If you didn’t find the answer to your question here, you can visit our Knowledge Base for more answers. You can also submit a question to our friendly technical staff. You will receive your answer as soon as possible, within 48 hours but typically far less.
1. Do Notation products convert CDs to sheet music?
Notation products do not offer an option to convert audio (MP3, WAV, or CD) to MIDI.
A few programs attempt to convert MP3 and WAV files to MIDI, but only do so for single melody voices or instruments, and can only do so with limited success. They often make mistakes in determining pitches. Also, they do not attempt to analyze the rhythms and tempo changes. Therefore, even if you do use one of these programs to convert an MP3 or WAV file to a MIDI file and then read the MIDI file into a Notation product, Notation will just make a mess out of the rhythms.
The above statement is not intended to criticize the attempts of earnest music software developers who have tackled the problem of converting MP3 and WAV to MIDI. Rather, the problem is just a difficult one to solve even for single melody voice or instruments. And experts are saying that the problem is nearly impossible to solve for MP3 and WAV files with multiple instrument (polyphonic) sound, such as a voice with guitar, a rock band, or orchestra.
For more information on getting sheet music from audio files, please visit our page at http://www.notation.com/SpecialInterest-AudioToSheetMusic.htm
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2. What types of files can Notation products read?
Notation products read MIDI (.mid), Karaoke (.kar) and NoteSoft (.not) filetypes. They will transcribe the MIDI and Karaoke files to sheet music. NoteSoft files are those that are created when using a Notation Software product, and are capable of holding more information for your sheet music, such as annotations and other performance markings. Karaoke files will contain lyrics for songs, which Notation products will display on the score. MIDI files may or may not contain lyrics. If they do, then those lyrics will be displayed on the score.
Notation products do not open audio files such as .wav, .mp3, or other audio format files.
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3. I’ve read that MIDI files are “old stuff”. Why would I want your software that works with old types of music files?
In this case "old" definitely does not mean "obsolete". MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an industry standard for passing musical performance information among electronic musical instruments and computers. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these MIDI music files on the internet, available for free. Notation Musician uses these MIDI files and transcribes them into sheet music. Notation Composer does this as well, and also uses MIDI technology to let you create and edit both the music you see as notation and the music that you hear. You can then use these files to "play" any MIDI-capable synthesizer, keyboard, sound library or other sound module you may have to give a great audio performance of your song files. You can also easily experiment with various instruments for the different parts, helping you to create arrangements that are tailored to your taste and needs.
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4. What's the difference between Musician and Composer? I just want sheet music that I can get from the Internet.
Notation Musician and Notation Composer both will convert MIDI (.mid) and Karaoke (.kar) files to sheet music. Most of these files are just fine, and will give you good quality sheet music with a little "tweaking" from either Notation product. For these cases, Notation Musician is the right product.
However, sometimes in such "found" files there will be specific notes that you want to adjust, or you may want to change or add single notes. Or perhaps you want to compose your own music. For cases such as these, Notation Composer is the product you would need.
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5. I want to add and/or record notes for songs. Which Notation product do I need?
To add notes to a .mid file that you've found, or to add notes or record notes into a song file, you will need Notation Composer.
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6. Does Notation Software have a monthly subscription?
No, Notation Software does not have any type of subscription services. There are other providers (such as Classical Archives and Notation Machine) that offer monthly subscriptions. These providers do sell our software as affiliates, but we do not have any other type of relationship with them. If you need to inquire about a subscription you may have, you should contact them directly.
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7. How can I buy Notation software products? How can I buy directly with PayPal?
We use Plimus as our secure order processing service, where you can use any of the following methods of payment:
1. Go to www.paypal.com and login to your Paypal account.
2. Click on the "Send money" tab.
3. In the "To" field, type "sales@notation.com"
4. The amount will depend on the product you wish to purchase, and should be in USD- US Dollars.
Notation Composer - $89.95 (please add $10 for a CD within the US, or $14 for a CD outside the US)
Notation Musician - $29.95 (please add $10 for a CD within the US, or $14 for a CD outside the US)
5. Check the "Goods" button, and then "Continue".
6. In the "Subject" field, please type in the name of the product(s) you wish to purchase.
7. In the "Message" field, please type in your mailing address if you wish to receive a CD-ROM copy of the software (after adding the additional funds per step 4 above). If you're not ordering a CD, please just copy/paste the "Subject" line into the "Message" field.
8. Click "Send Money".
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8. How do I set up a Notation product with a MIDI adapter and external MIDI device?
The general steps are:
1. Check the installation instructions for your MIDI adapter - some will need to have the unit plugged into your computer first, others will need to have the drivers installed first.
2. After installing your adapter (eg. MidiSport Uno) and external device (eg. Casio keyboard), then start the Notation product you are using.
3. Notation products are designed to detect any active MIDI device for playback or playalong/recording. You can use the Setup -> MIDI devices quick setup to view the detected devices.
4. Using the drop list, you can view, select, and test any playback device that is installed on your computer.
5. To see an installed device such as a keyboard that you want to use for playing along or recording, simply start playing on it. If it is on and properly connected to your computer, you should see the red light "flash" and name for it appear in the "Detect MIDI Recording Device" as you play.
If you need more details about connecting your device(s), t here is a great trouble-shooting section in each Notation product's "Help/Users Guide" menu.
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9. When I open a MIDI file, the parts for many instruments are shown. I just want to see the part for the instrument I play. How can I do that?
All Notation products have a Part drop list on the menu that will allow you to simply click on the Part (instrument name) that you want to view, and have only that part displayed.
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10. How can I transpose the song or parts?
With either Notation Musician or Notation Composer, you can perform two different types of transposition:
1. Transpose a particular instrument's staff, such as Bb clarinet, so that the notation for that part is easier for the instrumentalist to read.
To do this, you can use the Staff/Transpose Instrument Key command, and select which staff and select the instrument transposition.
2. Transpose an entire song to a different key, to make it easier for a vocalist to sing, for beginning instrumentalists to play, or to take advantage of the better tonal range of an instrument or ensemble.
To do this, you can use the Staff/Transpose actual pitches command. You can then select the amount and direction (up or down) of the transposition. You can also select to transpose just a region of measures in this way if you're using Composer. You can do this to add interest to your compositions.
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11. Why are the notes for the right and left hands of a piano part combined into one staff, and how can the notes be separated into right- and left-hand staves?
More than half of the MIDI files in the world use only a single track for the piano or keyboard. This is because for most MIDI players, the MIDI information is used to just make a piano sound, not to be written into notation.
Notation products have a "split hands" option that is set "on" by default, so when you open a new .mid (MIDI) file your Notation product will analyze the file and suggest that you split a staff that appears to be a keyboard staff into a two-hands, two-staff notation part. If you don't do this when you first open the file, you can always do it later using the Staff/Split hands command.
Notation products employ quite intelligent logic for determining how to distribute notes between the right- and left-hand staves for a keyboard part. The logic is far more intelligent than simply splitting notes at, say, middle-C. The logic applies an analysis of finger positions and speed, and hand movement up and down the keyboard.
We can't claim to perfectly distribute notes between the right- and left-hand staves, but our products make it easy to correct any mistakes. Just select a note, and while holding down the Shift key, hit the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key to move the note the staff above or below.
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12. Why won't my MIDI keyboard read the MIDI on the disk?
All Notation products save MIDI files in MIDI File Format Type 1. Some MIDI keyboards can read MIDI files saved on a floppy disk from your computer. Some MIDI keyboards expect the MIDI file to use MIDI File Format Type 0, rather than the Format Type 1 saved by Notation products. Such MIDI keyboards cannot directly read MIDI files saved by Notation products.
You can fairly easy work around this problem by using a free MIDI utility that converts MIDI File Format Type 1 to Type 0, as follows:
1. Download the program named GN1.0 (file name gn1to0.zip)
from http://www.gnmidi.com/gnfreeen.htm
2. Unzip the gn1to0.zip file in a permanent directory
in which you wish to save the program.
3. Run the unzipped program named gn1to0.exe
4. In the GN1to0 program, use the File / Open command to
open the MIDI file that you saved in your MidiNotate or Notation product.
5. Click the '0' button in the toolbar of GN1to0. This will
immediately convert the MIDI file from Format Type 1 to
Format Type 0.
6. Use the File / Save As command to save the newly
converted file. Save it on a floppy disk if you want
to immediately carry the MIDI file to your MIDI keyboard.
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13. Why are barlines misplaced and rhythms incorrect?
Some MIDI files are recorded without reference to a metronome, that is, without use of a "click track". Notation cannot correctly analyze the rhythms in such MIDI files, nor can most other music notation programs. If you want sheet music for the song, you may need to search for another file of the song, using one of the search engines on our MIDI File Search Engine page.
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14. What is the pricing policy for future upgrades of Notation products?
All sales of Notation products include free updates within the major version, or a free upgrade if the purchase is made within 180 days of a major release. So for example, if your purchase was made for version 2.0, then you are entitled to free updates up until (but not including) version 3.0. If your purchase of a 2.x product is made this week, and next week version 3.0 is released, you would get a free upgrade to version 3.0.
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15. Is there a version of Notation products for Mac? Which operating systems are compatible with Notation products?
We do not have a version of Notation products for Mac. While some users have reported successfully using our products on Mac using interfaces such as "Parallels", we cannot support such efforts as we do not have the facilities for testing and developing our products for these platforms. Notation Software products are developed and tested for Windows operating systems. You can visit here to see the system requirements.
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16. How can I change the pitch of a note?
Notation Composer allows you to change the pitch of notes by selecting them (simply left-clicking on the note(s) you want to change), and then using the up/down arrow keys to move the note(s) to the desired pitch in half-step increments, or use Page Up/Down to move them by an octave. Or you can "mouse drag" the note to it's desired pitch.
Notation Musician does not support changing the pitches of notes.
For further information on editing the performance of notes, please see the User's Guide in the topic "Editing the Music Notation".
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17. Why are no lyrics displayed for a MIDI file? What about karaoke (.kar) files?
Many MIDI files (.mid) do not have lyrics. If there are not lyrics in the MIDI file, then there are no lyrics for any Notation product to display. All Karaoke files (.kar) do have lyrics. Notation products will always display lyrics for Karaoke files, unless you have the "view lyrics" button (in the Text tab) toggled "off".
If you open a MIDI file that does not have lyrics, you can add lyrics yourself to that song using Notation.
If you open a MIDI file that you are certain has lyrics, but your Notation product does not display the lyrics, then use the Show/Hide Types of Objects command in the Format menu, and make sure that Show Lyrics has a checkmark by it.
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18. How can I use VST instruments with Notation products?
(The following instructions are taken from one of our Notation Software User Forum posts by David Jacklin. If you have further questions, you can view the entire discussion. )
1. Go to www.hermannseib.com and download the free VSTHost program. It's simple to run.
2. Then go to www.marblesound.com and download the free Maple Virtual Midi Cable. (Maple Midi Tools is a good idea too.)
3. I recommend Maple Midi because Hubi's Loopback Device doesn't support Vista, so you may have problems with it if you have or plan to have Vista.
4. Install the Maple Virtual Midi cable. This gives you four virtual ports that you can redirect the midi output of Composer to.
5. Reboot your computer.
6. Install and run VSTHost. The new version allows you to set up multiple programs under a menu, so you can have various combinations all ready to go.
7. Use the Device menu in VSTHost to point to whatever Maple Midi input you want. Set your Wave output to whatever device you have (your sound card).
8. Set up your VST's and VSTi's. VSTHost can load several of each in each program, so you can have a VSTi on one Midi channel with effects and another VSTi on another Midi channel with other effects.
9. IMPORTANT: VSTHost must be running and using the Midi device you want before running Composer.
10. Run Composer and make sure the Midi device manager recognizes the Maple Midi Virtual cables. (Shouldn't be a problem if they are installed properly.)
11. In Composer, load up your file and point your tracks that you wish to send to the VSTi to the proper Maple Midi output port. Joy should result.
After that, the only trick is to remember to run VSTHost BEFORE you run Composer.
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If you didn’t find the answer to your question here, you can visit our Knowledge Base for more answers. You can also submit a question to our friendly technical staff. You will receive your answer as soon as possible, within 48 hours but typically far less.
