Progress Report: I have "New" Old Music from Long Lost Audiotapes

 Just the small stuff for now.  There were two cassettes in a box in the shed.  Also a videotape.  Still looking for the Hi8 video.  The cassettes were both home recordings of my Uncle Freil playing the piano.  One was dated 26 March 1988.  The other doesn't have a date, but is probably from the same time frame.

    Finished scanning the first audiotape last night.  The first side was done a few days ago, and had 14 minutes of Freil's music.  The rest was off-the-wall stuff, mostly commercials and old tv theme songs.  On the other side, it was a lot of Floyd Cramer music.  It makes sense, seeing that his style is very similar to Freil's style.  I used to have a lot of Cramer's albums, this was probably just a mix tape for the car.  Thank goodness it went into storage before it got old and brittle in the car.

    So, it was fun listening to Floyd Cramer last night.  There was even one song by Cramer that wasn't available on YouTube - Back On My Mind Again.  I know, it's a Ronnie Milsap song... but Floyd made it into a fun, up-tempo song.  I like the style.  Converted it to a WAV and added it to the "Songs I Want To Play" directory.  There are a lot of songs in there I can already play, but if someone does one song in a way I haven't heard, or that appeals and I want to learn their way of playing it... it goes in the directory.  Also, there are plenty that are beyond me.  Someday, maybe... or maybe I'll just enjoy listening to them now and then.

    The 14 minutes of Freil playing are digitized in one big WAV file.  I'll do some work with it later.  For now, the goal is just to get all these songs backed up.  One more tape to try.  Assuming the tape still plays, it'll be like opening Christmas gifts.  Who knows what wonderful songs he'll be playing?

... Several hours later...

    Slightly disappointed.  The 2nd tape was a duplicate of the first one.  So, no new discoveries.  On the bright side, I have 14 minutes of music I haven't heard in decades.  Quality is pretty low, but that was expected.  Recorded on a Radio Shack shoe-box tape recorder, while it was sitting on the piano as Freil played.  35 years later, the fact that the cassette still plays is absolutely remarkable.  I'm very happy with it!

    Spent the last couple of hours tinkering with the audio.  For what little I know, Audacity has some nice beginner level effects that definitely improved the sound.  Then started saving each song out as a separate WAV file.  Now I have 8 new songs by Freil.  Technically 9, but Yackety Sax was played twice.  I don't remember why, but it's all good.  It means a lot to hear him play something "new" after all these years.  Decades later, Freil still inspires me.

    It'll take some set-up, and hunting on the computer in the hopes I still have the VHS-to-File transfer software... but with any luck the VHS of Freil playing will be next.  Again, hoping it's in great condition.  Also, still searching the shed.  There's one more recording, a Hi8 videotape, that should be somewhere out there.  If I can find it, there's a point where he and I are playing a duet at Uncle Roger and Aunt Annie's home.  We're playing Goodbye World Goodbye, and it's a very favorite memory.  I need it to still be there, and still be playable.

One last thing, completely unrelated to music; there was another tape in that last box.  It has Rene Auberjonois (Odo, from Star Trek: Deep Space 9) reading a couple of short stories by Roger Zelazny.  One of them is "Unicorn Variations", and ranks as an all-time favorite story.  Going to digitize it and load it onto my phone for trips.  Talk about serendipity... this was an amazing rediscovery!!

Transferring Audiotape Cassettes to WAV and MP3

    It's been a while since my last post.  Lot going on in real life, but also making progress on the music.  I went to see my folks a couple of weeks back, and Mom gave me some old tapes and discs that potentially had Uncle Freil's playing on them.  Got home, and hunted all over, but none of the tape players in the house were able to play the cassettes.  Monique and I both sell on eBay... you'd think with 20+ years each selling on eBay, we'd have at least one fully functional audiocassette player in the house, but nope.  None that could transfer the music into my computer.  Going to have to buy one.

DISTRACTIONS

    Then we had distractions.  A very cute, tiny dog that decided we were going to be his new home.  With three dogs already, we can't afford a fourth.  Thankfully someone volunteered to adopt him. Also, Monique and her sister spent all last week reorganizing our clutter.  eBay had taken over.  There's still work to be done, but it makes more sense now.  It feels like we have breathing room again.

    During the same week, my computer kicked the bucket.  It started by only booting in low-res and 32-bit.  Then it wouldn't boot at all.  The next morning, still not booting, but it did attempt to do a repair on the drive.  Later that day, it booted up.  Over the next few days, it would start up, but with various hiccups.  For now it's booting up and working right.  It won't last forever, but at least it's working right now.

    In that same time frame, we were told our taxes were going to be... a lot. Much more than ever before.  Last year I half-way retired.  Still working part time, and still selling on eBay.  Near the end of the year property taxes were nearly double compared to the previous year.  So we sold on eBay like never before to be able to pay it.  Now we're having to pay taxes on all the extra income we made in order to pay the other taxes.  
    As it turned out, it wasn't so bad.  Not great, but not "end of life as we know it" bad.

STILL SEARCHING FOR A CASSETTE PLAYER

    While all that was going on, the hunt was still on for a tape player.  Apparently, there are no "good but affordable" cassette players being made.  You can either go cheap/mid-range, none of which had... pristine... reviews.  Or you can go eBay with classic, expensive, decks from the 80's.  Tough call... you want the final audio to sound good, but the bank is already broke.  Cheap was the only option.
    There were three models on Amazon that seemed appropriate, in a price range from $25 to $60.  All three had a standard headphone audio out jack.  With the correct cable, you can go from headphone out, to the computer's Mic In, and digitize the audio with Audacity.

    The winner was the Semier AM/FM Radio Cassette Recorder, model number SM-138.  It could play and record audiotapes, has a 3.5mm earphone jack, can run on 4 C size batteries, or AC (power cord comes in the box, thankfully).  As you can see in the photo, the box had some corner damage, but the machine was in perfect condition.

TESTING THE AUDIO

    Did a test run, and it works!  Not perfect, but I'm playing tapes recorded 30 to 40 years ago... and they were recorded with one of those old Radio Shack shoe-box recorders.  I'm thrilled they still worked at all.  A little audio wobble under the circumstances is completely acceptable.
    One of the reviewers (don't remember which unit it was reviewing) warned of a 'hum' when you used a power cord, and gave advice on how to avoid it.  (Use batteries, or buy a $10 Noise Isolator.)  It was a well-written review with a lot of helpful info, but he made it sound like not following his advice would result in horrible audio.  I disagree.  

    When the player audio is set to the lowest possible level at which recognizable sounds are playing, and Audacity recording levels adjusted appropriately, the audio was acceptable for the circumstances.  Hum wasn't an issue.  Bad tape quality, years of tape degradation, and highly variable volumes within the same recording, those were issues.  The quality sure wasn't up to sound studio standards.  But with all the technical challenges, it was as good as could be asked for.

GOT THE WRONG TAPES

    One last issue... now that I can play the tapes, and digitize them, those first two turned out to be recordings of professionally made CDs, which I already owned.  Very disappointing.  Not the end of the story, though.  Last night, going through old boxes, I found two audio tapes that I had personally recorded of Freil playing the piano.  Only had time to check one side out.  There are 14 minutes of good enough audio, with songs I haven't heard him play since the late 1980's.  That made it all worthwhile.

    Can't wait to listen to the rest.  Hope to find more gems from the past, but it's been too long since writing a new blog.  Now you know what's up, and that I'm still making progress!

MuseScore: Midi Import Panel Project Delayed

    "Midi Sheet Music" no longer consistently reads my newest MIDI files.  I spent several days recently searching for a replacement.  The big find was Midiano.  It shows scrolling sheet music, a piano keyboard, and both parts highlight the active notes as the MIDI file is playing.  It does the job with a LOT of bells and whistles.  That solved most of the problem.

    MUSESCORE PRINTS SHEET MUSIC... ODDLY
    The missing element was the ability to print the sheet music as .pdf files that I can share.  Of everything I tried, MuseScore was the best, but the formatting was odd.  It had clef symbols sprinkled all over the pages.  I wasn't too thrilled with the dots over the notes either, but that was small stuff.   The profusion of treble and base clefs throughout the sheets confused and annoyed me.  Not that I read sheet music... 

    Actually, I can struggle through the notes, piece by piece, but the rest of it is beyond me.  In the mid-60's, I took 3 years of first-year lessons.  Yes, that means I took the same first-year instruction three times.  Every time Dad got a new assignment, or my instructors moved, the new piano teacher insisted I start over... "to learn HER way."  By the third year, I was fed up and quit taking lessons.  Now I play by ear.

WHY CAN'T I FIND THE MIDI IMPORT PANEL?

    Anyway, spent a lot of time yesterday trying to find a better alternative.  MuseScore had the cleanest output, best-looking pages.  It imports MIDI without the sustain pedal, which is a strike against, but as far as sheet music it was the best free software out there.  Some forum conversations mentioned a "Midi Import Panel".  It's supposed to appear at the bottom of the screen, every time you open a Midi file.

    Not true.  It NEVER showed up.  Searched the context menus, the preferences, all the options I could find, nothing.  So I googled Midi Import Panel.  Long story short... it's gone.  There's are a lot of sites, even Google-recommended question/answer lists, that give instructions how to access it, and how to use it.  But they all apply to the previous version of MuseScore, not the current version.

    There's a GITHUB MU4 Task, "Restore Midi Input Panel".  It was opened on June 7, 2022, and closed on Sep 1, 2022.  The end result was to push it forward to a future revision.  The task was deemed too complex, and it was agreed that the panel would be restored in a future 4.x version of MuseScore.  As of today, March 05 2023, the panel is still not restored.

    So:      MuseScore 4 does NOT have the Midi Import Panel. 

               MuseScore 3 DOES!!!

GET 3.6.2 TO ACCESS THE IMPORT PANEL
    Those options seem kind of critical.  It's hard to understand why they simple left it out.  On the other hand, it's a very complex program, provided completely free.  I can't really complain about free.

There was another forum discussion where several people opted not to update yet.  Someone mentioned using both.  I already had version 4 installed, and tried installing version 3.  It worked just fine.  As a matter of fact, the highest revision to 3 I could find was version 3.6.2, so the link above goes to the first site I found that offered it.  Let me say it again:  MuseScore 3.6.2 DOES have the Midi Import Panel.

    It did exactly what it was supposed to.  Now I'm ecstatic.  It automatically splits my piano track into a treble and bass clef, which I like.  And it no longer has the excess clefs all over the sheets.
    One minor thing, and this is my own fault.  I use a lot of keyboard real estate.  Hit the deep low notes, and often go 2 or 3 octaves up as well.  In the sheet music, there are a LOT of lines stacked up representing how far below Middle C to play.  That's okay with me.  I hope it doesn't bother anybody who tried to play my arrangements.  With my limited understanding of sheet music, this makes more sense than having the treble and bass clefs floating all over the place.

PLAY IT LIKE YOU FEEL IT!
    Last caveat:  Professional musicians have told me, and many websites I've read also state that MIDI to sheet music conversion is error prone, and inaccurate.  As far as I can tell, it shows the notes I play, the way I play them.  Anybody advanced enough to read the notation... and anybody who loves southern gospel playing... can figure out the rest.  You just play it like you feel it.