Errors after importing a MIDI file

• Jan 31, 2023 - 05:08

I am attaching the Musescore file that resulted after importing a MIDI file. In measure 16, lines 2 and 3, you should see a staccato half note (which makes no sense). The actual note event in the MIDI file has a precise quarter note.

I would like to know how to get Musescore 4 to render these (and other notes) correctly. Hand-editing is tedious and error prone, as it is easy to miss some of them.

Attachment Size
TrioSonata-Dmaj.mscz 38.2 KB

Comments

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I should have been more clear: in Version 3, when importing a MIDI file the MIDI import panel opens up and then by unchecking the Simplify durations box the staccato half notes become quarter notes.

I am looking for a way to make the same thing happen in version 4.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Thanks for letting me know Jojo-schmitz. So does that mean the only way to get rid of those staccato marks right now is to do it manually??

I am perplexed why musescore would take a note that has the exact length of a quarter note and choose to render it as a staccato half note. That makes my head swim!

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

"The actual note event in the MIDI file has a precise quarter note."

Midi does not have that information. It only has a list of instructions of the time to start a note and the time to end a note. It doesn't have any concept of notation and can't differentiate between a full length quarter note and a staccato half note that is sounded for only half its written duration (which is how a musician would likely interpret a staccato half note) as they would both have the same start time and end time. Musescore tries to guess how midi durations map to notation but can not be expected to get it right all the time. And that is why midi is not a good format for transmitting notation; too much information is lost when the midi is created.

In reply to by SteveBlower

I understand what you are saying SteveBlower. The real give-away that this is indicative of a bug in musescore is that MS renders most of the notes correctly. That is, eighth notes are not rendered as staccato quarter notes, sixteenth notes are not rendered as staccato eighth notes, etc. Only in a few cases is the rendering inappropriate. Because all the notes in the MIDI file I provided are exact subdivisions of the indicated division parameter in the file, none of the note lengths are ambiguous.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Hm, I am a little rusty on the precise MIDI file format these days, but as I recall one component of the header chuck is a value that specifies the number of "ticks" per quarter note. If it is, say, 96, then a note with a length of 96 ticks is precisely one quarter note. In the file I recently posted I believe it is set to 360, so the quarter notes are 360 ticks.

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