Tutorials > Making your midi files

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#259178 by unknown[4] at 2005-06-21 21:02:33 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Introduction

In this tutorial I will explain the basics of making your own midi file. The program I will be using is 'Guitar Pro 4.1.0', but note that we will NOT be using tabs to make the midi, but standard notation. In this first tutorial I presume that you have absolutely NO knowledge of making midi files, or/and using this program. This firts tutorial is meant to show you what you can do, and show you how to set up the program and your first document. This tutorial is NOT meant for people who know how to write notes... if you kinda know what you're doing, or you want to run through it again, this is where you can start. Otherwise, move over to the second part of the tutorial (when it's there...)

Menu

First, a list off all menu options (the ones in my menu...). It uses the image above. I'll describe what everything does..

1 - Create a new (empty) file

2 - Open an existing file

3 - Save the current file

4 - Information about the current document. You can fill it in here... title, artist, and alot more.

5 - Properties of the current selected track. You will only want to use it if you use guitar notation.

6 - Print the current document

7 - See how the current document would be printed out

8 - Undo, as in all programs you use

9 - Redo, as in all programs you use

10 - Insert a bar on the current location

11 - Cut bar, bar numbers will be asked

12 - Copy bars, bar numbers will be asked

13 - Past bars on current location

14 - Add a track

15 - Delete the current track

16 - Properties of the program. I suggest you run through it.

17 - Play file, press on the arrow down to select where you want to start

18 - Move to the very begin of the document

19 - Move to the very end of the document

20 - One step back, using bars, notes and rests

21 - Step forward, same as 20

22 - Repeat the document while playing

23 - Metronome, ticks while playing the document, on every 4th note.

24 - A number of clicks (depending on the number of 4th notes in each measure) before it actually starts playing

25 - Speed in which the document is played

26 - Speed is muliplied by this number when checked

27 - Key Signature

28 - Select measure type

29 - Repeat open... must be followed by a repeat close

30 - Goes here the # time you played. The first time you'll set a 1, so it goes there the first time it's played. If there's a 2 somewhere else, it'll go there the second time.

31 - Repeat close... must be opened by a repeat open. You can set the number of times it is to be repeated.

32 - Double bar.. can be nice to show a different theme starts.

33 - Add mark

34 - Mark list

35 - Go to previous mark

36 - Go to mark... makes you select a mark.

37 - Go to next mark

38 - Set volume of current note.. I don't like this method of setting volumes, because you can't see what's going on at a later time.

39 - Use volume for the whole chord.

40 - Set current volume as default.

41 - If checked, you can see all tracks. If not, you can only see the selected track.

42 - The document scrolls vertically.

43 - The document scrolls horizontally.

44 - Move the instrument part to the top/bottem

45 - Show standard notation.

46 - Show percussion 'codes', only works on a percussion track.

47 - Show fretboard (guitar)

48 - Show keyboard

49 - Note (rest) duration

50 - Dotted note. The note is 1,5 of it's original length.

51 - N-tuplet... the program calls it that, so I'll just stick with that for now.

52 - Rest

53 - Notelength

54 - Dotted note

55 - N-tuplet (yeah again

).. I move the part this is in down sometimes, when I use it alot.

56 - Tie note.. keeps playing the previous note, this way you're able to play something while another note keeps playing.

57 - Chord... gives you a nice overview of pretty much all chords.. note that it displays them for guitar.

58 - Text... you can add text to notes.

59 - Mix table.. very important, you can do alot here, but I'll cover that later.

60 - Left hand fingering (guitar)

61 - Right hand fingering (guitar)

62 - Downstroke (guitar)

63 - Upstroke (guitar)

64 - Pickstroke up (guitar)

65 - Pickstroke down (guitar)

66 - Move the current tone up one semitone

67 - Move the current tone down one semitone

68 - Shift up (guitar), move the note to another string.

69 - Shift down (guitar), move the note to another string.

Wow.. that was quite the list

I know that most of these are explained in the program itself too, but in the future i'm gonna use the numbers.
Open guitar pro. Make sure the standard notation (45) is checked! We will not turn off the guitar notation, if you don't know what it means, just ignore it.

Quick setup

I presume you can get the program to play sound yourself (make sure you have some notes added when testing). You can set your midi table by going to Options --> Midi setup. In the midi-output part, make sure that at least one port is configured. Leave the instrument patch to General midi. Play around with the devices, see which one you like best.

Your first notes

Ok.. now we'll write a little bit... just to show you how it works. Select the G note on the standard notation lines. It's the note on the second line from below, if you didn't know. Select the second icon from the left in the length selection part. add the G note by pressing any number from 0-9 on your keyboard. Note that it does NOT make a difference which key you press. If you press more keys, you can see the note being added more times. The same note is being places on more positions on the guitar, but it's no use for piano (try playing the same note twice at the same time.. it don't work). Add some more notes... my result was this:

Note that I've used different note lengts... and I even moved the 'A' note half a semitone up twice! After this little step up for Guitar Pro, you should be able to make a file somewhat the same as the file I just made.

Upcoming tutorials

In future tutorial, we will be making our first songs. For example, we're gonna use 2 normal instruments, a bass instrument and a simple drum. We will also be exporting that file to midi. I will be explaining some of the basics of music, for those who don't understand them already. We're gonna have a quick look at the notes you can choose from, and how tones sound together with eachother and how you can feel this coming. (Note that I'm not gonna do all this in just ONE other tutorial

.. and that it'll take you weeks to learn, but years to master).

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