Using InTime™™ with Music Notation Software: Setting Up

For this example, we choose Prelude I from J. S. Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1. This is what the first three bars should look like when notated.

The piece is based on a simple rhythmic figure, running16th notes, so it is easy to look and see what's right and wrong in the notation. And it's all arpeggios, so only one note is played at a time—this requires specific settings as we’ll discuss below. It was performed at a relatively steady tempo, although with some slowing at phrase endings. Then there is a final ritard, where the tempo slows dramatically.

Tempo tracking parameters

We have chosen InTime™'s most sensitive settings. There are two reasons for this: We have a quick and dramatic change of tempo at the final ritard, and we're only playing one note at a time. If we were playing lots of chords, we could achieve similar tracking performance with a sensitivity of 5 or 6. Momentum is useful for the final ritard because it increases the tempo tracking sensitivity for unidirectional tempo changes. For the rest of the piece, which has a relatively steady tempo, this adds a little smoothing. Warning: With settings this sensitive, you are completely in charge. InTime™ listens to each and every note you play as potentially signaling a large tempo change. As you will hear in this performance, it is quite possible to play a steady tempo with these settings. But stay away from settings like this unless your playing is rhythmically very precise, and until you are experienced with InTime™.

Tempo and start settings

MIDI device settings

Continue on to: Recording a take and saving it as a MIDI file