notation for tempo changes mid-song, all note lengths are multiplied by the ratio of the actual tempo and the main tempo. For example, if the tempo changes from 100 BPM to 111 BPM, all note lengths are multiplied by 111/100 for that part of the song.
  • When the tempo changes in a song, the new tempo will be written in a comment, for example: %%Q: 111
  • The tempo-change comments are used by Maestro and ABC Player to understand the tempo changes within a song. This lets you open an ABC file with Maestro, and it will still understand the tempo changes.
  
  
• You can now save Maestro Song files, so you don't have to start from scratch if you want to export a song again with some different options.
  • 
  • Files are saved in XML format, with the extension .msx (for Maestro Song XML). If you use the installer, this extension will be registered to open with Maestro by default.
  • The .msx files do NOT store the original MIDI file that you opened, so you need to keep the MIDI file around as well.
  
  
• Bar lines are now shown in the track list, and there's a bar counter in the lower-right, just like there is in ABC Player.
• The lengths of notes in Maestro's ABC output is normalized, so you won't get notes that are a weird length, like an eleven-eighths note. Instead, each note is made up of tied notes of proper lengths: whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth note etc., or a dotted quarter note, dotted eighth note, etc. (However, due to tempo changes, you may still see a note with an ugly fraction like 111/100, but they will still be proper note lengths like a quarter note).

[Ingleton]

Yay, the ability to save projects!

Digero you are my hero

[Visionseer]

Awesome! Thanks for your work, Digero!!

[Belriel]

Yay, the ability to save projects!

YES1! Thankx!

[Katiepie]

Thank you for all your efforts to keep improving on Maestro!

BIG HUGS!!