LilyPond Tutorial 28 - How to MIDI Input, Playback Audio, MIDI Export (Frescobaldi)

[@alexistinsleypope9327]

All your videos are informative, and well presented. Thank you.

[@cassiotavares5165]

I have started to typeset my scores with LillyPond a couple years back, and your tutorials were very useful to me then. I have recently decided to revisit them and, knowing what I now know, I was able to better appreciate how well the whole series was conceived and made. So, two things I need to tell you, Ben: 1. A great many thanks, from the heart, for your generous and valuable work. 2. There's so much more to learn, LillyPond has so much more to offer, so I wish you find the time, the means and the energy to come back to the series and add new videos to the tutorial playlist.

what a peaceful marathon of tutorials of a program i downloaded at the start of it lol very good job explaining everything! thank you.

[@955martin]

I, too, have found these videos helpful. Nice and calm, with the opportunity to see what you are doing on screen. This must have been a 'labour of love'. I would love to see more, but thank you for all that you have created.

[@SoundsFromSound]

Thank you for such a kind, encouraging message. I am so glad my videos were helpful to you. A labor of love yes, because I believe education should be accessible to anyone. 👍 I can promise you there are many more videos coming as soon as I'm able to focus on an upload schedule. I've been recording dozens of new LilyPond tutorials over the last few years, but I'm so behind on uploading. I'm creating more videos, more often, but now with much more broad editing strokes, no more focusing on minutiae. I was spending *hours* re-recording the voice-over, speaking *extremely* slowly and calm, trying to de-localize my accent so it wasn't too much of a distraction for my audience - many of which I know are international and/or ESL. Plus, when I get nervous my regional accent comes out even stronger. 😉 So my goal was a neutral and gentle voice-over. If I speak too slowly in the videos, I'm sorry - I blame the combination of years of speech therapy and just being nervous making videos on KZbin, and it's the nervousness that really brings out the Boston even stronger. 🙂 Thank you for watching, and thank you again for such a thoughtful comment. I appreciate it. 🤙 - Ben

[@strivetowardslove3128]

I just finished marathoning all your LilyPond videos! I hope that you can monetize your channel!

[@Tiamatcr]

Thank you for making these videos! I've found them very helpful. You do an excellent job of explaining all the parts of Lilypond. I tried Lilypond a few years ago, but without your videos I quickly become overwhelmed by the complexity and unable to continue! Thanks!

[@SoundsFromSound]

I am so happy my videos could help you with LilyPond. I will be releasing some new LilyPond tutorials very soon, sincere apologies for the delay. I just got so far behind on a lot of things in life...but it's all good now. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment and thank you for the kind words. Take care!

[@danielcory1941]

Hello! Any updates on new videos? Excited to see them!

[@Bootlebarth]

These are an exellent introduction to Lilypond and must have taken a few hours to put together with no woffle padding or ums and ahs. I cannot recommend them too highly to anyone starting out on Lilypond. Howver I'm dying to see those promised further videos on advanced topics, at the same time I know what a vast subject that could become. Maybe just a few tweaks and where to find the data plus an introduction to "engravers" and how to use them. I know life is short and there is lots to do but your concise descriptions would be appreciated by all Lilypudlians.

[@SoundsFromSound]

Coming right up :)

[@darkijah-andersjehovahsn7893]

Have yet to come to it yet, but at some point will need to look into it. I'll take another re listen. :)

[@darkijah-andersjehovahsn7893]

Thanks for all the video's it did help to be able to watch a little about it, it is a great application with the frescobaldi with it. Enjoying it very much and progressing little by little in my score design :) Sadly you stopped making video's but happy with the ones there is! :)

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hello. This channel is very much alive. Sorry for the delay folks, I had several family emergencies that really pushed things back for me. Thank you for your patience. Lots of new LilyPond tutorials are coming...

[@darkijah-andersjehovahsn7893]

@@SoundsFromSound AWESOME!

[@brendanward2991]

Thank you for taking the trouble to compile this playlist. Without your guidance, the LilyPond learning curve would have been much too steep for me.

[@SoundsFromSound]

You are very welcome. I am finally getting around to releasing a complete new playlist of advanced LilyPond video tutorials, including topics such as: score layout, tweaks, contemporary notation, and working with instrument parts. Thank you for your kind feedback. Have a great day friend!

[@dorklymorkly3290]

@@SoundsFromSound How is that coming along? Well? Or have the Musescore thugs come for you?

[@AdrianFernandezFazio]

Thanks for your videos! Very usefull. I'm an argentinian pianist, frescobaldi user

[@SoundsFromSound]

You're very welcome!

[@ErickPaquin]

Amazing series. Just stumbled upon it today. Lilypond & Frescobaldi are really a game changer for me. Just amazing, thanks for those videos!!

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hi Erick. Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad my videos were helpful. Look forward to new tutorials soon!

[@marshalltrogers]

Thanks so much for this series! It's really helped to smooth out the learning curve of Lilypond. It's a great program and you've been of great help, thanks!

[@SoundsFromSound]

You are very welcome! More videos coming soon I hope :)

[@mnmleung]

Thank you for a very clear and helpful tutorial!

[@SoundsFromSound]

You're welcome. I'm glad you found them helpful. Thanks for taking a moment to leave a comment. :)

[@周卫星]

Thanks for the time & effort!

[@BodvarBjorgvins]

Thank you for your videos. I have been doing LilyPond for several years, on and off, and for a couple of years I have been able to use Frescobaldi (didn't work so well with Windows earlier). However all the manuals seem to be rather limited in teaching/showing "how to do it" so your videos have helped me immensely to understand some basics I had a hard time understanding and, of course the more advanced features of both LilyPond and Frescobaldi. I may be returning with some questions, but watching some 15+ of those videos today only, I keep forgetting the things I might want to ask about! But THANKS!

[@BodvarBjorgvins]

I have a problem adding two or more songs to a page. There seem to be more than one way to do it. Do you have a video on that? What is the "preferred" way to do it? \score after \score or are there easier ways of doing it?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hello friend! Yes, it is common to simply have score followed by another score, however you also can decide how much space in between the score blocks. That way you can fit as you would like. :)

[@BodvarBjorgvins]

Thanks. I am just now putting together a few short songs (childrens' tunes). :-)

[@SoundsFromSound]

Wonderful. Here is something I threw together for you, hope this helps. You can adjust the space between scores in several ways, but this is one quick example: \version "2.19.82" \score{ elative c'{c d e f} \header{piece = "Movement 1" } } \score{ elative c''{c d e f} \header{piece = "Movement 2" } } \score{ elative c'{c d e f} \header{piece = "Movement 3" } } \paper { % you could use this for some situations % score-system-spacing.basic-distance = #12 % but this is a good place to start below :) score-markup-spacing.basic-distance = #30 scoreTitleMarkup = \markup { \fill-line { \fromproperty #'header:piece } } }

[@BodvarBjorgvins]

Well, what I was working on fitted nicely on one page, so no need for more scores than one this time, adding 5 verses to a lead sheet also with staffs for accordion and an electric bass too.

[@dtopham100]

Very nice instructions! I actually came here hoping to see how to have midi use repeats and code signs, but maybe that info in somewhere else; I will keep looking...

[@calvinransom1315]

Thank you so much for making these videos!

[@SoundsFromSound]

You're welcome! Glad you found them helpful. New tutorials coming soon! 🙂👍

[@ziadgholam1120]

Very important set of tutorial videos ! Thank you ! By the way, how coud I save the LOG file on my hard-disk, when using FRESCOBALDI ? Some times, I don't use FRESCOBALDI but another standard text processor ... and since FRESCOBALDI "last" update release, I cannot use the standard LilyPond compiler that generates PDF, MIDI and LOG files ... as FRESCOBALDI takes over the whole task ... Thanks for your help Regards.

[@parsa021021]

Thank you very much for your videos. They're awesome. Would you please consider making a video regarding MIDI player output directly from Frescobaldi? I am new to this. Is it even possible to play out my scores on something like Kontakt player or EastWest virtual instruments direclty from Frescobaldi? I really appreciate your help.

[@peterschmidt9497]

Great tutorial series, I binged it! I am using lilypond and frescobaldi for quite a while, but still learned a lot of stuff. I found how a lot of my trial-and-error stuff can be done properly using your tutorials, so all thumbs up. As I am messing with guitar based sort-of rock music, I fiddle around with guitar notation (and, ugh, Tablature!) a lot. So how about making a tutorial on how to (properly) do that? I think there are a lot of users that would appreciate this...

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hi Peter. Thank you for the kind words. I'll be sure and add a dedicated guitar tab/notation video to the tutorial series. Thanks for watching! :)

[@warba98]

@@SoundsFromSound Looking forward to those projects you told us we would make! These tutorials are great, thank you so much.

[@iscribablogito3803]

Thank you for your Tutorials, I really love Lilypond. What I would like to know is how to import MIDI without getting awkward structures like "bf4*119/480 r4*361/480 g'4*119/480 r4*1/480 bf4*119/480 r4*1/480 a4*119/480", thank you very much

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hello! You're welcome, glad my videos could help you. Regarding MIDI import, how did you go about the import process, midi2ly? I think I'm going to make a video on MIDI import and Music XML specifically, a lot of people have been asking me about that.

[@nathanturczan]

Yes please, I need to figure out how to configure my python library so that midi2ly can work. Something to do with 64 vs 32 something something?

[@0babul0]

Cool stuff! Recently discovered LilyPond and I'm digging it. Watched every previous video of yours and I'm glad you decided to continue the series! Also would be cool if you could make more advanced videos in the future, maybe about tweaking the positioning and spacing. Kinda struggling with it, so many variables ;)

[@alexmarioventisei3881]

Hi, thanks for posting your tutorials. I'm just starting to learn how to use Lilypond and I found this tutorial particularly helpful. However, I would like to ask: once you export the score as a midi file, where can I find the file to use it in other programs? Can you import this MIDI file into another DAW. If so, could you please let me know how this is done? Thanks

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hi Alex, yes you can take the exported MIDI file from LilyPond or Frescobaldi and import it into the DAW of your choice (Logic, Reaper, etc). It's as easy as dragging and dropping or importing the MIDI file into the DAW. Then you can edit the channel data, add CC messages, modulation, and so forth.

[@blackquintet]

Thank you so much for your videos. Do you know if there is a way to change the duration of the notes from the midi keyboard? I have seen other programs doing that, allowing to assign a duration to the lowest notes of the keyboard. It would be great to be able to do that in Frescobaldi. Something like C2 = 1 D2 =2, E2 = 4, F2 = 8, G2 = 16. Any black key between C2 and G2 would mean a dot. Maybe some controllers or other notes could be used to select triplets. Another interesting subject would be how to use other sounds for output. I am transitioning from Finale to Frescobaldi and I used to use the Aria player for output. Is there a way to use it with Frescobaldi?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hi there, Thanks for watching my videos. If there is any LilyPond topic you'd like me to cover in the next playlist, please let me know. Regarding MIDI assignments for duration in Frescobaldi, the short answer is: no, it's not possible natively. But I use a workaround that works pretty well for quickly changing duration. It cost me about 10 dollars and free software. As far as changing output sounds, yes - a while back I shared my methods I think in the Facebook group, I used Kontakt as an example. I think it should work just fine for the Aria player plugin, I'll see if I can find my screenshots walk-through for that. The way I handle duration is I have a compact wireless-Bluetooth numpad peripheral sitting on my MIDI keyboard (using AutoHotKey to map commands as needed). So, if I want to input quarter notes and then half notes and triplets, I setup Frescobaldi and place the cursor in brackets: ----- -Play first note. -Hit 4 (sets duration for next) -Play the next few notes. -Play the first note I want as a half note: -Hit 2 (changes to half notes) -Continue with half notes (I want a triplet next, so notes first then add bracket) -I input the 3 notes I want for the triplet, then: -Hit slash on numpad, press and hold it to select the last 3 notes (I use slash and asterisk to expand and make selections very quickly) -Once I have tuplet selected in Frescobaldi, all I need to do is hit + 3 on the numpad and it inputs the following code: \tuplet 3/2 { $SELECTION } (which creates a triplet all around the notes selected, puts me back into insert mode moving forward for more input) etc. ------ I hope this helps. It's hard to type it out but in practice it's seamless and fast. The steps I listed above took about 10 seconds to do total. Please let me know if you'd like a video showing this, I can put one together if you want. If you're on Linux, I don't believe AutoHotKey is available, but there are more options on that OS.

[@SoundsFromSound]

Also, if you're interested in using MIDI CC messages to send key presses (or vice versa for MIDI note input), check out AutoHotKey for sure. It's so powerful. I use it everyday for almost every application.

[@SoundsFromSound]

I forgot about MIDI Translator Pro, from Bome. If you want a paid solution, this program converts MIDI notes to computer keyboard key presses. It's very powerful as well. www.bome.com/products/miditranslator

[@blackquintet]

@@SoundsFromSound Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. I have no problem paying for good software. The only problem is that I would like to switch from Finale/Windows to Lilypond/Frescobaldi/Linux, mainly because I have been working professionally for 15 years with Linux, and also because Windows never work correctly (for me!) For example, at this time, I can't input anything to Frescobaldi from my MIDI controller (Alesis VI49) although it works without any trouble under Linux. (I have tried modifying the register as indicated on some music forums on the web but without any success. I guess having no negative result is to be considered very positive under Windows!) I have up to 400 Big Band scores to input (I will certainly not do them all, but I have them and will do those we shall play, which adds to 25-35 per year), and I also would like to be able to produce acceptable audio tracks from the scores. I have used Finale for 20 years (although not regularly) but it is really not productive enough for me. However, Finale Speedy entry is still the fastest way I found to enter notes. But I would like to work from the MIDI keyboard only (as much as possible) since there are no more than a dozen commands needed for 99.99% of cases. Mapping the lowest octave to these commands would be great. For the moment, I input notes under Finale (Windows) and switch to Frescobaldi (Linux) for all the rest. Regarding subjects for future videos, I would be particularly interested in: 1) Speeding input. Any trick such as applying rhythmic patterns to notes would be useful. I have a lot of Latin scores in which a rhythmic pattern is applied to chords. It would be great to make this automatic, similarly to what some automatic comping software can produce. Also, Big Band scores often contain lines that are rhythmically identical but with different notes. In Frescobaldi, I generally copy the first part and change the notes for the others (this is generally applied to saxophones, then trumpets, and then trombones), but it would be good to speed the process, for example having a command that selects the next note without the duration so that it can be replaced just by overwriting it. I guess this might be possible in lilypond/scheme? 2) Producing better audio files. Until now, I have found that producing one separate MIDI file for each part and loading them in a DAW works much better than letting the software do the mix. For example, Finale is very bad at managing sound levels. 3) Managing scores and parts. It would be great to have a dozen scores and automatically produce a booklet for each instrument containing the specific parts. For the moment, I use a program I have written to extract the pages from the PDF produced by Frescobaldi and group them in separate PDF documents for each instrument, but this is not optimal since it requires knowing the page number in the score, which might eventually change. Thanks again for your videos. I realize I have much to learn about Frescobaldi!

[@solutus5968]

Your videos help me a lot. I have a request - can you make a video(s) on how to compile with lilypond-book (a type-setting tool) in LaTeX? Thank you in advance.

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hi Solutus. Absolutely, I'll put that video on my next playlist of LilyPond tutorials. Thanks for watching.

[@OSY_PB_ATHEIST_PALKU]

Sir! Thanks for the tutorial. But what type of MIDI keyboard is supported by lilypond ? & what about in built sound samples or external ones?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hello. Any MIDI keyboard should work just fine with Frescobaldi. It's also possible to use any VST or sample libraries you'd like to hook up for playback. I use Kontakt 5 and 6 along with Frescobaldi for quick playback and mock ups. Hope this helps!

[@OSY_PB_ATHEIST_PALKU]

+SoundsFromSound 👍

[@zlojurod]

Thank you videos! So, what about pedals midi input?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hello! What exactly are you asking? I don't follow, sorry.

[@herbertholopainen4884]

Thank you for the tutorial. I'm using \language "english" but my midi input notes are in German like: des bes ges, I would like it to be bf, gf, etc... How can I change that?

[@herbertholopainen4884]

Reinstalling Frescobaldi fixed the issue....

[@armsfullofronan]

Hey there! Is there any way that I could get your code for this session? I can't see what you have in the Global settings and I'm trying to make my code look just like yours so I can see where I'm going wrong on my end.

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hi Ronan! How have you been? Sure, I believe I still have the .ly file I used in this video, called "midi test score" -- is that what you mean?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Here is the code from this session Ronan. Hope this helps you. Let me know if you need anything else. lilybin.com/r3fx4z/1

[@armsfullofronan]

@@SoundsFromSound Ben, thank you so much. Sorry I'm not quicker on these KZbin comments! This will be very helpful. Thank you for being supportive to this Lilypond community!

[@SoundsFromSound]

My pleasure. I love this community! 👍

[@giuseppescalogna6550]

Good tutorial. Does it work also on Linux

[@giuseppescalogna6550]

?

[@nebulousworld6937]

Hey, do you know if there is any possibility to remove one instrument from the midi output when there are several instruments in one document?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Hello there. If you just want to essentially mute the MIDI output of a certain track (i.e. remove it from output), you could just make the min and max volumes zero like this: violinPart = ew Staff \with { instrumentName = "Violin" shortInstrumentName = "Vl." midiInstrument = "Violin" midiMinimumVolume = #0.0 midiMaximumVolume = #0.0 } That would indeed "mute" the MIDI output for the violin track. Essentially, removing the MIDI output from the violin. Hope this helps. Let me know!

[@nebulousworld6937]

Thank you so much! This works perfectly.

[@SoundsFromSound]

My pleasure!

[@kingpin2897]

Thanks for your tutorials! I have a problem with the MIDI. I have my midi block but the midi player keeps saying "no output found!" Do you know how to fix this?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Yes, I have heard of that error. What soundcard are you using in Frescobaldi's settings as your default MIDI device? Are you on Windows? Linux?

[@kingpin2897]

I am using a Mac. I currently have timidity installed but not sure how to tell Frescobaldi I want to use it.

[@SoundsFromSound]

I'm sorry, I didn't get any notification that you had responded - please forgive the delay. I don't use Mac OSX so please, bear with me a bit...but have you tried installing libportmidi0 first? I know that on Linux, libportmidi0 is needed to have MIDI work correctly - along with of course starting the timidity service. Have you tried that? I suggest first you should "sudo timidity -iA" then refresh the MIDI ports in Frescobaldi (Edit->Preferences->MIDI Settings->Refresh MIDI ports). Please let me know how that goes and I'll be able to help more. Thanks!

[@kingpin2897]

I have it working! Thanks!

[@SoundsFromSound]

+kingpin2897 Oh, good! Was I close? Haha. Sorry it took me so long to respond. Glad you got it working! :-)

[@zlojurod]

When I try to type using the MIDI keyboard, for example, the following combination: c' f'~ f' c' I get instead of this: c' f'~ f'=' c'=' Why does Frescobaldi add these symphols (=`)?

[@SoundsFromSound]

What OS are you on?

[@pjfraguela]

Which version of lilypond are you using now?

[@SoundsFromSound]

Currently I just updated to version 2.19.48, but I believe for this video I was on 2.19.28. I usually stick with the unstable releases because I like to get all the latest bug fixes and new features! But there's always the stable version for those who need it!

[@魏里耘]

Hello! Thanks for your tutoring videos, they really help me a lot. I am a mac user, and a beginner of Frescobaldi. I typed a score and have problem with MIDI playback, the MIDI player showed "no output found!". I followed some instructions in these two webs: 1. github.com/frescobaldi/frescobaldi/wiki/MIDI-playback-on-Mac-OS-X 2. donyaquick.com/working-with-midi-on-mac-os-x/ I've installed portMIDI, simple synth, and my “player output” blank shows "simple synth" but it still doesn't work, are there any solutions? thank you!

[@luisarmenta4168]

where does it export the midi file?

[@SoundsFromSound]

What do you mean? The MIDI file should be in the same location as the .ly file you are engraving, by default at least...

[@luisarmenta4168]

@@SoundsFromSound it always says no output found when i press play. no matter what i do

[@juicedelemon]

it won't recognise my mac book speaker