Midigtr -- Midi Guitar Chord Finder

midigtr@yahoo.com

. Download.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

The latest version of the Midi Guitar Finder can be found at http://www.bridgetochaos.com/midigtr/midigtr.zip . This includes a fiew DLL's, and a README.TXT.

The latest version of the User Guide can be found at http://www.bridgetochaos.com/midigtr/mididoc.zip

The latest version of the Project Paper can be found at http://www.bridgetochaos.com/midigtr/midigtr-proj.zip

An HTML version of the User Guide can be found at http://www.bridgetochaos.com/midigtr/userman . NOTE: This contains many bitmaps and may be a little slow in loading.

My test data (12 MIDI files) can be gotten here .

There is a large number of places to find Midi files on the Internet. Here are a few links to get you started:

http://www.harmony-central.com/MIDI

http://midimusic.miningco.com

http://www.busprod.com/joker/clmidi.html

Introduction.

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard protocol that allows computers to play musical instruments, including the synthesizers built into sound cards. It allows computers to record sequences of notes, which could then be modified, stored, and played back.

Unlike WAV files, MIDI does not store the actual sounds. MIDI files contain a series of note-on and note-off messages. At any given time a combination of these notes may create a chord.

The Midi Guitar Chord Finder (midigtr.exe) recognizes chords, and display graphic representation of the guitar fingering of that chord, while playing the midi file.

It provides the ability to:

Monitor specific MIDI channels
Monitor specific tracks of a MIDI file
Transpose specific tracks of a MIDI file
Set the Tempo

There are a number of ways to play any given chord on a guitar. This program will display the fingering that the average guitarist is likely to use. Advanced guitarists will know equivalent fingerings and can experiment until it sounds right.

User Interface.

This is an example of the user interface. It consists of:

Drop-down Menus	Described below
Beat = XXX Position = YYY	The current beat within the song, and the current MIDI position (number of ticks) when the display was last updated. The display is updated once per beat.
Previous Chord	The previously recognized chord
Current/Next	The chord recognized at the time of the last screen update.
Upcoming	Upcoming chord diagrams

Chord diagrams look like this:

The lines represent a guitar fingerboard and strings.

The vertical lines represent strings of a guitar.

The horizontal lines represent barres of a guitar.

If there is an "X" above a string the string is not played.

The circles show what string/frets should be played.

The number within a circle shows what finger is commonly used

If there is an "O" in a circle, then the not is optional.

Background

This software was written for my Master's project. There is no warranty, but then again it's free. For more information, please read the User's Guide.

Future

At this point, I don't expect to make any updates to this. But I do intend to convert it to Java some day, using the Java MIDI capabilities.