AKoff Music Composer - User Guide and FAQ

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How It Works?

Composer analyzes a stream of audio signals from pre-recorded WAVE files or directly from audio input of your sound card in real-time. It can be sound from microphone, linear input or audio CD.

Composer normally recognizes polyphonic music with one instrument or voice. This means you won't get the appropriate results if you try to recognize many instruments playing at the same time especially with drums. Composer determines note dynamics and frequencies and translates this information into MIDI events. Composer doesn't automatically recognize the types of sounding instruments. Moreover, human voice and instruments have various timbres and complicated harmonic components, therefore recognition accuracy depends on concrete instrument or singing style. Also the recognition is influenced by quality of WAVE recordings such as background noises and recording level.

The complicated mathematical algorithms of DSP (Digital Signal Processing) require a great amount of calculations and consequently a fast computer. When recognizing audio input in real-time, Composer only works reliably on Pentium 150 and higher processors. On weaker machines, the incorrect working or dead halt of the program may occure, which is removed through pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del keys.

During recognition the recorded notes are automatically shown on the graphic keyboard. After recognition is stopped, you can play and adjust the obtained melody. You can select the playback MIDI instrument, change octave and also try to correct music scale or use Pitch Bend Control. Further you can add the recorded track to the general list of MIDI tracks and then save the generated MIDI file. The last feature is accessible only in the registered version.

If some notes are recognized incorrectly, you can open the saved file in any MIDI editor and manually correct your score. If you have MIDI keyboard, it will be easier to play with keyboard entering results into MIDI editor. But if you aren't a musician, Composer will help you to record your own melody in a popular MIDI format using only your voice or your non-MIDI instrument.

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