Maestro alternatives?

[Finranduil]

Hi everyone!

As the title indicates: I'm looking for alternatives to Maestro. First of all: Maestro is great, this is not because I don't like the software or anything! They have done a lot for the LOTRO music community (and still do), so thanks lovely people of Maestro. My thing is this: I feel too limited by it. Is there a program available where I can do more then in Maestro? Things I'd need/love:

• The ability to shift the interval of a track (not the whole thing) in different steps. What I mean is this: In Maestro you can go up or down an octave. I'd like the ability to go up/down thirds and fifths as well for example to create harmonies and create more space in the composition (prevents muddiness in the song)
• The ability to add, move or remove individual MIDI notes
• The last thing I suspect isn't possible in LOTRO, but if panning would be available then I'd love that.

If there's something that has all three in it that would be great, but especially the first is the thing that I feel like limits me the most.

Thanks in advance lovely people! Whatever happens, keep on making awesome music <3

Lorim

[Kvanti]

LotRos abc system, as I'm sure you're aware of, is not the whole abc system. So you and the rest of us are somewhat limited by that.
However, there are certain things you and everyone else can do to improve the abc's we make.
Edit the source, the midi: The best option is always to do that and there are a bunch of free midi editors "out there". Just by quantizing the midis helps a lot.

Know the game' and your limitations: Not everything is doable in LotRo's abc system, there are limits. Live with it. Your - or everyone elses limitations - is of couse individual; some idiots like me can spend a lot of hours with the midis, trying to make them acceptable for converting to abc's.

More is not better: Double instruments for same tracks is ususally a bad idea; we are limited to 64 sounds at any given time. The less instuments, the better.

Converters: To my knowledge there are only two acceptable converters, (used to be three, but Firefern is sadly not up anymore) Maestro and BruTE.
Maestro is probably known to most for its friendly interface; you pretty much just download a midi or kar and throw it in and assign instruments. There's a lack of certain things in Maestro, if you ask me. Like a log file that would give some information about whether it's going to work in Lotro or not. And Maestros way of handling certain beats and fast notes.
BruTE is not a friendly converter like Maestro. However, what BruTE lacks in friendly user-design, it certainly pays back in quality. BruTE is made to push the LotRo to its limits if needed, and will spit out a log file to tell you if there's something wrong.
It also has a lot of more or less hidden options, but you would have to ask SchorschiSchrumpf (Bruzo or Hoerbert) about that... he made it. Link to his converter is here https://sites.google.com/site/brutemm/the-program and I believe version 27 is the latest.

I shall try to answer three questions with one answer: No. You have to edit the midi in an editor. But, as said, BruTE does have quite a few shown - and more hidden - options to tweak, modify the midi without editing it. You might want to have a go with it. And don't be afraid to ask here or in-game about BruTE.

[masonix]

You can do the things you mentioned in your list with midi editing. Many Lotro bandleaders use Anvil Studio (https://www.anvilstudio.com/) but there are other free alternatives.

These programs do allow you to transpose notes or sections of notes in the tracks by intervals such as thirds and fifths, as well as adding or removing notes.

The closest you can get to panning effects in Lotro would be using multiple instruments placed where you want the sound to be played, and using the midi editor to split the track between them.

There are some tutorial videos out there that can help you get started (such as this one in a series geared specifically toward editing midi's for conversion to Lotro ABC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgirg5Ryt5E).

It can get complex, but is well worth the effort. Above all bear in mind that there are limitations to the audio and what the instruments in the game can do. But it can also be lots of fun.

[Fastersun]

You can also use special services... I use this tool https://onlineconvertfree.com/ the online file converter. I think it is fast and reliable.

[Elebraen]

Hi everyone!

As the title indicates: I'm looking for alternatives to Maestro. First of all: Maestro is great, this is not because I don't like the software or anything! They have done a lot for the LOTRO music community (and still do), so thanks lovely people of Maestro. My thing is this: I feel too limited by it. Is there a program available where I can do more then in Maestro? Things I'd need/love:

• The ability to shift the interval of a track (not the whole thing) in different steps. What I mean is this: In Maestro you can go up or down an octave. I'd like the ability to go up/down thirds and fifths as well for example to create harmonies and create more space in the composition (prevents muddiness in the song)
• The ability to add, move or remove individual MIDI notes
• The last thing I suspect isn't possible in LOTRO, but if panning would be available then I'd love that.

If there's something that has all three in it that would be great, but especially the first is the thing that I feel like limits me the most.

Thanks in advance lovely people! Whatever happens, keep on making awesome music <3

Lorim

Personally, I've been using Musescore. It's a free and robust music notation program and it will do the transpositions you want, by key or by interval. Using a Musescore plug-in, you can also import and export ABC files (it will normally import them, but won't export to ABC without the plug-in). I can also import a MIDI file, play around with it, add, delete, transpose and then export. What Musescore lacks, and what I'm in the process of creating now, is a LOTRO soundfont that will let you choose and listen to the LOTRO instruments in the score playback. But making a soundfont isn't that hard, it's just time consuming. Until then, the ABC Player that comes with Digero Maestro has always been what I use for quick file listen.