Hello.  I haven't produced very many new Tempola rolls at all this
year, or written many people because I have been isolating myself,
studying musical theory and counterpoint for the past seven months.
We do intend to make a come back in 2000, and hope that the additional
education will enable me to produce better music.

I have quite a few arrangements on the ready and hope to have them
perforated next year.  There will be only a few issued at a time
though, so I do not become swamped and way behind like I did last year.
I simply over-promoted myself.  I asked for it -- and got it!  Lesson
learned!

I also have changed the method that I use to arrange player rolls.
Basically, I constructed an "electronic" version of the old QRS
"arranging" piano (the one with the stops), employing a computer with
an old empty player equipped with Pianomation.  It's ugly as sin, but
it does it's job perfectly.

To force Cakewalk Pro Audio to "step" with a foot pedal was not easy,
since the software was not designed to work that way.  It took many
hours of tweaking it and crashing the computer,  I had to reinstall
Cakewalk a couple of times, after I ruined the program!  It would be
really neat if it would write (MIDI in) directly to Richard Brandle's
"Wind" program, and then Cakewalk would not be needed.

There is a very sharp contrast between the arrangements created on the
step piano and my earlier efforts.  One fellow arranger stated, after
hearing my MIDI file "Avalon", "Your Avalon is very nice -- a lot like
a JLC roll".  _WOW_, what a compliment! *blush* That tells me that
maybe I am going in the right direction.

Some of my very first work I do not intend to perforate anymore, (and
I hope I never have to hear them again <chuckle>),

I arranged another arrangement on our step recording piano last week.
I had been "proof-reading" it on the sound card.  When done, I played
it back on the Pianomation, and several notes "double-repeated" and did
not sound correct.  However, it sounded just fine on the sound card.

It turns out that the screws holding down my MIDI strip in the keybed
had become loose, causing it to "double strike" on some notes, and
leaving short duration notes _under_ the intended MIDI notes.  This
doubling of notes was what was causing the Pianomation to double
strike.

These bad notes was strangely listed on the event list view in Cakewalk
as duration "0".  I had to go through the list and delete them; problem
solved.

It's very important when creating a roll from MIDI that there are no
notes laid on top of each other,  If you import such a MIDI file into
the "Wind" roll editor, sometimes the editor will ignore the note and
leave it out.

Sometimes you will get this "doubling" when you attempt to paste
a orchestrated MIDI File to one track to rearrange it for piano.
You have to get all of those double-notes out of there.

Cheers

Andy Taylor
Tempola Music Rolls