Mechanical Music Digest  Archives
You Are Not Logged In Login/Get New Account
Please Log In. Accounts are free!
Logged In users are granted additional features including a more current version of the Archives and a simplified process for submitting articles.
Home Archives Calendar Gallery Store Links Info

End-of-Year Fundraising Drive In Progress. Please visit our home page to see this and other announcements: https://www.mmdigest.com     Thank you. --Jody

MMD > Archives > February 2005 > 2005.02.20 > 04Prev  Next


TallStick Audio-to-MIDI Computer Program
By John A. Tuttle

Hi All,  As one who has always been interested in converting audio to
MIDI, I bought the TallStick TS-AudioToMIDI program in September 2004.
I tried for about six hours to get it to work acceptably.  The 'test
case' was a relatively simple audio recording of a piano solo, and the
piano was tuned to A-440.

Looking at the graphical representation of the music as it was playing
and being converted, the problem seemed pretty clear to me.  While you
could often hear that there were only three or four notes playing at
any given moment in time, the chart indicated that there were dozens of
notes being played.  As I played with the filters and level controls,
which are relatively straightforward, it struck me that a central
problem with the program was that it was listening to the music 'from
the ground up'.  In other words, it was listening to even the slightest
bit of noise (or sound), so it picked up every single harmonic.

What I found somewhat interesting was the volume (or db) level of the
harmonics.  I thought that I would be able to 'see' the notes fairly
clearly as they played, but such was not the case.  So, I tried another
test.  I took a MIDI file and converted it to an MP3 file.  Then I
tried to convert that file back to a MIDI file.  My figuring was that
perhaps there wouldn't be so many harmonics.

Unfortunately, the results were even worse.  I could only figure that
with a real piano, being played by a real person, the volume of each
note is slightly different, so they stand out a bit more.  With the
converted MIDI file, the notes were all identical in volume, and the
blending of the notes still created numerous harmonics.

Bottom line: I gave up on the program.  I suppose I should have read the
license agreement before making the purchase.  Anytime a manufacturer
states in capital letters that something is sold "AS IS" and that
"NO WARRANTEE OF ANY KIND IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED", you can be sure
that there is a problem somewhere.  So... Buyer Beware!

John A Tuttle
Player-Care.com
Brick, New Jersey, USA


(Message sent Sun 20 Feb 2005, 12:25:33 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.)

Key Words in Subject:  Audio-to-MIDI, Computer, Program, TallStick

Home    Archives    Calendar    Gallery    Store    Links    Info   


Enter text below to search the MMD Website with Google



CONTACT FORM: Click HERE to write to the editor, or to post a message about Mechanical Musical Instruments to the MMD

Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are those of the individual authors and may not represent those of the editors. Compilation copyright 1995-2024 by Jody Kravitz.

Please read our Republication Policy before copying information from or creating links to this web site.

Click HERE to contact the webmaster regarding problems with the website.

Please support publication of the MMD by donating online

Please Support Publication of the MMD with your Generous Donation

Pay via PayPal

No PayPal account required

                                     
Translate This Page