Topic by Vintermann

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Topic: Exported WAV files issues?

Hi,

I came across Pianoteq yesterday, after having looked for a long time for something that could render piano midi files into something reasonable (not necessarily in real time, even). I'm interested in old piano rolls, and there are many enthusiasts on the net who scan rolls and convert it into midi.

I was impressed by Pianoteq's sound, and the fact that it had a Linux version was also a factor in buying the Play version straight away.

But I have a problem with the exported files. Most applications can't deal with them. Gxine "plays" through them at quadruple speed without making any sound. Lame, the MP3 encoder, exits with "Unsupported data format: 0x0003". Only a few manage to play them back, such as VLC.

I seem to recall reading about similar issues somewhere, that maybe the WAV format as officially defined isn't the same as what everyone uses. Anyone else run into this? Is there any fix for this? I'd like to show some friends what Pianoteq can do to piano roll midi files, but sending them uncompressed wavs is kind of problematic (and anyway they too might get trouble playing them).

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

I've been rendering midi files to wave in Pianoteq for as long as I've had Pianoteq with no problems.  I have several hundred midi files from a web site that were converted from piano rolls - just rendered this one a few minutes ago in Pianoteq Play.

http://www.box.net/shared/zm8t6u8g4m

I used Goldwave to convert the midi file to mp3 (Layer-3 ACM, 44100 Hz, 160 kbps).

Can you play it?

Glenn

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Reply by Vintermann

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

I sure can, sounds great.

I've now done some more experimenting and reading: It appears Pianoteq's exported wav files use floating point format (WAVE_FORMAT_IEEE_FLOAT) instead of the more common on Linux, pcm format (WAVE_FORMAT_PCM). The Lame encoder just recently got support for it, that version isn't in Ubuntu yet :-/

I tried to convert it to the right kind of wav file with a program called sox, but that gave me the warning 

sox WARN wav: wave header missing FmtExt chunk

I don't claim to understand much of the WAV format description, but FmtExt is apparently the part of the header where it's supposed to declare whether it's a pcm or float-type wav. Might it be that Pianoteq3 doesn't write this?

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Try this wave editor.

http://goldwave.ca/

http://goldwave.com/

I've been using it for about nine years - once you buy the license, upgrades are free for life (not a typo).

A lifetime license is US 49.00 - a bargain.

It has many features and has a large user group, many that are using less well known wave formats.

Glenn

PS - unfortunately there is no Mac version.

Last edited by Glenn NK (18-07-2010 17:34)
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Reply by Vintermann

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

It's not that, I can work around it in easier ways than getting a shareware Windows program to work in Wine. (I see that Audacity reads it and exports it as MP3, for instance) It's just that it'd be nice to have in a wav file format that most programs can handle.

Reply by Philippe Guillaume

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Vintermann, during export (assuming you are using the standalone version) you can either check (below "Quality"):
- "Use current settings"
- "Use high quality settings".
In the first case you get 16 bits wav files, and 32 bits in the second case.

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Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Philippe Guillaume wrote:

Vintermann, during export (assuming you are using the standalone version) you can either check (below "Quality"):
- "Use current settings"
- "Use high quality settings".
In the first case you get 16 bits wav files, and 32 bits in the second case.

This could be the problem.

I re-rendered the file with the high quality setting (32 bit), and my wave editor opens and plays it.  Maybe shareware is worth what one pays for it.

Glenn

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Reply by Vintermann

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Thanks! Yeah, I'd used the high-quality export, didn't think there would be any disadvantages to that when the end target was a 128-bit mp3 anyway.

I've figured out how to get it to a 16-bit PCM wav, or directly to a 128-bit mp3 file. How to turn it into 32-bit PCM I haven't found out (is there even such a thing?), but it's not unlikely that programs that struggle with the original file will struggle with that as well.

I'll use Audacity for conversion for now, and wait for higher bit depth-aware apps to hit the repositories.

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Vintermann wrote:

How to turn it into 32-bit PCM I haven't found out (is there even such a thing?), but it's not unlikely that programs that struggle with the original file will struggle with that as well.

I'll use Audacity for conversion for now, and wait for higher bit depth-aware apps to hit the repositories.


I just converted the file to PCM signed, 32 bit stereo.

Glenn

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Reply by m.tarenskeen

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Vintermann wrote:

Hi,

I was impressed by Pianoteq's sound, and the fact that it had a Linux version was also a factor in buying the Play version straight away.

But I have a problem with the exported files. Most applications can't deal with them. Gxine "plays" through them at quadruple speed without making any sound. Lame, the MP3 encoder, exits with "Unsupported data format: 0x0003". Only a few manage to play them back, such as VLC.

I have been a Pianoteq/Linux user for some time now, and can't remember having trouble exporting to WAV and playing these wav files with my Linux players. But maybe I'm using other settings. What quality (samplerate, bits) are you exporting from Pianoteq?

I'll try again one of these days. Maybe something has changed after a recent Pianoteq update.

P.S: If you are using the Linux version, and just want to convert MIDI files to WAV you might be interested in running Pianoteq as a command line app, without GUI.  Run with --help to learn about the options.

Last edited by m.tarenskeen (18-07-2010 22:58)

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Reply by ToneF

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Just realised the 16 bit /- 32 bit conundrum could be solved with a little bit of Reaper and Lame encoding (?).
Might be wrong, but am about to give it a try (quite certain it worked the last time I did so!).

-Peace out!

"In dust we trust"

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Reply by Proteq

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Re: Exported WAV files issues?

Thought I would add a comment here from my latest experience.
I had recorded some MIDI sequences with Pianoteq & noticed the WAVE option. The conversion was easy enough in Win7. However WinMedia Player found a problem & could not play the wave.
After reading the comments here I used the higher quality setting..still wouldnt play.
Anyhow, I closed Pianoteq & tried again ..success....seems the file will not play without closing Pianoteq.

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