Saturday, June 21, 2008

Bring a pillow!

Lemme start by saying that this will be a boring post for 99% of you.
Consider it a public service; my way of helping to combat the ever-growing epidemic of insomnia out there.
My apologies.

Anyway, here's the topic:
Our newest member of ABC group, Kyle #2, (nice guy and excellent trumpet player) has graciously offered to help make a MIDI recording of one of my compositions. I got the preliminary recording yesterday, and it sounds ok, though it needs percussion, and maybe some louder woodwinds, etc, etc. All in all, I'm happy with it, as a starting point.
Eventually, after a few sessions of tweaking, it will reach a point where I listen to it and say "OH my God, YES! That's perfect! I wanna save a copy of that so I can listen to it forever and ever and send it to all my friends and force them to listen to it until they buy earplugs and send me restraining orders!"

And that's where I seem to be stuck.

I tried right-clicking on the player (as Kyle instructed) and waited for "Save As" to appear in the menu. But this is what came up:I see the "Save As Source" and "Save As QuickTime Movie", but that's not quite what I had in mind. Still, I tried selecting those, and both times, here's what came up:

It wants me to BUY QuickTime.
I already have it, though....
See? Here it is in my start menu....
(Left column, third from bottom... click to enlarge)

Here are the properties....

Does the problem have something to do with my apparent lack of the "Pro" version?
Here's the thing, though...
If at all possible, I'd rather save it as something other than QuickTime.
Like MIDI, or WAV, or MP3.... any kind of sound file.

But no such options are offered.

Therein lies my dilemma.

I'll let you go to sleep now.
.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Damn. There are some really good freeware audio programs out there that you can use to convert a midi file to wave, OGG, orbis, Aiff and eventually to MP3. I would convert the midi file to wave and then convert it to MP3.

Check out NONAGS(dot)COM as this is a good place to find virus free freeware programs. They have all kinds of audio software you can download.

Shoot me an email if you would like me to help or make reccomendations on different programs. I use several of these audio files in my recordings.

Later Y'all.

Janna said...

Melon: That's the problem, though; I can't GET to the MIDI file. If I could, I wouldn't need to convert it to anything, I'd just keep it as a MIDI. I don't think I need any additional programs; I've certainly got enough audio programs... I just need to find a way to save that file as ANY kind of music file. Not a QuickTime file, and not just as a link. See what I mean...?

Sans Pantaloons said...

Janna, I'm not sure I fully understand the problem, so please bear with me.

You received a file from Kyle#2 possibly in the form of a URL link; this file being a midi file.

You click on the link and Quicktime opens, QT being the application associated with midi files on your (new) machine.

You wish to save the file locally, but because you do not have the PRO version of QT, the app will not allow it.

If this (my) interpretation of the issue is correct, the solution is to return to the original URL link provided by Kyle#2 and right click that, choosing save file/target as.
If not then I apologise.

Janna said...

Sans: Not exactly. There is no file. There's just a link to a page which has a player built into the screen. That's the little player-bar you see in the screencap there.
So when I click on Kyle's link, no actual program opens. Just the webpage with that player on it.
I right-click on the player, in hopes of seeing a "Save As...."
But instead, I get the options I showed in the post.
As an added curiosity, I discovered that my version of Quicktime IS the "Pro" version. So it should be working... but somehow it isn't getting recognized.
The player embedded in the page works fine, I can hear it; I'm just unable to save it as a file.

Janna said...

Sans: One other thing.... QuickTime actually is NOT the program associated with MIDI files on my computer. That's another thing that doesn't make sense about this. My default program for MIDI is Windows Media Player.

Sans Pantaloons said...

Aha! It becomes clearer. Kyle#2 has embedded the file in a QT player wrapper, and posted that.
That's why there is zero choice of player, and why there is zero access to the file. There may be a solution, albeit a slightly complex one. If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, under the 'View' tab at the top, there is the 'Source' selection, allowing you to see the html code of the page you are viewing. Part of the QT player instruction in that code may contain the tag 'embed src' and you could search for that, or search for 'mid' or/and 'midi'. Selecting 'Source' on my machine brings up the code in notepad, and the 'Find' selection is uder the 'Edit' tab. Once found, these words should be part of the URL to the midi file the QT player has been programmed to play, and this URL can be copied and simply entered into the browser Address line. The file will/may probably be played by your default player and that may give you the chance to save the file locally. If not, you can enter the URL in an email, where it will appear as an active link, and that then will allow a right click and 'save target as'.
No doubt clear as mud. If you are not confident in the above, you can forward the address of Kyles#2 web page and I can do this for you, assuming it can be done. I can then email you the file.

Janna said...

Sans: Ooooh! That's a good idea, searching for the code. I know what you're trying to say. I've done that before while searching for other stuff. In Firefox, the keyboard shortcut for that is "CTRL+U". :)
But alas, when I tried it, that option was greyed out on the drop-down menu for this particular page. Not sure why.
It was still a brilliant idea.
Thank you for trying!

Kyle said...

I thought I had answered this before but I guess not. Sans is right. Just right click on the LINK , not the player. Then click save as...

Janna said...

Fred: Trust me, it doesn't work.
I wanted to save an actual music file, not a link.
Still haven't found a way.
I think it's impossible, not unlike stuffing an entire box of Stove Top Stuffing into a sparrow.