Editing a midi sketch to creatre separate parts

[DocBob]

Does anyone know a quick way to take a piano or "full strings" midi sketch with multiple chords and lines and separate them into individual parts for separate instruments? 

This is the only task in Cakewalk that I actively avoid. I get lost and can't keep the parts straight.

[Nigel Mackay]

You might be able to do some of it with the MIDI Event Filter FX.

[DocBob]

Thanks - I learned something new... The Midi plugin doesn't seem to work at all, and the Select by event filter doesn't work in the PRV although I can get it to work in Track view "notes".

It's still crude... once selected I'd like to be able to colour the selection  so I can work within the one clip to separate parts.

Edited November 22, 2020 by DocBob

[Colin Nicholls]

You can:

• duplicate the "sketch" track as many times as you need; assign to instruments; then solo and delete the notes from each track you don't want
• set the "sketch" track to a non-competing sound (e.g. piano when writing a string quartet) and then create a new track for each solo instrument, and re-perform the part for that instrument, playing along to the "sketch".

I don't believe there is any other practical way to do this. MIDI filters on note ranges isn't going to cut it, for me.

[DocBob]

2 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

You can:

• duplicate the "sketch" track as many times as you need; assign to instruments; then solo and delete the notes from each track you don't want
• set the "sketch" track to a non-competing sound (e.g. piano when writing a string quartet) and then create a new track for each solo instrument, and re-perform the part for that instrument, playing along to the "sketch".

I don't believe there is any other practical way to do this. MIDI filters on note ranges isn't going to cut it, for me.

That is what I've been doing - in addition I set each track to a unique colour and have all tracks I'm working on  show in the PRV using the "auto lock" feature.

It's fine as long and the degree of polyphony equals the number of parts I'm assigning them to. But if I have a chord of 7 notes that I'm assigning to 5 instrument tracks, or a triad going to 5, it get visually messy. As I said, I'd like to be able to select a note or notes and selectively colour them within one clip in PRV.  Then be able to select notes by colour to be able to copy and paste.

 

[Colin Nicholls]

@DocBob, I do it like this:

• Open the PRV with sketch + target tracks
• Place the NOW time at the start of the note(s) you want to move;
• Use right-click-drag to select select (hold down Ctrl for non-contiguous selections);
• Ctrl-X to cut the notes to clipboard;
• select target track in the track pane (on the right) ;
• Ctrl-V to paste the notes at the position of the Now time.

As shown here, where I distribute notes from the sketch into three target instrument tracks:

Caveats:

• You need to position the NOW time at the beginning of the first selected note, in order to ensure the notes are pasted at the correct location in the target track;
• You need to colour the target tracks appropriately (unfortunately I've used three shades of green, but they are different tracks!)
• (*) Hold down CTRL to select non-contiguous sets of notes, as shown in the first move of notes to WATERPHONE.

 

I don't see how this could get easier. I mean, yes, OK you have to be careful and methodical but it is essentially doing what you're asking for, right?

Edited November 22, 2020 by Colin Nicholls