Making audio files with Finale (Songwriter)

Jack Clark · #1 10-07-2010, 08:50 AM

Lately I've been using Finale Songwriter 2010 to make audio files of drones, scales, intervals, etc., to help practice intonation. I just found something interesting so I'm passing it along. (My apologies if you've already discovered this.)

Finale Songwriter (and I assume the more expensive Finale programs do, too) allows you to save music that you write as .mid files, .mp3 files, and .aif files. But the size and quality of these files are tremendously different. As an example, I created a short drone file recently that was 3.4 MB in .aif format, 316 KB in .mp3 format, and only 4 KB in .mid format. And I was surprised to hear that while the .aif and .mp3 files played back identically in QuickTime, the .mid format file was far superior in both sound quality and volume.

I'm a Mac person, so I use Audiolobe as my on-the-fly slow-downer, pitch-changer, and loop maker for practice purposes. Audiolobe doesn't play .mid files, but that's no problem since in about 20 seconds you can import a .mid file into QuickTime and save it as a .mov audio file, which Audiolobe does play--and the .mov file is identical to the .mid file in sound and just as small.

(Audiolobe will slow-down and loop .mov files, but for some reason it won't pitch-change .mov files. This isn't a problem with drones, intervals, and scales since I want them all created in separate keys anyway.)

MonetBass · #2 10-07-2010, 10:08 AM

Finale PrintMusic, which I use, occasionally has weird tracking issues when exporting the audio to MP3. So IME the MIDI dump sounds better also. But I don't do that very often.

Bill Bentgen · #3 10-07-2010, 11:12 AM

You can get usefull tracks a couple of ways. I use iTunes in Windows.

I use Garritan Orchestra 4 sounds in Finale 2011 and save scale accompaniment tracks as WAV files. I import them into iTunes and create mp3 versions. I add title, track, bpm, and a lot of other data, including graphics, in iTunes. I then put them on my iPod to play along with in my practice area using computer speakers.

They're availabe as free podcasts here:

http://www.billbentgen.com/podcast/index.htm

Subscribe and only download what you want; there are 2,240 tracks.

azureblue · #4 10-07-2010, 11:21 AM

.mid is not an audio file. aif, wav, MP3, and MP4, are. .mid is only data - note on, note off, what note, velocity, what midi channel and what midi instrument- and what you heard when you played the file back in QT was QT using its built in sound generator, convert the data to audio.

.mid is much smaller but the sounds are dependent on what sort of sound generator is being used. IF you want quality sound then create an audio file of you work. You can save it as a lower rez MP3, but I wouldn't go under 128, and you can probably save them as mono to cut the file size to about half.

Jack Clark · #5 10-07-2010, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by azureblue

.mid is not an audio file. aif, wav, MP3, and MP4, are. .mid is only data - note on, note off, what note, velocity, what midi channel and what midi instrument- and what you heard when you played the file back in QT was QT using its built in sound generator, convert the data to audio.

.mid is much smaller but the sounds are dependent on what sort of sound generator is being used. IF you want quality sound then create an audio file of you work. You can save it as a lower rez MP3, but I wouldn't go under 128, and you can probably save them as mono to cut the file size to about half.

Well, I don't know how to explain it, but both the midi files (.mid) and the .mov files I make from charts I first made in Finale Songwriter 2010 sound way better to me--i.e., more like a real double bass and cello--than either the .aif or .mp3 audio files, and they're certainly much louder, as well. This applies whether they're .mid or .mov files played through QuickTime or .mov files played through Audiolobe. Perhaps those playback programs' sound generators are just that good? Unfortunately, TB will not allow the attachment of either .mid files or .mov files, so I can't attach any to let you hear for yourself. 'Course, I could always email them to you, I guess, if you're interested.