[linux-audio-user] metronome-free MIDI recording

Dave Phillips dlphilp at bright.net
Tue Sep 28 10:40:25 EDT 2004


Hi Hans:

  A good question. I've transcribed a lot of piano music by various 
composers, and I enter each note from the computer keyboard. I follow 
the dynamics indicators in the music, then I apply a very little 
humanization to start-times, durations, and velocities. After that I do 
edit a tempo track manually. Again I follow the tempo indicators in the 
music, but I also provide an underlying tempo loop (usually at the level 
of the 16th note or 8th note triplet) to "disturb" the even playback 
typical of step-entered MIDI music. My sequencer of choice has a very 
easily edited tempo track, so all this stuff takes less time than you 
might think.

  I find that with some careful shaping of dynamics and tempo you can 
create the illusion of a decent performance. Of course, you have to know 
what a decent performance is, and of course you need to know something 
about the performance practice for the kind of music you're 
transcribing, but all this works well for me.

Best regards,

dp



Hans Fugal wrote:

>I'm curious how everybody handles MIDI recording. I find it hard to
>believe that everyone records to a straight tempo using the metronome,
>only to add ritardandos and accelerandos later in some artificial way
>by editing the tempo track. That may work for some kinds of music
>(dance music perhaps), but certainly not everyone works that way.In
>particular, I'm recording organ music, which is similar to piano music
>or indeed almost any classical music in its need for expression.
>
>But if I turn off the metronome and record at a free tempo I find that
>the transports and bar information are more or less useless. It makes
>it very hard to re-record segments or set up loops, etc. How do you
>handle MIDI wrt tempo?
>
>I'm using Rosegarden, but not entrenched yet.
>
>  
>





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