Hi all!
The program fof Android is cool, but there are two significant drawbacks.
1. In Free Play mode, when recording, the program cannot distinguish between hands and therefore saves all midi-data to a midi-file on one staff under the treble clef, and not as is customary in piano notation, on two staffs. All notes above C4 on the upper staff under the treble clef, and all notes below C4 on the lower staff under the bass clef.
2. It looks more than strange that the metronome can only be set in tens, for example: 50, 60, 70, 80, but there is no option to set, for example, 64 bpm.
Dear developers, fix/improve:
1. So that when recording there is a choice to record on one staff or two.
2. So that there is an option to set an arbitrary metronome value, but not just tens.
This will help correctly record the musical data into a midi-file and then convert the midi-file into a pdf-file for printing the musical notes.
Thank you!
Correct record of notes and metronome (Synthesia Android)
Search the forum before posting your idea. 
No explicit, hateful, or hurtful language. Nothing illegal.
No explicit, hateful, or hurtful language. Nothing illegal.
Would it make sense to have an option in free play for Synthesia to provide a metronome (settable to arbitrary BPM) and record based on the metronome?
How would you propose Synthesia determine what notes go on what staff? Arbitrary split at middle C? It is the same problem that Synthesia has now with producing sheet music from MIDI files. There is no information in the MIDI file to identify the hands that produced the notes.
How would you propose Synthesia determine what notes go on what staff? Arbitrary split at middle C? It is the same problem that Synthesia has now with producing sheet music from MIDI files. There is no information in the MIDI file to identify the hands that produced the notes.
A. Did you know that Synthesia's Free Play recording system lets you record up to six tracks that play back together?
Instead of playing both hands during a recording, one workaround you can use is to record the right hand part in one pass, then record the left hand part in a second pass. Then export the recording with exactly two tracks.
Any time Synthesia opens a MIDI file that has two tracks in it, Synthesia will automatically assign the part with the lower pitch range to the left hand and the part with the higher pitch range to the right hand.
B. Did you know that Synthesia has a tool to help you split a single track into left and right hand parts? In the Support section of this site, see the page Splitting the piano part.
If you are recording a piece of music where the left and right hand parts can be easily split under middle C or another pitch, then perhaps you might consider playing both hands during the recording process, then later using the splitting tool to split the part into left and right hands.
However, be aware that if the left and right hand parts have overlapping pitch ranges, you'll have to do more adjustments in the splitting tool by dragging additional diagonal split lines or by clicking on individual notes.
Also be aware that the information you create about how to split the track into two hands is not saved in the MIDI file, it is only stored as part of Synthesia's settings.
Additional information: As jimhenry is describing, a MIDI file doesn't contain information about staves or clefs, just what keys on the piano keyboard were pressed. When Synthesia generates music notation from a single-track piano part, it isn't able to split the notes into two staves very well. That's why Synthesia has a tool to let you split a track into two hands, so you can customize the hands split yourself.
_____
Galf wrote: ↑08-26-24 1:26 amThe program fof Android is cool, but there are two significant drawbacks. [...]
2. It looks more than strange that the metronome can only be set in tens, for example: 50, 60, 70, 80, but there is no option to set, for example, 64 bpm. [...]
Dear developers, fix/improve: [...] So that there is an option to set an arbitrary metronome value, but not just tens.
jimhenry: be aware that Synthesia's Free Play mode already has a settable tempo, already clicks a metronome during recording, and already records based on the metronome. (When you export the recording, you have the option to "snap to nearest" duration values of sixteenth notes, eighth notes, or quarter notes, in other words, durations of quarter beats, half beats, or whole beats of the tempo you used during recording.)
However, the on screen + and - buttons that you can click or tap to change the tempo cause the tempo to change in steps of 10 beats per minute. You have to hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and click the + or - buttons to change in steps of 1. So on an Android device without a typing keyboard connected, it appears you can only change the tempo in steps of 10.
If you've got a MIDI keyboard connected, you could assign the "Speed Up (small step)" and "Speed Down (small step)" shortcuts to something on the keyboard. (Say, a pedal+note combination makes it a little less likely you'll trigger it accidentally. Or one of the CC buttons on a MIDI controller would be ideal.)
That said, it's not easy to find these answers. One small improvement I've wanted to make for ages and decided last year is small enough to sneak into 10.10 will be a dragging gesture on the tempo indicator to finely adjust it in 1% increments. That feature is only a dozen or so lines from the top of the list now.
(This is such a short answer because everything else you said was perfectly spot-on already!)
Hi all!
Thank you all for such detailed and comprehensive answers!
I want to tell you what prompted me to write on this forum and how it all happened.
The thing is that my daughter studied piano at a music school for 9 years and now she has studied at a music college for 2 years and she is close to becoming a professional musician.
For her birthday I gave her a new Android tablet Tab18 with a large screen. Of course, I saw the program Synthesia on YouTube and now I decided that it was time to install Synthesia on the new tablet and I installed it.
Next we connected the tablet in the following way Digital Piano Kawai CA67 -> MTU-10 MIDI to USB Converter -> USB A to USB Type-C OTG adapter - > Tab18 tablet. Everything worked out and the connection was successful.
The first thing my daughter liked was, what's in Free Play mode the ascending colored rectangles which appeared in time with the pressing of the keys on the piano, and floated across the screen, and importantly, without visual delay. It was really cool.
Okay, now she decided in Free Play mode to play and record what she's currently working on: J.S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue G Sharp Minor Book 1, Size 6/8, 132 bpm (naturally with both hands at the same time). But first she told me - Daddy, the metronome only switches in tens. 140 bpm is too fast, and 130 bpm is too slow, and I need 132 bpm. - Hmm... It was very strange... (I didn't know that the metronome can be switched more accurately from the keyboard (after learning about this from the post above, I now ordered a cheap Chinese Bluetooth mini-keyboard)).
Well, okay. Now she in Free Play mode played and recorded it in 130 bpm. And we listened to it. The result exceeded all expectations. Synthesia very accurately recognized the musical piece: tempo, duration of notes, musical dynamics and nuances, and even pressing the pedal. It was almost impossible to hear the difference between a live play and what Synthesia recorded. It was great!
Next we decided to save the recording in MIDI-file, but then a small bug was discovered. The Synthesia didn't want to save the MIDI-file to the path we selected /storage/emulated/0/MIDI. When I clicked the Save button, nothing happened (all permissions were granted to the program). But when we returned the default path /storage/emulated/0/Music, Synthesia successfully saved the MIDI-file.
Sometimes my daughter does homework on solfeggio or harmony. She has to write down, for example, scales or interval resolutions or chord progressions. She does it the old-fashioned way, with a pencil in a paper music notebook. Obsolete technologies of the XX century.
And then an idea came to us, what if play a scale or interval resolution or chord progression, in Free Play mode make a recording and save the recording to MIDI-file. Then open this MIDI-file in a third-party music editor on your tablet, then shown in visual representation musical notes save in PDF-file and print notes. The ending result of the process looks like this: played the piano - received printed notes.
And my daughter played the scale and interval resolution and chord progression and recorded it in Free Play mode and then she saved it to a MIDI-file and then opened this MIDI-file in a third-party music editor on her tablet. And she told me, daddy, all is good, but all the notes are on one staff under the treble clef, and this doesn't correspond to the rules of piano notation for two hands, and this is a very sadly.
And indeed, if you open the MIDI-file in the third-party music editor supplied with it, in the same third-party music editor or open a MIDI-file for piano downloaded from the Internet, you can see that the MIDI-file is made in accordance with the rules of notation for piano. All notes above C4 note, that is, presumably for the right hand, are written on the upper staff under the treble clef, and all notes below C4 note, that is, presumably for the left hand, are written on the lower staff under the bass clef. I don't know how a MIDI-file is structured and how it's made, but other MIDI-files that were opened in a third-party music editor on a tablet looked visually correct, in accordance with the rules of musical notation for piano, for two hands, with two staffs with treble and bass clefs. But the MIDI-file created by Synthesia, opened in the same third-party music editor on the tablet, looked visually incorrect and didn't comply with the rules of musical notation for piano, for two hands, and was with one staff with treble clef.
My daughter told me that there are certain rules for writing notes for piano, for two hands, which she was learned at music school. If I understood it correctly, then according to these rules:
All notes below C4, that is, the notes of the first octave C are written on the lower staff with a bass clef. As a rule, these notes are played with the left hand.
The notes of the small octave C3-H3 and the large octave C2-H2 are written on the staff under the bass clef.
The notes of the contra octave C1-H1 are written in the same way as the notes of the large octave, but with the addition of the 8ub sign. If the notes of the contra octave come from the beginning of the staff, the 8ub sign is placed under the bass clef; if after the notes of the contra octave on the staff there are notes of the small octave or large octave, then a regular bass clef without the 8ub sign is placed before them. If the notes of the contra octave appear in any place on the staff, then the 8ub sign is placed under the first note of the contra octave, the following notes of the contra octave are accompanied by a dashed line consisting of a dash, which continues throughout the sequence of notes of the contra octave.
The notes of the subcontra octave A0-H0 are written as notes of the contra octave with additional lines below and the 8ub sign added. If the notes of the subcontra octave come from the beginning of the staff, then the 8ub sign is placed below the bass clef, if after the notes of the subcontra octave come notes of the contra octave, then nothing changes, if after the notes of the subcontra octave or contra octave on the staff there are notes of the large octave or small octave, then a regular bass clef without the 8ub sign is placed before them. If the notes of the subcontra octave appear in any place on the staff, then the sign 8ub is placed under the first note of the subcontra octave, the following notes of the subcontra octave are accompanied by a dashed line consisting of a dash, which continues throughout the sequence of notes of the subcontra octave or contra octave.
All notes above C4, that is, the notes of the first octave C are written on the upper staff with the treble clef. As a rule, these notes are played with the right hand.
The notes of the first octave C4-H4 and the second octave C5-H5 are written on staff under the treble clef (additional lines from the top of the staff begin with the note La (A5) of the second octave, which continue to the note Si (H5) of the second octave.
The notes of the third octave C6-H6, the notes of the fourth octave C7-H7 and the note of the fifth octave C8 are written with the addition of the 8va sign. If the notes of the third, fourth or fifth octave come at the beginning of the staff, the 8va sign is placed above the treble clef. If the notes of the third, fourth or fifth octave appear in any place on the staff, then the 8va sign is placed above the first note of these octaves and accompanies these notes with a dashed line consisting of dashes until the end of the notes of these octaves.
More detailed and more correct about these rules can be found in the textbook on solfeggio and musical notation.
If you could teach Synthesia a more accurate metronome and teach separate the left and right hands in a MIDI-file according to the rules of musical notation for the piano, then Synthesia would be develop and become even more powerful and functional.
1. Synthesia would continue to perform its main function - learning beginners to play the piano.
2. Now Synthesia would be very useful for more advanced musicians and students who are professionally involved in music, to simplify their tasks associated with routine operations related to writing notes. And Synthesia would do it brilliantly.
3. For people like me. I have been learning to play the piano on my own for 6-7 years and have achieved some success in this. I can play some light pop-music or a rock-ballad on the piano and sing a song to my accompaniment for my own pleasure. But since I'm just a music lover, I don't know the notes at all. I don't know how to read them, let alone write them. Now if I could see printed notes played by me on the piano thanks to Synthesia, it would be just fantastic and real XI century technology.
Bach and Beethoven couldn't even dream of this! In fact, computer technologies are increasingly penetrating our lives and inevitably changing them. Whether this is for better or for worse is hard to say and only time will tell. And Synthesia in this sense is at the forefront of this process, because it offers a absolutely alternative way of learning to play the piano, for EVERYONE, one that has never existed in the history. And this is its undeniable advantage. Just imagine: New feature of the program Synthesia! Finally see the notes that you play! That would be just beautiful!
Okay. That's all I wanted to say dear friends.
English is not my native language. I learned it at school, then independently on the Internet and used Google Translate a little. Therefore, if I have unwittingly made lexical, syntactic, spelling or any other errors, then please excuse me.
P.S.
Apparently, the process of creating a MIDI-file that a third-party notation editor on a tablet will correctly interpret in accordance with the rules of musical notation for piano, for two hands looks like this:
Synthesia should create two tracks in the MIDI-file. On the first track, Synthesia should record all notes above C4, indicating their pitch. On the second track, Synthesia should record all notes below C4, indicating their pitch. It's probably necessary to specify that these tracks are a pair, if the structure of the MIDI-file technically allows such a possibility.
And then it's up to the third-party notation editor on the tablet how interpret such a two-track recording in a MIDI-file. How to organize treble and bass clefs, use additional lines or 8ua/8ub signs and how apply all other rules of musical notation for piano.
This will be a matter for a third-party notation editor on a tablet, but not for Synthesia. Synthesia only needs to record a two-track MIDI-file with notes above and below C4 note. I guess it's not very difficult from a programming point of view.
Best wishes to all and have a nice days!
Thank you all for such detailed and comprehensive answers!
I want to tell you what prompted me to write on this forum and how it all happened.
The thing is that my daughter studied piano at a music school for 9 years and now she has studied at a music college for 2 years and she is close to becoming a professional musician.
For her birthday I gave her a new Android tablet Tab18 with a large screen. Of course, I saw the program Synthesia on YouTube and now I decided that it was time to install Synthesia on the new tablet and I installed it.
Next we connected the tablet in the following way Digital Piano Kawai CA67 -> MTU-10 MIDI to USB Converter -> USB A to USB Type-C OTG adapter - > Tab18 tablet. Everything worked out and the connection was successful.
The first thing my daughter liked was, what's in Free Play mode the ascending colored rectangles which appeared in time with the pressing of the keys on the piano, and floated across the screen, and importantly, without visual delay. It was really cool.
Okay, now she decided in Free Play mode to play and record what she's currently working on: J.S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue G Sharp Minor Book 1, Size 6/8, 132 bpm (naturally with both hands at the same time). But first she told me - Daddy, the metronome only switches in tens. 140 bpm is too fast, and 130 bpm is too slow, and I need 132 bpm. - Hmm... It was very strange... (I didn't know that the metronome can be switched more accurately from the keyboard (after learning about this from the post above, I now ordered a cheap Chinese Bluetooth mini-keyboard)).
Well, okay. Now she in Free Play mode played and recorded it in 130 bpm. And we listened to it. The result exceeded all expectations. Synthesia very accurately recognized the musical piece: tempo, duration of notes, musical dynamics and nuances, and even pressing the pedal. It was almost impossible to hear the difference between a live play and what Synthesia recorded. It was great!
Next we decided to save the recording in MIDI-file, but then a small bug was discovered. The Synthesia didn't want to save the MIDI-file to the path we selected /storage/emulated/0/MIDI. When I clicked the Save button, nothing happened (all permissions were granted to the program). But when we returned the default path /storage/emulated/0/Music, Synthesia successfully saved the MIDI-file.
Sometimes my daughter does homework on solfeggio or harmony. She has to write down, for example, scales or interval resolutions or chord progressions. She does it the old-fashioned way, with a pencil in a paper music notebook. Obsolete technologies of the XX century.
And then an idea came to us, what if play a scale or interval resolution or chord progression, in Free Play mode make a recording and save the recording to MIDI-file. Then open this MIDI-file in a third-party music editor on your tablet, then shown in visual representation musical notes save in PDF-file and print notes. The ending result of the process looks like this: played the piano - received printed notes.
And my daughter played the scale and interval resolution and chord progression and recorded it in Free Play mode and then she saved it to a MIDI-file and then opened this MIDI-file in a third-party music editor on her tablet. And she told me, daddy, all is good, but all the notes are on one staff under the treble clef, and this doesn't correspond to the rules of piano notation for two hands, and this is a very sadly.
And indeed, if you open the MIDI-file in the third-party music editor supplied with it, in the same third-party music editor or open a MIDI-file for piano downloaded from the Internet, you can see that the MIDI-file is made in accordance with the rules of notation for piano. All notes above C4 note, that is, presumably for the right hand, are written on the upper staff under the treble clef, and all notes below C4 note, that is, presumably for the left hand, are written on the lower staff under the bass clef. I don't know how a MIDI-file is structured and how it's made, but other MIDI-files that were opened in a third-party music editor on a tablet looked visually correct, in accordance with the rules of musical notation for piano, for two hands, with two staffs with treble and bass clefs. But the MIDI-file created by Synthesia, opened in the same third-party music editor on the tablet, looked visually incorrect and didn't comply with the rules of musical notation for piano, for two hands, and was with one staff with treble clef.
My daughter told me that there are certain rules for writing notes for piano, for two hands, which she was learned at music school. If I understood it correctly, then according to these rules:
All notes below C4, that is, the notes of the first octave C are written on the lower staff with a bass clef. As a rule, these notes are played with the left hand.
The notes of the small octave C3-H3 and the large octave C2-H2 are written on the staff under the bass clef.
The notes of the contra octave C1-H1 are written in the same way as the notes of the large octave, but with the addition of the 8ub sign. If the notes of the contra octave come from the beginning of the staff, the 8ub sign is placed under the bass clef; if after the notes of the contra octave on the staff there are notes of the small octave or large octave, then a regular bass clef without the 8ub sign is placed before them. If the notes of the contra octave appear in any place on the staff, then the 8ub sign is placed under the first note of the contra octave, the following notes of the contra octave are accompanied by a dashed line consisting of a dash, which continues throughout the sequence of notes of the contra octave.
The notes of the subcontra octave A0-H0 are written as notes of the contra octave with additional lines below and the 8ub sign added. If the notes of the subcontra octave come from the beginning of the staff, then the 8ub sign is placed below the bass clef, if after the notes of the subcontra octave come notes of the contra octave, then nothing changes, if after the notes of the subcontra octave or contra octave on the staff there are notes of the large octave or small octave, then a regular bass clef without the 8ub sign is placed before them. If the notes of the subcontra octave appear in any place on the staff, then the sign 8ub is placed under the first note of the subcontra octave, the following notes of the subcontra octave are accompanied by a dashed line consisting of a dash, which continues throughout the sequence of notes of the subcontra octave or contra octave.
All notes above C4, that is, the notes of the first octave C are written on the upper staff with the treble clef. As a rule, these notes are played with the right hand.
The notes of the first octave C4-H4 and the second octave C5-H5 are written on staff under the treble clef (additional lines from the top of the staff begin with the note La (A5) of the second octave, which continue to the note Si (H5) of the second octave.
The notes of the third octave C6-H6, the notes of the fourth octave C7-H7 and the note of the fifth octave C8 are written with the addition of the 8va sign. If the notes of the third, fourth or fifth octave come at the beginning of the staff, the 8va sign is placed above the treble clef. If the notes of the third, fourth or fifth octave appear in any place on the staff, then the 8va sign is placed above the first note of these octaves and accompanies these notes with a dashed line consisting of dashes until the end of the notes of these octaves.
More detailed and more correct about these rules can be found in the textbook on solfeggio and musical notation.
If you could teach Synthesia a more accurate metronome and teach separate the left and right hands in a MIDI-file according to the rules of musical notation for the piano, then Synthesia would be develop and become even more powerful and functional.
1. Synthesia would continue to perform its main function - learning beginners to play the piano.
2. Now Synthesia would be very useful for more advanced musicians and students who are professionally involved in music, to simplify their tasks associated with routine operations related to writing notes. And Synthesia would do it brilliantly.
3. For people like me. I have been learning to play the piano on my own for 6-7 years and have achieved some success in this. I can play some light pop-music or a rock-ballad on the piano and sing a song to my accompaniment for my own pleasure. But since I'm just a music lover, I don't know the notes at all. I don't know how to read them, let alone write them. Now if I could see printed notes played by me on the piano thanks to Synthesia, it would be just fantastic and real XI century technology.
Bach and Beethoven couldn't even dream of this!
In fact, computer technologies are increasingly penetrating our lives and inevitably changing them. Whether this is for better or for worse is hard to say and only time will tell. And Synthesia in this sense is at the forefront of this process, because it offers a absolutely alternative way of learning to play the piano, for EVERYONE, one that has never existed in the history. And this is its undeniable advantage. Just imagine: New feature of the program Synthesia! Finally see the notes that you play! That would be just beautiful! Okay. That's all I wanted to say dear friends.
English is not my native language. I learned it at school, then independently on the Internet and used Google Translate a little. Therefore, if I have unwittingly made lexical, syntactic, spelling or any other errors, then please excuse me.
P.S.
Apparently, the process of creating a MIDI-file that a third-party notation editor on a tablet will correctly interpret in accordance with the rules of musical notation for piano, for two hands looks like this:
Synthesia should create two tracks in the MIDI-file. On the first track, Synthesia should record all notes above C4, indicating their pitch. On the second track, Synthesia should record all notes below C4, indicating their pitch. It's probably necessary to specify that these tracks are a pair, if the structure of the MIDI-file technically allows such a possibility.
And then it's up to the third-party notation editor on the tablet how interpret such a two-track recording in a MIDI-file. How to organize treble and bass clefs, use additional lines or 8ua/8ub signs and how apply all other rules of musical notation for piano.
This will be a matter for a third-party notation editor on a tablet, but not for Synthesia. Synthesia only needs to record a two-track MIDI-file with notes above and below C4 note. I guess it's not very difficult from a programming point of view.
Best wishes to all and have a nice days!