Import MIDI with keyboard

[pocorina]

Hey. I just recently bought a Yamaha DGX-305. As i am a keen composer, i thought i could use it without disturbing the neighbours into the night (!) and i hate people listening to me composing.

Anyway, i connected it with my computer using the USB port, and as i play the keyboard, my notation software writes it out for me in MIDI sequence. I am using "Notation2", as it is about a twelth of the price of sibelius!

Only the thing is, when you open the score, everything is written in semiquavers with rests after them, and if you read it as it is, it's not the same as the piece, but the computer plays it the same (different to how it's written, if you understand what i mean). Well, anyway, is there no way for it to write it out with the proper note values, so i can use it as the score to play from?

Much appreciated

[xvimbi]

This is generally a very difficult problem, and some software is pretty good at it, whereas others suck. MIDI recording software will only make the kind of score you are looking for if YOU play perfectly (i.e. a quarter note must be a quarter note, no rubato or staccato or portato or any other ato allowed, otherwise you'll get gibberish). Accounting for imperfect playing is very involved. Sibelius, for example, has something called Flexitime that will make adjustments to imperfect playing to produce something more realistic, but it still requires editing (and it is rather expensive). I use GarageBand (comes free with a Mac), which is an awesome recording and composing tool, but it does not produce a score.

[BoliverAllmon]

I would like to hook it up and play and that gets the main ideas on paper. After that I can edit it , which is still easier and faster than just composing it straight through on paper.

boliver

[ted]

I agree with xvimbi in that I think a human brain is necessary to sort out the best written approximation to piano sound. Digital devices are good for giving you the pitches, that is to say avoiding transcription of complicated things by ear in the sense of what notes are being played.  Rhythm is a different kettle of fish. Unless a musical conception is based on crudely simple notated rhythms to start with the general problem of devising the best written score, in the sense that it is readily understandable by another player, is very difficult indeed and, at the present time, a long way from being programmable.

[timothy42b]

I'm not MIDI literate but I think if you turn "quantize" on, it will match the note to the nearest logical value so you end up putting in a quarter note, for example, instead of a quadruple dotted eighth or some such.

Somebody told me recently he created a decent looking score from sloppily written manuscript paper by playing on a MIDI keyboard into something called Cakewalk.  I admit I don't know what that program does, but it sounds like maybe what you want. 

[pocorina]

Oh right, ok, I'll take a look at cakewalk and try quantize