Left hand/right hand sync

[victoriav]

Hi! I discovered this program last week and have been having a lot of fun using it to improve my playing on a certain song I've been having trouble with.  This week I wanted to add another song to practice, but I'm having a strange issue.  Like the first song, the second has times when you play a note with your left hand simultaneously with the right hand.  On the original song, when you get to that part in "follow you" mode, both notes are highlighted, and you play them both together to continue.  However, on the new song, only one of the notes is highlighted, and if you play both at the same time, it registers as an error.  First you have to play the highlighted one and then the other.  They look perfectly aligned in midi booster, but I thought maybe the midi was a tiny bit out of sync, but I opened it in midi editor and it's a perfect sync.  Originally I had left hand notes in one track, right in the other, and then both in the same channel, and I tried reversing that, and also putting them all in one track and one channel, but it didn't help.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, I love this program and would really like to practice this other song! attempting to attach screenshots and midi here.
 midieditor.png
pianobooster.png
eskj-theme.mid
 I'm using the linux version, if that makes a difference.  Thanks for all the work on this project!

[Louis B.]

Hello victoriav,

It took me a bit of time to track down your problem, but the way PB jerks a LOT more when play just that MIDI file and not other MIDI files gave me the clue. I used midicsv to examine the file and saw that you have the PPQN (pulses per quarter note) in the MIDI header set to 8. The PPQN in a MIDI file should a the very minimum be 480 with 960 being a more typical number. Where did you get that MIDI file? did you create it yourself? If so what program did you use to create it? My guess is that you used MIDI editor to create it which is a very unfinished program in my opinion. I really recommend that you a program like Musescore or possibly rosegarden to create MIDI files.

I am also interested in the piece of music that you are learning eskj theme. I tried googling and youtubing this but it did not really come up with anything.

I am also interested to hear your views about the two booster music course that comes with piano booster. Have you tried them and are they helpful?

Also there a pieces I am considering please see PossibleBoosterMusic.zip that may also be useful to you.

Finally please see the attached eskj-theme-fixed.mid that I have changed the PPQN to 800 and also multiplied the midi times by 100 that fixes the problem.

[victoriav]

Thank you so much for the prompt response and for the solution!  I tried out the tweaked midi and it worked like a charm.

My husband is learning java, and as an exercise he made for me a little application that allows you to transcribe sheet music by clicking on a staff to select notes and add them to a midi file. I had downloaded the sheet music for this theme from somewhere, so I used his program to input the notes and create the midi file.  Whereas the first song I was doing, I already sort of could play, so I recorded myself playing it very slowly as carefully as I could and cleaned it up/sped it up in midi editor.  So that explains the difference perfectly!  The smallest note his application was dealing with was 32nd, so it made sense to make that 1 beat, which is why the quarter note was set to 8.  He's updated to your suggested ppqn, so thanks for the pointer!

As for the piece itself, I've been learning piano at least partially to work through these earworms I get stuck in my head, and this one happens to be from the show Once Upon a Time.  I think "Captain Swan" is the more common fandom abbreviation if you're googling, I just used the character's initials since its their love theme.

I have worked through the included midis and I think they are a very nice addition, as finding good midis at your approximate level and suitable for practice (rather than optimized for playback) is hard work, I've discovered.  I started playing last May, and at first I really needed to use all my piano time actually on the piano, not figuring out midi, but recently I've been trying to take advantage of my casio's midi input and light up keys, and it has not been particularly easy to put all the pieces together.  The casio app doesn't wait for you like piano booster does, which doesn't really work for me, their included midis are mostly a little next level, and they were very vague about the specs needed to light up the keys when importing your own midis.  

I like your booster music 7 song collection, I think they're a good level for less-than-one-year players like me.  They would have been especially good for me this summer when I was really starting out, now I maybe should try to challenge myself a bit more, but it looks like you have some options in that zip file of potential midis, which I will have to try this weekend.

I did want to ask, are there supposed to be stats when you finish playing a song, or a log of how you are improving on a certain song?  I thought I saw someone on the forum mention that, but I don't see any information about accuracy when I'm done.  The bar changes color and moves while I'm playing, but I can't really pay attention to that while I'm trying to play...

[Louis B.]

He's updated to your suggested ppqn, so thanks for the pointer!

Actually it is a bug in Piano Booster. That I need to fix as having a ppqn of 8 is valid but I never came across this before. It is also a possible source of jerky scrolling that I need to investigate.

My husband is learning java, and as an exercise he made for me a little application that allows you to transcribe sheet music by clicking on a staff

Just so you know that MuseScore has lots of clever ways to input notes without playing it in realtime. I like to use a MIDI keyboard and used steptime to enter each note and with the MIDI Remote Control set the note durations.

Thanks for your feedback about the Booster Music.

there supposed to be stats when you finish playing a song

This is something on my todo list after we have completed adding the metronome feature. But first I want to do several new youtube videos all about PB and how to use it.

[Louis B.]

I forgot say how to get PB working with your casio's keys that light up. I have just updated the PB website on the FAQ page with instructions.