MusicXML Converter

[Gray Wolf]

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Situation: You've composed a score in Sibelius or some other notation application using your third party instrument libraries and you want to transfer that score intact to Studio Pro. To do that, you would export music xml and use Fender Notion to transmit that score to Studio Pro.
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The problem is that transmitting a MusicXML score from Fender Notion to Studio Pro results in a significant loss of expressive performance data. Most of the score's dynamic information is discarded during the transfer, preventing the playback in Studio Pro from accurately reflecting the original musical expression.

The underlying issue is outlined below:

• Most professional orchestral instrument libraries use MIDI CC1 (Modulation) to control dynamic layers. However, the MusicXML transfer process from Fender Notion does not convert score dynamics into MIDI controller data, nor can Studio Pro interpret it on playback.
• As a result, the only dynamic information that plays back correctly is for percussion instruments and certain short articulations, such as string staccatos, where dynamic layers are controlled by MIDI velocity rather than controllers.

This means that when you transfer a score from Fender Notion to Studio Pro, it will not play back as intended. Things like strings, woodwinds, brass, and other sustained instruments, must be manually edited to add MIDI controller data before they will reproduce the dynamics and musical expression written in the score. Hopefully that will change in the near future.

In the interim, here is a web application that converts MusicXML files into either Studio Pro song files or standard MIDI files while preserving all expressive performance data. A converted file includes two envelopes, a dynamic CC envelope and a CC7 volume envelope for convenience.

https://xmlconvert.infinityfree.me/

The web application is currently in beta, so if you're interested in testing it, I'd appreciate any feedback you can provide in this thread.

If you encounter a missing score symbol, articulation, or any other conversion issue, please let me know here. If possible, attach the original MusicXML file so I can reproduce the problem and use it as a reference while improving the converter.

 

[Lukas]

Great job! I don’t currently have any Notion MusicXML files to test, but I’m curious to hear what everyone else has to say.

 

[Gray Wolf]

Here's a zip with some music xml files to test it with. I had to add the .txt extender for it to upload. Download it and remove that second extender.

 

[jpettit]

Has there been a discussion with the developers of FSP & FN to talk about this gap?
If so, what was their response?

 

[Gray Wolf]

No idea, but there are two sides of that coin.

1. Notion doesn't include midi controllers when transmitting scores, and ...
2. Studio Pro itself can't translate it own score dynamics to midi controllers.

If either one of those two things was possible this converter would be unnecesary.

1. Notion could include the controller information during score transmission, or ...
2. Studio Pro would translate score dynamics to controller information during playback.

#2 would obviously be the best case.