Exporting Songs (PRO)

With Song Master Pro you can export entire songs as: MusicXml, PDF, and text formats. You can also export just the lyrics in text and .LRC format.

MusicXML export

MusicXml is an open standard for sharing sheet music and is supported by a number of music notation programs. You can export a song in MusicXML and bring it in to your music notation app for additional cleanup and printing.

With Song Master Pro you export all the details of the song arranged in a "song sheet" (screenshot below shows the export MusicXML in the Musescore app):

If you use the Pitches tab to convert your stem tracks from audio-to-MIDI, you can export the midi notes as musical notes:

To export a song to MusicXML

From the File menu, Export Song, and select Export Song as MusicXML

In the dialog, refine the options to export:

• If you want to just export just a portion of a song, then prior to exporting, set a loop region for the part that you want to export and check the Limit to active Loop Region

• Set Snap notes to to the finest note resolution that represents your notation. "Smart" snapping will intelligently handle converting straight and triplet notes to the selected snap setting. Smaller snap settings may cause issues with excessive rests, etc.

• If you want to export midi notes, select one or more midi tracks listed (you must convert tracks to midi before exporting). You can also set the type of staff you want and if you want to transpose the notes (useuful for Bass and Guitar which are usually tranposed in music notation). To change the order of the tracks, simply drag them to re-order.

tip

Export a song in MusicXML format and import it into any notation app for further refinement and printing. If you don't have one, checkout MuseScore, it's free.

Quick Notes When Exporting for Notation

There is a big difference between performance midi (which captures precise note onsets and note durations--which may be held) and what is expected as music notation.

For best looking results, you will likely want to the following actions in the Midi editor prior to exporting:

• set the Snap setting to the appropriate quantization level
• select the notes to quantize
• quantize note starts and durations
• For arpegios and notes lengthened with a pedal, you will usually want to short the note durations. If the arpeggio is, say, 1/8th triplets, set the Snap setting, then use the midi editors Fixed Length to quickly adjust the note durations of the selected notes.

Exporting Songs as PDF

You export a song as a PDF from the Song Sheet view. The first step is to configure the Song Sheet to include the data you want to export. Right-click in the Song Sheet and select Song Sheet Options... (or select Song Sheet Options... from the View menu).

Refer to the Song Sheet for more information.

note

You control the number of bars displayed in a row of the pdf by resizing Song Master's window which causes the Song Sheet to wrap the bars accordingly.

Now to save the Song Sheet to pdf, right-click in Song Sheet Viewer and select Export Song Sheet to pdf... (you can also use File | Export Song | Export Song Sheet to pdf) to display the following dialog:

Use the "..." button to select the destination for the pdf.

Pdfs may be saved in color (nice for displaying the pdf on other devices like the iPad) or black-and-white (for printing).

Fit on one page will vertically scale the song sheet to fit on one page. If the song requires more than a couple of pages, the output will likely be difficult to read.

If you want to have the PDF opened in your default PDF viewer, click Open PDF.

Export Song as Text

To export a song to a text file, click Export Song from the File menu to display the Export Song as Text. The following dialog is displayed to let you customize the text output a bit:

Use the "..." to select the destination for the text file.

Skip bars at start is useful to prevent outputting bars when the audio has some silence at the start or the song fades in. Set the Number of bars per row appropriately. If Include lyrics is checked then lyrics will be included along with the chords. If Open file when finished is checked, then the text file will be opened in your default text app.

ChordMark Text Format

There are many text formats devised for storing song chords and lyrics. Instead of inventing yet another format, Song Master Pro uses the format defined by ChordMark. They have thorough documentation on the format and have developed their own web app to render the text files into pretty looking documents.

Briefly, the text format uses the following conventions

• Sections start with '#' and must be just one word
• The song's key is on one line starting with key; example: "key C"
• Time Signatures can appear on separate lines or on same line as chords
• Chords
  • '.' used to denote the number of beats for a given chord. For example, the following line has A7 and D7 being played for two beats each, while E7 is played for three beats and A7 for one beat
    • A7.. D7.. E7... A7.
  • If chord is full bar, then '.' is not needed
  • For chords < 1 beat, put them in sq brackets [Am Am/G Am/F]
• Lyrics
  • Lyrics appear under chords, '_' are chord position markers and indicate where a chord appears relative to the text
  • Chord position markers aren't required