Working With Music Files

Table of Contents

Restrictions

Cybiko Computer plays only one track of Music at a time.
So, before converting a MIDI music file to the Cybiko Computer music file format, you need to:

  1. Choose which track you want to convert, usually you want the main instrument.
  2. Create a new MIDI file (in your MIDI editor) consisting only of this one track, or simply delete the tracks you don’t want and save the MIDI file with a new name.
  3. Convert this new MIDI file with the Cybiko Computer MIDI file converter.
Opening MIDI File

Using the Converter program you can:

  1. On the File menu, click Open.
  2. In the Look In box, click the location of the MIDI file.
  3. Below the Look In box, double-click the folder you want.
  4. Double-click the MIDI file name, or type it in the File Name box.

You will see the Music File Converter Box.

Music Adjustment

MIDI file format
Understanding MIDI file structure is very helpful for creating Cybiko computer variants of the melody.
The MIDI file contains sequence of notes coded as numbers in 0-127 range. The following table lists the numbers corresponding to notes

Octave #

C

C#

D

D#

E

F

F#

G

G#

A

A#

B

0

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

11

1

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

2

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

3

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

4

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

5

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

6

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

7

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

8

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

9

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

10

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

 

 

 

 


A MIDI file can contain several different melodies to be played simultaneously. These melodies are called tracks. Usually, tracks represent different musical instruments. Each track can consist of several voices. Voice is a simple melody in which one note at a time is played.

How to select specific tracks
Information about tracks in the opened MIDI file is displayed in Track info box: number of voices in the track and comments – if available. You can convert the MIDI file “as is”, or you can mute any number of tracks. Tick off only the tracks you wish to keep in the resulting melody. To select all tracks, tick off “Select all” checkbox.
If you tick “Convert tracks separately” checkbox, only the track in focus will be converted.

How to transpose the melody
As mentioned above, the MIDI file contains sequence of notes coded as numbers in 0-127 range. The upper and the lower note of the melody is displayed in “Info” box (muted tracks do not count). Transposition shifts all notes by the same value. For example, to shift a melody 1 octave up, set semi-tones to 12. To shift a melody 1 octave down, set semi-tones to –12. To transpose a melody, set the quantity of semi-tones to be shifted by. If any notes assume values out of 0-127 range, they are skipped. The number of skipped notes is displayed in “Info” box: “Overflow” is the quantity of notes higher than 127, “Underflow” is the quantity of notes lower than 0.

For better representation of the melody on Cybiko computer, including notes lower than 29 is not recommended. Such adjustment can be done automatically – simply check Auto transpose option. After the first transposition is made and out-of-range notes are muted, additional transposition is performed: if the lowest note in the resulting melody is less than 29, and/or the highest note is greater than 127, another shift is performed so that the lower note is set to 29 (and all other notes are shifted correspondingly).

Styles of converting melodies
Cybiko computer sound device can play 1 sound at a time. There are two different ways of converting a multi-track or multi-voice MIDI file to Cybiko computer format, resulting in slightly different sounding. Try them both and select the one you like more! If you convert a 1-voice single-track MIDI file, there is no difference between the converting styles.

The style of converting can be selected in Converting method box.

How to restore default adjustment parameters
Click “Default” button to set default adjustment parameters.

How to play source and resulting melodies
– rewind
– fast forward
– play
– pause
– stop