Topic by AnsgarSchaefer

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Topic: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

My usual recording workflow is playing the piece at my stage piano (in whatever tempo it is). The piano is connected to pianoteq. Afterwards I simply export the midi, and try to have fun with it. However, it seems like any midi is exportet with the information "tempo = 120, time signature = 4 /4" enconded, no matter whatever the tempo of thesong I'm actually playing is.
Any DAW I use to open this midi then acts as if it was in fact 120 bpm (which means that the tempo of the melodies etc is still right, but the time signature used by the DAW doesn't match anymore). Setting the correct tempo in the DAW then makes my recorded midi faster or slower than it is supposed to be.

How can I tell pianoteq to give the right tempo information with the midi export? I had the metronome at the right tempo, if that is the answer.

Greetings,
Ansgar

Reply by sven karma

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

The modartt midi player doesn't seem to recognize or add embedded tempo information. From my fun few days importing a midi file into various notation programs, not all of them do.

Hopefully someone'll prove me wrong, but my suspicion is that there isn't a direct workaround to your issue.

Reply by AnsgarSchaefer

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

sven karma wrote:

The modartt midi player doesn't seem to recognize or add embedded tempo information. From my fun few days importing a midi file into various notation programs, not all of them do.

Hopefully someone'll prove me wrong, but my suspicion is that there isn't a direct workaround to your issue.

Do you know how one can "indirectly" edit the information in the midi files?

Reply by rtournem

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

Hello,

your trouble comes from the way time is defined in midi files: they are ticks. I go deeper into ticks at the end of the post. To get a global understanding, BPM is not "found" but imposed by the midi file creator. Then ticks are deduced from the BPM (+ another number). A standard is to set by default BPM=120. The default signature 4/4 is optional, it changes nothing regarding timestamps.

A good practise any DAW should do is to propose to the user to choose between scaling the BPM of the imported midi file to the global BPM of the song (changing the speed of the imported file) or leaving the exact timestamp (keeping the speed). It does not depend on Pianoteq.

More on ticks:
In midi files, any event (note-on, note-off...) is played after a certain number of regularly spaced ticks from the previous events (in computer science ticks are called clocks). To know how many ticks you need to count before launching the event, two numbers are defined in midi files: TPQN (ticks per quarter note, also called PPQN, pulse per quarter note) and MicroTempo (number of microseconds between two quarter note).

The classic Beats Per Minute, BPM = 60,000,000/MicroTempo.

Consequently if you know that an event occurs 2.314 sec after the last one, you need to wait the following number of ticks:

ticks = 2.314 * 1e6 * TPQN / MicroTempo

or, if you want to use directly BPM:

ticks = 2.314 * TPQN * BPM / 60

To sum up, Pianoteq defines arbitrarily TPQN and BPM and compute the number of ticks given your performance when writing the midi file.

Reply by dazric

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

So, if I import any MIDI file recorded in Pianoteq to a DAW and want it played back exactly as recorded (regardless of the tempo set in Pianoteq), should I always keep the DAW tempo as 120? I've had problems with incorrect tempo with imported MIDI from Pianoteq, but often it's not too much of an issue because I mostly use Pianoteq standalone for rough sketches.

Last edited by dazric (16-12-2021 12:31)

Reply by rtournem

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

Yes (if the DAW does not let you any choice and that you observe discrepancies).

Small tip : Pianoteq record midi files at the BPM set in the metronome section (of course I only talk about the standalone version). If you know the BPM at wich you want to import your file, you can fiddle with the metronome BPM before recording in Pianoteq.

Reply by dazric

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

Ah, I see. I think I'll just leave the Pianoteq metronome at 120 for simplicity. If I want to record anything to a click I usually do that in a DAW anyway.

Reply by AnsgarSchaefer

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

rtournem wrote:

Hello,

your trouble comes from the way time is defined in midi files: they are ticks. I go deeper into ticks at the end of the post. To get a global understanding, BPM is not "found" but imposed by the midi file creator. Then ticks are deduced from the BPM (+ another number). A standard is to set by default BPM=120. The default signature 4/4 is optional, it changes nothing regarding timestamps.

A good practise any DAW should do is to propose to the user to choose between scaling the BPM of the imported midi file to the global BPM of the song (changing the speed of the imported file) or leaving the exact timestamp (keeping the speed). It does not depend on Pianoteq.

I figured that the BPM is imposed (or in case of pianoteq, just left at the standard ticks).

I try opening the midi with two DAWs: Waveform and Cakewalk: In both I can import the file, and it then is played at the right speed. The problem is that, doing so, the DAW automatically changes the global BPM to 120 BPM. When I change the global BPM of the DAW back to 138 (because I want to work with my recording, for example to quantize the input to global 138 bpm) then the speed is changed (essentially your first option).

Greetings
Ansgar

Reply by AnsgarSchaefer

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

rtournem wrote:

Yes (if the DAW does not let you any choice and that you observe discrepancies).

Small tip : Pianoteq record midi files at the BPM set in the metronome section (of course I only talk about the standalone version). If you know the BPM at wich you want to import your file, you can fiddle with the metronome BPM before recording in Pianoteq.

If I understand you correctly, then the BPM is set in the midi file in an up to date version of Pianoteq? I tried it for 5.8.1 (wich is the latest version I have), and there it doesn't yet work (However, 5.8.1 is already 5 years old).

Reply by julien

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

AnsgarSchaefer wrote:

If I understand you correctly, then the BPM is set in the midi file in an up to date version of Pianoteq? I tried it for 5.8.1 (wich is the latest version I have), and there it doesn't yet work (However, 5.8.1 is already 5 years old).

Yes, v7 saves the current metronome value.

julien's Website

Reply by AnsgarSchaefer

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

julien wrote:
AnsgarSchaefer wrote:

If I understand you correctly, then the BPM is set in the midi file in an up to date version of Pianoteq? I tried it for 5.8.1 (wich is the latest version I have), and there it doesn't yet work (However, 5.8.1 is already 5 years old).

Yes, v7 saves the current metronome value.

Might be worth switching ...

Reply by dazric

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

AnsgarSchaefer wrote:
julien wrote:
AnsgarSchaefer wrote:

If I understand you correctly, then the BPM is set in the midi file in an up to date version of Pianoteq? I tried it for 5.8.1 (wich is the latest version I have), and there it doesn't yet work (However, 5.8.1 is already 5 years old).

Yes, v7 saves the current metronome value.

Might be worth switching ...

I would say so! For a modest upgrade fee you will get a significant improvement in the sound.

Reply by AnsgarSchaefer

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

dazric wrote:
AnsgarSchaefer wrote:
julien wrote:

Yes, v7 saves the current metronome value.

Might be worth switching ...

I would say so! For a modest upgrade fee you will get a significant improvement in the sound.

It's cheaper if I already have pianoteq stage v5?

Reply by mprimrose

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Re: Recorded midi export always thinks it has tempo 120 bpm and 4 4

AnsgarSchaefer wrote:
dazric wrote:
AnsgarSchaefer wrote:

Might be worth switching ...

I would say so! For a modest upgrade fee you will get a significant improvement in the sound.

It's cheaper if I already have pianoteq stage v5?

You can find the details about upgrading Pianoteq on this page

https://www.modartt.com/upgrades

so you can upgrade your Pianoteq Stage V5 to V7. The costs are set out on the bottom of this page

https://www.modartt.com/buy

so it would cost you 29 euro, or the equivalent thereof, to do your upgrade to Pianoteq Stage V7. A relatively minimal amount for a vast increase in pleasure.

Michael

Pianoteq 8 Studio plus all Instrument packs; Organteq 2; Debian; Reaper; Carla