MIDI import can't handle 7/8 time signature - Waveform 11.5

[Dark Lane]

Hi All

As I'm not getting any answers from the support team, I'm hoping someone can help me move forward with my project.

I've spent days composing a piece in my online composition/notation tool (flat.io if you are interested) and exported it as a single MIDI file. But when I import it into Waveform, although it creates the required number of tracks and populates them with the correct MIDI, the rhythm is all wrong. The notes are imported at half the value (so a quarter note becomes an eighth note etc) and so the bars/measures are all in the wrong places. For example my four bar intro has now become a two bar intro.

Interestingly, the tempo is halved so it plays back 'correctly' but that's no use when I want to edit the MIDI files.

I've tried exporting as single tracks/instruments, changing the time signature in Flat before exporting and changing the time signature in Waveform after importing. No luck.

Unless support come up with a fix I'm faced with manually correcting every note in my six minute, eight instrument Edit which I'm obviously reluctant to do.

Does anyone know of a way to double the length of every MIDI note in a clip/track automatically, so the result ripples through the clip? (There's no benefit of doubling each note value if they just overlap the following note). I though maybe theres an online editor that will allow me to edit the MIDI messages directly but I've not found anything.

Any other brilliant ideas much appreciated.

In the meantime, if you regularly import MIDI into Waveform, it would be worth a quick test before you invest too much time in creating a MIDI file that doesn't import correctly.

Cheers

[Watchful]

Is it just this one file, or anything you import with a 7/8 time signature? I have not experienced this with other imports...wondering if there's something amiss with the source file confusing the import process.

Have you created a different test file in 7/8 with flat.io?

Also, a non-flat.io piece in 7/8? There's got to be a few, short loops in 7/8 time you can grab and test.

[Dark Lane]

Hi Watchful

I've not tried importing other 7/8 files as I've not used that time signature before and I'm more concerned about it working with the specific Edit I'm working on. To be honest, that's the kind of testing I'd expect the support team to do, to get to the root cause of the problem.

But I have tried importing it into another DAW (Pro Tools First) and that worked fine with no change in note length so all the evidence is that it is a Waveform specific problem.

Cheers

[Watchful]

In the interest of a workaround, I wonder if it would work to bring it into Pro Tools, then export it again for import into Waveform. Just wondering if there's something in the original file Waveform is choking on.

[Dark Lane]

Great idea Watchful but sadly the import from ProTools behaves exactly the same as the initial import from flat.

[Watchful]

One more thought, since you've been around the Tractkion block for a while...do you happen to have v10 or v9? I'm wondering if it's a bug unique to v11.5.

If you can open it in an older version of Waveform, save it, and then open it in v11.5 with no issues? Sounds like there's something going on with the import process.

[Dark Lane]

No I only have 11.5 installed. It feels like I've been using Waveform for ages but only for a year or two I don't suppose you have an older version do you?

[Watchful]

I think I go back to T6! If you can send me the export somehow, I can try to import into 9 or 10.

[Watchful]

All right, let's call in some additional help here.

Dark Lane sent me a .mid file in 7/8 time.

- I pulled it into Waveform 11.5, and as Dark Lane reported, his intro ends at the end of bar 2
- I imported the file into Waveform 9, and saw that it, too, put the end of his intro at the end of bar 2 instead of bar 4. Maybe not unexpected.
- I tried Cubase 9, but evidently my subscription expired back in the 1960s. Guess it's been a while.
- Out of curiosity, I played the .mid file in Windows 10's Media Player--and I could hear his intro end at the end of bar 4.
- I used an old school MIDI editor, and could see the intro complete at the end of bar 4! So there's something definitely weird here. The old school editor let me see if there was anything hiding inside the file (control changes, e.g.,) that might be confusing things, but everything was clean. Right where it should be.
- MuseScore also puts the intro in the correct place. I exported this from MuseScore as a MIDI file, back into Waveform 9--and it's at the end of bar 2.

This seems to be a bug, to say the least.

It looks like Waveform (different versions) is importing this as a 7/4 time signature, exactly as reported.