Hi folks,
I imported a midi file ( recorded in studio one ) into Notion 4. All well and good apart from the piano part only appears in one staff even though I have set it to be bass and treble clefs, this means that I have all the notes in the treble clef with a huge amount of leger lines. How do I correct this.
I also changed the key signature for a much more suitable one ( F# major ) but Notion has kept all the original notes as flats , ie D# is notated as Eb which across the whole score makes things very confusing, how do I swap these over to a more sensible way?
Thanks in advance
Andy

Windows XP SP3, RME HDSP 9632, 4 gig RAM

artsoul wroteI imported a midi file ( recorded in studio one ) into Notion 4. All well and good apart from the piano part only appears in one staff even though I have set it to be bass and treble clefs, this means that I have all the notes in the treble clef with a huge amount of leger lines. How do I correct this.

If you have Studio One 2.6+ Producer/Professional, then there is an easy way to solve the problem, but it is a bit complex to explain in words alone, so I created a YouTube video tutorial to show how it is done on the Mac using Studio One 2.6+ Producer and NOTION 5, both running in 64-bit mode . . .

It will be a tiny bit different on your Windows XP machine, where you most likely are running everything in 32-bit mode, but the principles and screens will be the same or similar . . .
You will need Studio One 2.6+ Producer or Professional to do ReWire . . .
And you will need a 'virtual MIDI cable' . . .
These are two popular 'virtual MIDI cable' utilities for Windows:
[NOTE: These also are called 'virtual MIDI drivers' . . . ]
loopMIDI (Tobias Erichsen)
LoopBE (nerds.de)
You will need to do this in a ReWire session, which is not difficult to do but can be a bit confusing the first few times. There is a lot you can do in a ReWire session with Studio One and NOTION, so it is worth taking the time to make sense of ReWire . . .
STRATEGY
The strategy is to send the MIDI sequence from Studio One to NOTION via a 'virtual MIDI cable', where the MIDI notes are recorded in NOTION to the native NOTION Piano . . .
This makes it possible to specify the 'split point', since it is a parameter for MIDI recording in NOTION . . .
NOTION 5 MIDI Record Parameters ~ Split Point
If there are chords in the already recorded MIDI, then you probably want to experiment with the 'Min velocity', 'Min duration', and 'Chord looseness' parameters to find a configuration that works best for the playing style and so forth . . .
It is important to understand that there is no one-to-one mapping of MIDI to music notation, so the music notation conversion is based on an algorithm that makes educated guesses . . .
The various MIDI recording parameters influence the way the music notation conversion algorithm works, so folks usually do a few experiments to determine the optimal set of parameters for particular playing styles . . .
THOUGHTS
Regarding your other question about dealing with key signatures, sharps, and flats, perhaps some other folks can provide a bit of help . . .
Here in the isolation studio, I do everything in the key of C Major and 4/4 time, regardless of the actual key signature and time signature . . .
I also do everything on soprano treble clef staves, which is based on the fact that there are 12 notes and 10 or so octaves, only 6 or 7 of which most humans actually can hear . . .
[NOTE: I have considered the idea of composing songs for bats, cats, dogs, and whales, but I am not convinced there is a market for this genre . . . ]
NOTION has a transposition option that makes it possible to cause notes to play one or two octaves higher or lower than notated, and this is the way I make everything a soprano treble clef . . .
My perspective on sharps and flats is based on the two facts: (a) there are 88 notes on a grand piano and (b) each note is unique, hence there needs to be only one name for each note according to the principles of mathematical elegance or minimalism, if you prefer. . .
Yet another fact is that flats exist only because horn players have been allowed to invade our planet; so whenever possible I prefer sharps to flats, except when there is a horn section in the musical group, at which time--as we all know--the members of the horn section have daily team meetings during which they devise a virtual festival of ways to annoy electric guitar players, which in the grand scheme of everything musical is the sole reason Barre chords exist . . .
If you play electric guitar and know Barre chords, then no horn section can defeat you, especially if you have a wah-wah pedal, a series of cascading echo units, and know how to use a whammy bar, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

Last edited by Surf.Whammy on Fri Mar 06, 2015 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

The Surf Whammys
Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!

Hi Andy.
I've found that preparation before exporting makes a lot of difference.
Here is a method I've found to work fairly good.
In the Studio One 'Editor' window_
Use the 'Arrow Tool' to make a (boxed-in) marquee selection of the left-hand notes as the image below shows.
(take the time needed to refine the selection by using 'Shift-Click' to add or subtract notes from the selection.)

Cut and paste the left-hand note selection into a new Studio One track separate from the original.
To help Notion interpret the import better, 'Quantize' the note-on and note-off times of both L&R hand tracks as best as you can in Studio One before the file export.
(Sixteenth note quantize is pretty aggressive but good for most music. (Add/fix ornaments and performance markings later or make a separate export batch for high detailed faster parts).
Thirty-second note quantize is a good option: however, editing time for even a few fast licks isn't worth it to me. In Notion those parts that don't look or sound correct will stand out from the rest ,easy to see and fix.
Quantize to the 'largest value without changing the natural look and feel of the music. Triplet quantization may also be a good option for that type of feel. Avoid staccato note durations by increasing there duration to a standard note length.
Clean up the Studio One document and then export/save the file from Studio One as a standard MIDI file.
Import the file into Notion.
'Select 'All' and convert to notation. Change the right-hand treble clef instrument to a piano.
Copy and paste the left-hand notation onto the bass clef staff of the new piano Grand Staff.
And again, 'Select All' and 'Quantize to Notation'. *(use undo if desired)
Consider 'Clear Velocities' process. ( I generally prefer to add detail later in the process.)

Check the results. They should be pretty close and shouldn't require too much if any editing.
In the image below undesirable elements of the notation i.e. odd note values, durations and ties can now be visualized and easily edited.

As for the key-signature, The past and present versions of Notion do not interpret key-signature well, if any.
Notion can't tell if the note is an F# or a Gb.
To minimize editing, before exporting I may take an extra step (Not shown here) by changing all non-key accidentals into naturals. I then add them back in Notion while visually and sonically checking/comparing the original work file.
It is a hassle but works for me. The key-signature becomes clear after a little editing so it goes faster after the key and accidentals are established.
Adding sharps or flats by mouse click seems much faster than the arrow keys. There isn't a need to shift notes up or down with arrow keys. Just add by click # or b...
,Newberry

Is it possible to select the lower notes and drag them to the bass clef?

vernonsakai wroteIs it possible to select the lower notes and drag them to the bass clef?

No . . .
STRATEGY ON THE MAC WITH LOGIC PRO X: EASY AND FAST
If you are doing digital music production on the Mac and have Logic Pro X (Apple), then there is an easy way to split notes from a single staff to a grand staff when the MIDI file has all the notes on a single staff . . .
(1) Import the MIDI file to Logic Pro X . . .
(2) Double-click on the resulting MIDI sequence to switch to the MIDI sequence editor . . .
(3) Click on the 'Score' button to switch to music notation view, which automagically converts the MIDI sequence to music notation and does the grand staff split so that treble notes are on the treble staff and bass notes are on the bass staff . . .
The split is done with 'Middle C' (C4 in standard scientific pitch notation) as the split point, so notes from 'Middle C' and higher will be on the treble staff and notes lower than 'Middle C' will be on the bass staff . . .
(4) Click on the 'Edit' menu and then click on 'Select All' to select all the notes for the MIDI sequence you just converted to music notation in Logic Pro X to do the split . . .
(5) Click on the 'File' menu and then click on the 'Export . . .' menu item, which causes a fly-out submenu to appear, where you will click on 'Score as MusicXML' . . .
(6) Close Logic Pro X, and start NOTION 5, where you then will import the MusicXML you just exported from Logic Pro X . . .
This is the NOTION 5 Basic Staff I used to create the MIDI sequence, which I exported from NOTION 5 as a MIDI file and then closed NOTION 5, followed by starting Logic Pro X and importing the MIDI file:
NOTION 5 ~ Basic Staff ~ Original Test Data
This is the imported MusicXML created by Logic Pro X and then imported to NOTION 5, where it is assigned automagically to a grand staff with the split point at 'Middle C':
NOTION 5 ~ Grand Staff ~ After Split by Logic Pro X and MusicXML Export-Import
[NOTE: If the data you want to split is in NOTION 5, then NOTION 5 needs to be running by itself when you do the Export MIDI from NOTION 5, since if NOTION 5 is a ReWire slave, it will not export MIDI data. Otherwise, if the MIDI file already exists, you can start with the Logic Pro X import MIDI step (see above) and then continue with the following steps . . . ]
STRATEGIES FOR WINDOWS
If you are doing digital music production on a Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer, then there might be a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application that will do what Logic Pro X (Apple) does on the Mac, but since I do everything on the Mac (a) I have no way to verify this and (b) you cannot go by the DAW applications listed at the MusicXML website, since as versions change some of them drop MusicXML support while other DAW applications add MusicXML support, so you really need to do the experiment with the actual DAW application to verify that it works . . .
For example, Digital Performer 8 (MOTU), Reaper 4.7+ (Cockos), and Studio One 2.6+ (PreSonus) do not support MusicXML, which is relevant because they are available in Mac and Windows versions, although it does no good in this instance for the MIDI-to-music-notation technique . . .
[NOTE: MOTU and MakeMusic jointly have stated this year (2015) that Digital Performer 9 will support MusicXML, but this new major upgrade to Digital Performer has not been released, yet . . . ]
However, it appears that Cubase and SONAR support MusicXML, and they run in WIndows, so one of them might be a possibility, but only if they do the MIDI-to-music-notation intermediate step . . .
If you need to do this on a Windows machine, you might try the SONAR demo version, since SONAR supports MusicXML and probably will do the same thing in this instance as Logic Pro X, although whether MusicXML support is activated in the demo version is another matter. SONAR only runs on Windows machines, so I have no way to test SONAR . . .
SONAR (Cakewalk)
If there is a demo version of Cubase that does not require purchasing a Steinberg eLicenser USB dongle, then this is another possibility, and I suppose you could buy a Steinberg eLicenser USB dongle . . .
Cubase (Steinberg)
If you have Studio One 2.6+, then you can use the technique I explained earlier in this topic, which works with the Producer and Professional versions . . .
[NOTE: You also need to have a 'virtual MIDI cable', which is explained in the earlier post, where there are links to two 'virtual MIDI cable' utilities that run in Windows. Mac OS X provides 'virtual MIDI cable' functionality, so on the Mac it's already there . . . ]
There is a demo version of Studio One 2.6+ Professional, so if you do not have Studio One, try the demo . . .
There is a FREE version of Studio One, but it does not do ReWire, and you need to do ReWire for the technique I explained in the earlier post . . .
Studio One (PreSonus)
Lots of FUN!

The Surf Whammys
Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!

Change the piano staff to a grand staff and assign the correct piano before converting the score to notation. This will put everything on the correct staves.
Skip

Skip
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Skip Jones wroteChange the piano staff to a grand staff and assign the correct piano before converting the score to notation. This will put everything on the correct staves.
Skip

Excellent! This is the best solution, for sure!
P. S. I underlined 'before' in the quoted post, because this is the key to the solution, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!

The Surf Whammys
Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!