oh I never noticed that little thing before! But all I get when I open it up is a straight line. No waves and spikes. Is your image shown here from WMM? I'll not be making any videos in the near future, but when I do I may have to ask about this again.

Yes it's WMM. Maybe your video just doesn't have any sound in it.

There is sound - I'm listening/watching it now, but still nothing on the waveform. Also, your rows showing the waveforms are a lot fatter than mine. Maybe we're using different versions - I dunno - I'm kind of lost. It's ok though, time to go outside and get some sun.

Thank you Monica for the link. I tried to download it, but it only works with Vista or W7. I have XP.

Chris thank you for posting the software page. It looks pretty basic. My computer is a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 machine that's about 7yrs old. I don't know if I can run W7 on this machine. I'll also look into ways of cleaning up all the garbage that is running in the background. I may call over my friend who works in IT to do the computer stuff.

As in audio editing software, the the height and width of the spikes is a matter of view magnification, usually controlled by a magnifying glass icon as you can make them as flat as a line or fatten them up until they cover the entire page. The height and width of the waveform can be viewed under different magnifications, allowing you to "see" the attack of the notes as a spike. The sustain of notes in a passage is seen as a thick band.
-Height of the spikes refer to the amplitude or volume. If they're too tall and truncated, then you know you have clipping or it's too loud.
-Width of the spikes refer to the time domain.

I wish you two a Happy Easter! Don't eat too much Easter chocolate, or else this might happen...

Hi again, George.
Well, I feel pretty stupid again, because I never knew that I could make those rows fatter. Attachment #1 shows how I've been managing things. See how skinny that audio row is?

Attachment #2 shows that now I can actually drag that thick line up which then enlarges the rows. Duh to me! However, as you can see, the audio waveform shows up, and I did zoom in here but still there are not clear spikes. All I see are blobs. Also it is so light in color that it's hard to see. It's okay though, please don't waste any time trying to show me what I'm doing wrong. It will be awhile before I make another video. I get too nervous and stressed-out.

So....Happy Easter to you too! That's a funny image. I wish someone would bite my butt off if I ate too much chocolate. Better than getting a big butt from eating too much chocolate!

I'd seen that easterbunny cartoon before, but I still think it's hilarious

On Friday, just as the technician began to tune my piano, the agraffe on F-natural (above middle C) broke. The Agraffe is the fulcrum screwed into the iron frame near the tuning pin end which the string(s) pass through, determining the singing length of the string. It's easier for me to pull wisdom teeth than it was for the technician to retrieve the broken threaded screw from the iron frame. But he got it! I am going to give him an honorary dental degree afterward...

If there ever was one note on the entire piano, which seemed off and wouldn't hold tune well, it was that one. The shared string on E and F going through that agraffe had a buzzy timbre. That explains it. This is a rare event, however, I don't know when the tuner will get the part from Steinway because the parts department never answers the phone... With no strings on E-n or F-n, I can't play any current repertoire until the tuner gets the part, and with my schedule who knows when I'll be able to have him fix and tune it...

Hey, can I make silent videos instead?

Monica, are you serious? No "wasted time" on this end, especially after all the info and inspiration you and Chris have given me on video!...
Don't worry, you're doing nothing wrong. Perhaps you're making a visual comparison with your Audition3? It's only a visualization issue since the Audition3 has a much larger waveform window than in WMM. Think of spikes as letters of a small font (as in WMM) and the more letters you cram in a line of sentence, the more it's going to look like a blob or a solid band of unintelligible letters. We cannot "see" or "read" waveforms, all you can make out is the attack of a note/chord as shown on a spike, or if clipping occurs. If you see more Blobs, the waveform is condensed and bunched up in the time domain; and if you see more spikes, the waveform is spread out over the horizontal time domain. If you could magnify the waveform in the horizontal time domain, any blob would give way to individual spikes. I don't know if you can in WMM, but you could try and visualize this on Audition3 by elongating a blob into it's collective spikes by clicking the magnifying glass(+) in the horizontal direction. Also, by clicking the magnifying glass(-) you can shrink a collection of visible spikes into a blob. In summary, there is no bearing on signal quality when viewing a waveform, regardless of spikes and/or blobs.

Re: Easter bunny chocolate: Please enjoy, you look like you're already immune from any effects of chocolate anyway...

oh, I'm sorry to hear about your piano trouble. But at least you know that it can be fixed. In the meantime, yes you can make a 'silent' video. You can video record yourself playing something that you already have on your computer - an mp3. So in the video, you just need to 'look' like you are playing and then you dub in your other audio file. Voilà!

Regarding my WMM problem - I get what you are saying, and yes perhaps I am comparing the waveform to what I see in Audition, but you can see more defined 'blobs' in Chris's image than what I get. Maybe I will screw around with this again today...


You say all the right things!

Hey, George. Right after I wrote that last thing - I got an email from an internet place that sends me mostly stuff I am not interested in, but just now I received this message and it made me think of you:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.actio ... 4978149236

Is it the same place that works on your piano?

I can't say I understand why the audio track of the camera has so much more amplitude than the track from the Edirol (on which I keep the input volume thumbwheel fixed by means of sellotape). However it does not seem to be a problem for the result. I recorded two new Bach videos today, one is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pei9Vz-8lX8 but the other I'm not wholly satisfied with and will want to redo.

Like lip syncing for piano? Nah, personally, I've never liked the concept because the element of spontaneity and impulse is absent. I'll have to wait until the piano is ready and make a video, even if there are wrong notes.

No. They're about 100mi away. I've had the same tuner for 30 years, and fortunately he's also a Steinway technician. Thanks for the link, I enjoyed listening to the Barcarolle in the background.

well I tried again and just don't get this. I'm giving up until next video. And sorry CB but I don't watch/comment on videos from people who are not my friends or subscribers. Rarely do I even initiate any conversation.

George - I know what you mean about the lip-syncing piano. I got that idea from Andreas. But really I don't see how it would even be possible to do. I can always tell when someone is lip-syncing (singing), and I hate it too - yuck - can't watch for more than 2 seconds because it's so stupid. I can't see how a person could make their fingers play exactly in sync with an audio file, either.

George,

Just sing the missing notes That should be festive.

Scott

My new Philipp edition arrived last week and thought I'd report my findings:

1. Union Musical Espagnola. Edited by Juan Salvat (IMSLP download): the ff octave chords in R.H. is on the downbeat
2. Edited by C. B. Roepper (IMSLP download): the ff octave chords in R.H. is on 2nd 1/16th beat.
3. International Music Company. Edited by Isidor Philipp (On order): the ff octave chords in R.H. is on 2nd 1/16th beat.

Since I am not a professional, it's not going to be an academic decision. I am still going with the Salvat edition with the ff octave chords on the downbeat, even though a 1/16th note interval can really make things easier in landing all those leaps. It's just one of those single-take-better-be-perfect scenarios. All you need is one leap to be off by a quarter inch and it's back to square one! Theoretically, I have 0.11 seconds to land 2 octave leaps in contrary motion - Zoinks! I should sign up for Spring semester at Jedi Academy so that I can use the force!