Midi Sheet Music Stopped Working - Searching for Alternatives

     I'm barely scraping the surface with Ableton Live 10 Lite.  Recently I learned how to export Midi files.  At least, it worked that time.  Now, it's not working again.
    To be more specific, it IS creating a midi file, but my old standby, Midi Sheet Music, can't load the file.  Can't tell what's different, if the song is longer, more complex, has non-standard play-styles... 

    Backing up a bit, I've used Midi Sheet Music (MSM) for years.  The sound is a bit cheesy and the graphics plain, but it's the ONLY stand-alone program I've ever found that:

    A. Creates Sheet Music from Midi files
    B.  Allows you to print the sheet music
    C. Plays the midi file while scrolling the sheet music.
    D. At the same time, also has a piano keyboard onscreen that shows the notes being played.

    It does it all.  I play by ear, creating a midi file while playing.  Load this midi file into MSM, hit "Play", and it's perfect for someone trying to learn the song.  They can follow along at their own pace, watching the sheet music, and/or the piano, as the song plays visually on both.  If I record a video and upload it to Youtube, the viewer can learn to play it in the same fashion I play.  (Southern Gospel... I'm okay, not great, but my songs have a "Floyd Cramer" feel, and MSM let me share my style with people who have the same taste in music.)
    If the person downloads my MIDI file, and downloads Midi Sheet Music, they can practice playing and adjust the pace as slow or fast as they want.  Except that it's no longer working for me.  When I save a Midi file, and load it into MSM, the result is a lot of gibberish that basically says there's an error in the file and it can't play.

    Maybe the problem is just with this one song, some glitch in the file?  Assuming exactly that, I hit Google up for help.  Nothing solved the problem.  Next I tried to find substitutes.  There were a heap of almost-rans.  Surprisingly, they were all able to import and play my midi file.  I guess that means MSM is seriously outdated.  Some did better than others.  Several would have been excellent, except they couldn't incorporate the sustain pedal.  Others played perfectly, including use of the sustain pedal.

     MuseScore 4 solved the problem of sheet music.  It will output sheets as .pdf files, perfect for letting people download if all they need is the notation.  I'm not certain how good a job it does, since I don't read sheet music.  I can figure out enough of it to feel like it gets the gist of the song, but have always heard midi to sheet music translations can be innacurate. 
    The fine details don't bother me.  Anybody who knows Southern Gospel should be able to figure out the rhythm on their own.  :^)
As long as it gets the notes well enough for people to figure it out, it's good enough.

    MuseScore 4 flopped, though, when it comes to playing midi files.  It was one of those that couldn't hold the sustain, and it couldn't seem to understand my 'southern gospel' twang.  Couldn't find any way to fix it, so every MIDI I imported into MuseScore plays in a bad-sounding staccato sound, and with notes often out of sequence or jammed together.  Not just bad, but horrible.  I never found any free software better at outputting sheet music though, so this is my go-to for people who sight-read their music and can't afford to buy professional software.

    The big winner was an online-only solution at Midiano.com.  I dearly wish it could be downloaded to use off-line.  It's supposed to be possible, but I don't know enough to understand how to do it.  I've emailed the programmer, hope he's able and willing to help.  Anyway, Midiano does it all.  Not quite like Midi Sheet Music, but it's actually an improvement.  The piano option wasn't immediately visible, but it's there, and can be selected in the "View" options.  Lastly, it comes with a HUGE amount of choices.  You can adjust nearly every possible option.  With a bit of tinkering in the options, it does exactly what I needed.

    Midiano was by far and away the best result from two evenings worth of hunting.  It's miles and miles ahead of anything similar.  Plus, it looks fantastic.  Best of all, you get all that for free!  Not sure how he supports his website, but the least I can do is let people know how fantastic Midiano is.

   

Update - More Music by Freil Thrift

     It's been a few days.  Real life has been pretty time-consuming.  I wanted to pop in with a bit of news.  A few posts ago, I mentioned a Hi-8 video, and an audio cassette tape, that might be out in the shed, and that might have Freil playing music on them.  That's an exciting possibility.  Today I went to see my folks, and Mom found TWO audio tapes that have Freil recorded on them.  Plus ONE cd that definitely has him playing, one that MIGHT have him, and another one that probably doesn't, but going to check out just in case.  These are all home recordings/burnt CDs.  Nothing professionally generated.  But still, there's a potential treasure trove of music I've never heard him play, or music I haven't heard in many years.

    So, tomorrow I'll root around the house for a tape player with headphone out (or RCA jack, either is fine).  Don't know offhand where one is, but we have a LOT of old stuff.  There ought to be at least one player around here that will work.  I don't know what kind of quality to expect from the CDs, but the tapes were probably recorded on the ubiquitous radio-shack type of player/recorder that we used in the 70's.  It won't be high-quality, so my goal is to rescue the song as best as possible.  As long as it's recognizable as his piano playing, that'll have to be good enough.  Really excited to hear them!! 

    On a side note, I've been getting a lot of use out of Audacity recently.  Maybe it'll have some feature that will clean up low-quality recordings on old tapes?  Soon enough to tell when I find the hardware to play them on.  

  I jumped the gun just a bit.  Searched the house, found several tape players.  One was busted.  One only played high squeaky sounds.  One played, but only though a built-in amp, and only output to RCA jacks.  From all I've read, plugging that into my mic input jack would have likely burned out my computer's audio board.  At the moment, uploading the audio tape is at a standstill.  Got feelers out with some friends, and family.  If that doesn't work out, the next step is to buy a new one.  Bottom line, it's going to take longer than expected.  Still excited, just have to let all the options play out before spending any money.  

In the meantime, practicing a new song to record for YouTube.  Still have most of the Singing Chapmans "Redeemed" album to write about.  And still have all the songs from their "Introducing" album.  Plus rebuilding something like a decade of blogs from my original Grace Notes, including midi files and sheet music.  We're talking years worth of projects.  At least I won't be bored.

Introducing The Chapman Family ... Singing The Gospel

     I made mention that Freil Thrift was in two record albums with the Chapman family.  The one Monique found on ebay, "Redeemed By The Crucified One"... I've been posting about for several days now.  It came with 12 songs, 6 to a side.  All of those have been digitized by now, and uploaded to Youtube.  

    The seller listed it as being in "Very Good Plus".  At first, I questioned that.  There was a long shallow smudge that seemed likely to cause playback problems.  It took a day or so to gather the necessary equipment (record player, cables and converters) and re-familiarize myself with Audacity.  Recording went perfectly.  That smudge had no effect on playback.  The songs digitized perfectly - audio levels great, no clicks worth worrying about.   It went smoothly and took about an hour.  I was thrilled with it.

    The other album wasn't anywhere online to be found.  I had resigned myself to a long patient wait, when my sister told me she had one.  She called it "the green cover", and told me the one I have is the second one, while the green one is the first record Freil was ever in.  She also allowed that I might be able to borrow it.  So long as I returned it, because "it's as important as my Elvis gospel album!"
    (If you know Karen, you'll know that is the highest level of praise.)

    We were originally planning on her bringing it to Mom and Dad's for me.  I was already planning to visit this weekend.  At some point she realized she couldn't make it to the river (home is very close to the Satilla), so offered to meet up in Nahunta on my way home.  I spent yesterday "at the river."  On the way home, Karen and I met at the Gold House.  It's Nahunta's historic diner, a wonderful place to go.  Both for the memories, and the food.  They make wonderful southern food.  I love their fried chicken.  They also make about the best liver around.  And a great, thick burger and home-style fries.

    This time around, we just had coffee, and sat and talked for a bit.  Got home too tired to start digitizing the record right away.  Got up early this morning, pulled the record out.  Remember a few paragraphs ago, when I mentioned the "Very Good Plus" rating on the other album?  How I questioned it, because of the almost-scratch?  I take it back.  It deserves that rating.  When I looked at Karen's record, the rating would have been "Very Loved Plus."  This is what happens to an album when it's a family favorite, and gets played over and over... for about 50 years.

    As expected, playback wasn't perfect.  It was surprisingly good, though.  Only one spot completely skipped a word.  And that was near the end of a song, so not as high-impact as it could have been.  However.  I like that word.  It's dramatic, with a strong foreshadowing of bad news.  
    However, the album was full of clicks, and the volume was a lot lower than the other record.  To be fair, that's probably due to the way the album was created.  Audacity has a very versatile click remover.  And for the most part, it did a great job.  One or two spots I used custom settings, but most of the time default settings were fine.  Audacity also has a pretty cool amplify effect.  It calculates the highest safe level to raise volume to 0 db.  

    Click removal and the amplify effect fixed everything that could be fixed.  Did a bit of manual cutting and silence generation at the start and end of the songs.  Overall it went very well, but wound up taking three hours to get the best versions of all the songs.

    Best of all, it ended (literally) on a great note - the final song on side 2 was an instrumental, and Freil got a couple of excellent segments featuring his piano playing.  I'm thrilled at how well everything turned out.  It's going to take some time to get them turned into video clips so they can be uploaded to YouTube.  But it'll be absolutely worth it.  All those songs will be permanently available at any time, without having to add more wear to our treasured records.  And so many people who don't know the Singing Chapmans, and Freil's playing, will be able to hear and appreciate them.