G’day… I apologize in advance for any breach of Forum protocol I inadvertently make in this initial posting. I feel a little like a mosquito in a nudist camp… I don’t quite know where to start! (was this joke my first breach?). 
I’m a 69 year old ex Fortran/Basic programmer who did some great things in his professional career and now remembers just enough about systems development to be really dangerous in today’s C++, open system world of Audacity. I used Audacity successfully in a proof of concept exercise where I became familiar enough with its functionality to be very impressed with its capabilities. (http://www.eachlivingmoment.net/proof-of-concept---shenandoah.html).
So much so, I’m convinced it has the potential to provide the foundation for a new suite of freeware applications I’m in the process of specifying, which have the potential to make a positive difference in the lives of at least an estimated 500,000 people around the world and, by doing so, become the ubiquous software of choice in the targeted market sector (http://www.eachlivingmoment.net/21st-c-music-challenge.html).
I fired off an message to the Audacity team but received no response. In hindsight, I now recognise that the apps are probably too purpose specific to be of any interest to the Audacity team. Hence this posting to the general systems development community. I am contemplating what it may take to get my systems development skills back up to scratch (the last line I coded was about 27 years ago!). I could give it a go but it makes more sense to team up with other like-minded people who already have the competency I now lack. Together we could make beautiful music.
Is there anyone out there who would like to join us on this magnificent altruistic adventure?
Walter Bennett
Original Founder and Music Producer
Each Living Moment virtual choir
Sorry you received no response. I did glance at your note and the links, but your message was short on specifics (particularly as to what exactly the " 21stCmusic format" was). Also bear in mind we often get invitations asking us to help someone develop their “killer app” for free (or possibly for a cut of the profits).
Either way, none of the developers who saw it apparently thought it worth responding to. No C++ developers from Audacity Team read the Forum. You are probably correct in thinking that if an Audacity developer was to do commercial contract work for you, we might look for features that had reasonably short to mid-term spinoffs for current Audacity. It depends, we don’t know what you have in mind. And of course you accept that someone else could take your open source code, whoever developed it, develop the app with a few tweaks then sell it.
One of the Audacity Developers has a personal interest in MIDI/Audio comparison so could have some interest in your project, but you’ll need to give much more information. Specifically why is the starting point MusicXML, but you want to convert that to some other unknown format? Audacity does not natively support MusicXML; it does natively support MIDI and Allegro file opening (with unfinished code for MIDI playback and MIDI / Audio comparison). Conversion between MusicXML and MIDI probably isn’t that difficult (see http://www.pjb.com.au/midi/musicxml2mid.html for a starting point).
Gale
Hello Gale.
Thanks for your reply Gale. It took me awhile to discover it, as I was looking only in my email Inbox for a reply.
I’m very keen to talk to the Audacity developer you mentioned, for the 21stCmusic challenge is particularly focused on MIDI and Audio comparison.
You said I was very short on detail in my message. That’s true because I had published, what I thought, was a fairly clear description of the functions I was envisaging in one of the links I provided (http://www.eachlivingmoment.net/21st-c-music-challenge.html). On that page, see also the crude video simulation of how the SingingCoach ‘killer app’ would perform.
I’ve attached a screen shot of music I keyed into Finale Songwriter that is the equivalent of the simple 'We can sing from ve-ry soft to loud" melody shown in the simulation, and a screen shot of these data imported to Audacity (MIDI and wav) . Note that the MIDI representation in Audacity is similar to that shown in my simulation (in terms of pitch and time required but not volume required). Note also that the imported wav data shown as Pitch (EAC) is similar to that shown in my simulation (in terms of pitch and time required but not volume achieved). Finally, note that the imported wav data shown as waveform is similar to that shown in my simulation (in terms of volume required). Forget what I said about MusicXML, that was a mistake. It’s MIDI and WAV formats involved.
It seems the bones of what I need exist in Audacity in the form of MIDI and WAV representations. I also need statistics of a comparison between the imported data described above and a singer’s actual recorded performance in terms of pitch, timing and volume accuracy.
I’ll sign off for now. I will be preparing a detailed functional specification document in due course but wanted to kick around the concept with those familiar with Audacity to clarify what it is capable of.
Cheers
Walter
