Matching misaligned beats to their respective beats

Hello NS-Composer experts:

I downloaded the trial version of NS-Composer today. I am still struggling with the Help file to determine whether NSC is capable of performing the kind of conversion from MID files to musical notation that I require.

Specifically, I want to convert into musical notation many MIDI piano files that were generated directly from live performances that were originally recorded on piano rolls.

Consequently, none of the beats (and none of the barlines) in the musical notation displayed by NS-C correspond to the precise locations of the notes on beats in the original live performances, as captured on the original piano rolls. Rhythmically, the musical notation displayed by NSC is gibberish -- totally unplayable, unreadble and incomprehensible. My question is: does NS-C have the capabilities to fix the notated rhythms sufficiently to make them readable?

I have attached a typical MID file as an example. This MID file was generated directly from a piano roll recorded in the 1920s by the ragtime pianist Pauline Alpert. In other words, the MID file is a recording of a live performance. It is not a step-recorded MID file. In the original piano roll and the MID file, the pianist's performance is perfect -- but the mid file has no tempo map. Consequently, the pianist's tempo does not match the metronome setting in NS-C.

I understand how to shift the barlines in NS-C. But that hardly fixes the notation, since none of the beats in each bar of the notation are aligned with the beats in the original recorded performance. In both the original piano roll and the NS-C notation, the music was in 4/4. However, the metronomes on each beat were different.

If I could manually mark in NS-C the location of the precise notes that fall on each beat in the piece, and if NS-C would then re-notate the rhythms in each beat of the meter to display correctly, that might fix the notation. Can NS-C do this?

I would be most grateful for anyone who could explain to me how NS-C could produce reasonably accurate musical notation from this MIDI file.

Frankly, my decision whether or not to purchase NS-C depends entirely on whether-or-not the program can handle this issue.

Mark Starr

After posting my question in the previous email, I read MidiNotate's announcement that the forthcoming update of Composer, 2.6, now in beta testing, will include a new feature called Rebar -- which, from the announcement's description, appears to be designed to handle exactly the issue I covered in my post. I would be most interested to know whether Rebar will be able to fix the MIDI piano file that I posted to the forum. If it can, you might like to contact me to serve as a beta tester. If nothing else, I will be able to show whether someone with no previous experience using Composer can master the intricacies of re-aligning bars and beats with Rebar. MS

When will version 2.6 of Composer with Rebar be released?

[Sherry C]

Hi Mark,

I can't give a firm date on that, as I'd just be lying We're nearly done with fixes and testing, and then have to finish documenting the changes and get the release mechanism rolling.

I'm not trying to be wishy washy, just trying to be truthful

ttfn,
Sherry