Piano hands no longer separated in MIDI :(

• Mar 17, 2012 - 23:38

I was working on a MS document that was started from a piano template (i.e. left and right hands separated in their respective staves), however when I save as MIDI and play it on the keyboard, the two hands are merged into a single channel and so cannot be separated in LH and RH when playing the piece on a keyboard.

I remember that when I saved this same document as MIDI in the past, the voices (channels) were separated, as expected. Can anyone help please? Thanks!


Comments

Just had a look at your file.

I don't know which version of MuseScore you are using, but version 1.2 exports it as a 2 track MIDI Format 1 file.

Which is what would be expected - MuseScore does not give the choice of exporting in Format 0 which interleaves the tracks together.

It is important not to confuse tracks and channels - a channel may have a number of tracks assigned to it usually for one set of instruments eg piano or strings - it would not be considered normal to split a piano part over 2 channels as you could end up with discontinuity when played on some synths.

Loading it into Sonar 3 presents the 2 tracks in the sequencer as expected, however both are assigned to Channel 1

If you need each hand on a separate channel you will need to change one to another MIDI channel using sequencing software of some kind.

But why would you want them on different channels? See above.

You don't say how you are playing the MIDI file on your keyboard but if you want to silence one of the tracks then you would need to mute one of them in either MuseScore or your sequencer.

Incidentally as I suspected, changing the MIDI file format to 0 results in MuseScore importing it on one stave.

So it is important to make sure any MIDI file you feed MuseScore is converted to Format 1 in sequencing software before you import it.

Finally you mention converting MIDI files to format 0 before importing - are you sure you don't mean Format 1 - Format 0 interleaves the tracks and channels and MuseScore would import it on one stave.

HTH
Michael

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