Says it's C Scale, but It's F

Trouble with Synthesia, your keyboard, or adapter? Think you found a bug?
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If your keyboard has USB or MIDI ports, there is a tremendously high chance (>99%) it will work with Synthesia. See what you'll need on the keyboards page.
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qazxsw21000
Posts: 39

Post by qazxsw21000 »

I am working on a piece and when I watch it in Synthesia, which is how I tell if my chords are correct, Synthesia says it is in C Major. The piece is in F Major. Using 10.2.somethingorother and Win 7. I thought I could fix it with the Metadata editor, but there is no field for "Key."
Clustor F.mid
(2.37 KiB) Downloaded 272 times
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

There is usually a setting inside the MIDI editor for song key. Often it's as easy as adding a key signature to the staff. Other times it's buried a little deeper.

Looking inside the file you attached, there aren't any key signature MIDI messages which is why you're seeing the default "C Major", which is what the MIDI spec says the key should be in the absence of a specific one.
qazxsw21000
Posts: 39

Post by qazxsw21000 »

Which is odd because I definitely put the key signature in the editor. It even put the correct symbol on the staff. My editor (Guitar Pro 5) is crap in that regard, but hey, i got it free. I even have something else I wrote that does the exact same thing, but I figured it was because I changed it to C about half-way through.
miek
Posts: 37

Post by miek »

I have the same issue. I have written something in Bb (about 41 bars - with no other key signatures but a few repeats), but when I load the .mid file in Synthesia, it shows it in C with all the accents on the B and E notes. (I think it is Bb because it has two 'b's in the key signature - I think that' right). But if I only export have half of the song to .mid file, synthesia will pick the key signature up. This could be an issue with Musescore, or Synthesia, but I don't know which. The notes are still the correct notes though. I suppose that this will not be an issue if we can play .xml files in the future?
Synthesia is great by the way!
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

miek wrote:This could be an issue with Musescore, or Synthesia...
My guess is MuseScore. Synthesia handles lots of key changes without any trouble. I can take a look at both versions of the MIDI to see what MuseScore is writing.
miek wrote:I suppose that this will not be an issue if we can play .xml files in the future?
Correct. Editors that can output MusicXML will be much more likely to write key changes in that format than they would in MIDI. (The trouble with MIDI is that there historically hasn't been a good reason to sweat over small details like key signature messages when 99% of the time the purpose for the file's existence was to be played out through some audio-only process where those details are completely inconsequential. Unfortunately Synthesia lives in the 1% case.)
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