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What are the software options?
Use the Setup/Options command to open the MIDI Maestro Options window.
What are the Startup options?
Open the most recent set or song. When you shutdown then restart MIDI Maestro, this option will cause the most recently used set or song to be re-opened.
Use the Internet to check for software updates. This highly recommended option will automatically check the MIDI Maestro website for software updates each time you start the software.
Automatically associate MIDI files with MIDI Maestro. When MIDI files (.mid, etc) are associated with MIDI Maestro, they appear as sheet-music documents and they will open in MIDI Maestro when you double-click them in Windows Explorer.
MIDI Maestro window always on top. This option causes the MIDI Maestro window to remain visible above all other windows on your desktop (unless they too are marked as "always on top").
Prevent the Windows Screensaver while MIDI Maestro is the foreground application. The Windows screensaver will open (if you have one configured) if you don't touch the keyboard or mouse for a predetermined amount of time. When this happens, applications like MIDI Maestro may inadvertently pause, something undesirable in a performance scenario. So either disable the screensaver, or use this option.
Prevent Windows Suspend (power saving) mode. Even worse than a screensaver appearing in the middle of a performance would be the system going into standby or hibernating to save battery life.
What are the Playback options?
Timer source. You should not change these settings unless you are attempting to run MIDI Maestro on a significantly under-powered PC (below the minimum system specifications requirements). A timer value greater than 5 may, and a timer value greater than 10 certainly will have detrimental effects on the timing quality of the MIDI music.
Click track. This is MIDI Maestro's metronome. The click track was initially designed to be used by a live percussionist through headphones, although it is also useful in rehearsal scenarios when it is helpful to better hear the rhythm. When in performance mode, the click track may also be enabled/disabled by clicking the blue button that replaces the record button in the transport area.
Lead time (ms). This is the number of milliseconds before the actual beat that the click track will request sound. If you're using an external synthesizer for your music, and an internal software synthesizer for the click track (headphones connected to the audio-out jack on a laptop for example), you'll probably need to set this to 50 or so to get the beat to synchronize. This is due to delays in the production of sound through a software synthesizer.
Port/Channel. You will find listed here all ports as configured on the Setup/MIDI ports window. If you have selected specific drum channels for a synthesizer, only those channels are listed.
Drumset. You will find listed here every drum patch that is found in the synthesizer database for the synthesizer associated with the port/channel you have chosen.
Notes (1st beat; 2, others). Here you select the actual note that is played for the metronome. You may select a different note and velocity for the 1st beat of every measure if you want to emphasize that. You will find listed here every drum note that is found in the synthesizer database for the synthesizer and drumset that you have chosen.
Re-assert patches and other controllers when play begins. This option will re-send every MIDI setting that is in use for every channel that is in use every time you use the Play command.
Interpret play/cue command as last vamp.
Use pitch wheel to control tempo multiplier. This option maps the pitch wheel lever on your synthesizer to MIDI Maestro's tempo multiplier slider (the vertical blue ball to the left of the large beat display). This provides a handy way to follow a singer rubato.
What are the Display options?
Smooth scrolling of current playback position. This option should be enabled unless you're attempting to run MIDI Maestro on a greatly under-powered machine. This option maintains the current song position at the center of window during playback.
Cue colors. Each of MIDI Maestro's cues may be given a custom color.
What are the Record options?
Mode (Normal, Step, Punch). "Normal" recording requires you to manually start and stop playback and whatever you play during playback is recorded. "Step" recording allows you to record a note or chord at a time. Each time you play a note or chord, they are recorded and the playback position is advanced by the amount you specify here. Press the spacebar on the computer keyboard for a rest, or to expend notes if you're still holding them down on the keyboard. "Punch" recording requires you to first select a range of time. You then start and stop recording manually at any song position. Only notes that you play during the selected time range are recorded.
Recording of notes is always layered. Every time you record, notes are added onto notes that may already be there. When you record controllers (such as expression of pitch wheel), however, they replace controller values that may already exist.
Click track enabled. If you don't already have a bass or drum track laid down, you will typically you want to hear a metronome while you record. This option turns on the click track for recording regardless of whether or not it is enabled for playback.
Follow tempo map. If you unselect this option, the playback that begins when you begin recording will not change tempo regardless of tempo changes that occur in the tempo map. This often makes recording easier.
Count-in (measures). Here you may specify a number of "click" measures that you will hear before playback and recording actually begin.
Events (Notes, Controllers, etc.). Here you may specify the types of MIDI events that you want to capture when you record. If your keyboard sends after-touch and/or channel pressure messages, and you are not interested in them, this is a great way to filter those out.
What are the Staff & Lead-Sheet options?
When music is performed or improvised, notes are never played in "perfect" rhythm and often not held for their full durations (due to articulation such as staccato, for example). Several notation options allow compensation for this, so that the notation that is generated will be easier to read.
Resolution (smallest notes). This setting determines the "quantization," resolution, or "grid-size" of the notation generation. Simply stated, if you specify 16th notes, you will see no 32nd notes--all notes will be aligned on 16th note boundaries. Furthermore, if you specify 8th notes, you will see no 16th or 32nd notes.
Fill. This option will extend the notated duration of even the smallest note to reach the next beat boundary. Score writers will use this technique as it produces music that is easier to read--when shortly-played notes are desired, articulation markings such as staccato dots will be used.
Trim. When note begin and end times overlap, there may be multiple rhythm patterns that may need to be represented. The overlapping notes and rests may produce music that is difficult to read. The "trim" option will attempt to minimize this affect by attempting to fit all notes into a single rhythm pattern. However, if notes overlap significantly, the "trim" option will fail to create a single rhythm pattern.
Printed staff size. In addition to the Staff View's zoom controls that allow you to change the size of the notation as it appears on screen, there's also an option to set the notation size when printed. Your 9 options are: Commercial, Giant, English, Regular/Common, Peter, Large middle, Small middle, Cadenza, and Pearl. These names have historical significance, but MIDI Maestro translates these as follows:
| Name |
Staff Height (mm) |
| Commercial |
9.53 |
| Giant |
8.73 |
| English |
7.94 |
| Regular/Common |
7.14 |
| Peter |
6.51 |
| Large middle |
6.35 |
| Small middle |
5.87 |
| Cadenza |
5.40 |
| Pearl |
4.76 |
Fonts. You may change the typefaces that are used for lyrics and chords.
What are the Open options?
Split tracks that contain patch changes. It is MIDI Maestro's preference that you do not embed "patch change" events. This makes a sequence difficult to read and edit. If you use separate tracks for each patch that's used on a channel, MIDI Maestro automatically send the appropriate patch and controller events for you at the appropriate times. Enable this option to automatically divide tracks with patch change events.
Automatically manage patch changes and other track properties. MIDI Maestro normally "adopts" many controllers as track properties, and automatically switches patches for you when you use two or more different patches on the same channel. MIDI Maestro also automatically does a "controller search-back" to set controllers as you jump around within a song. Leave this option checked to retain this behavior. If you un-check this option, MIDI Maestro ONLY sends controllers and patch changes as they are encountered in the sequence. In addition, no automatic patch-changing will be performed. This option was added to handle playback-compatibility issues where recording was done using other software, and it's behavior may be modified to further pursue this goal.
Format 0 files. Format 0 files support are stored as "one track" files. When MIDI Maestro opens a format 0 file, it is split into as many as 16 tracks, one for each channel, and additional channels for sysex and "meta" events such as lyrics. You may choose to simply "automatically" convert these files (so that when they're saved, they become format 1), or ask that MIDI Maestro ask you first, as you may still own a device (older disk-based sequencer or synthesizer) that only open "format 0."
Automatically recall stored view layout and properties. When you select this option, MIDI Maestro will automatically perform the View/Layout/Recall command when you switch songs. If you had previously saved the current window layout into a song by using the View/Layout/Snapshot command, this window layout will be restored when you open the song.
What are the Save options?
Default folder. Here you may choose where new sets and songs are to be created. When you actually use the File/New command, you may override this setting, but it's handy to be able to specify a default location. You may choose your "My Documents" folder (different for each user of the system), the most recently used folder, or any specific folder on your system.
Maintain backup (.bak) files for songs. When this option is selected, MIDI Maestro will copy the current song file to a ".bak" file each time the song is saved. In this way, you will always have the current version and one previous version. In the event of a loss of critical data, you can browse your system's hard drive and recover the backup file by renaming it to a ".mid" file.
Save AutoRecover info every x minutes. When this option is selected, MIDI Maestro will save a copy of your work into a ".sav" file at a specified time interval. When you save your work, or choose to close without saving, these files are deleted. If MIDI Maestro finds a ".sav" file when you open a song, you will have the option of using the ".sav" file in place of the last saved version. This provides you with a failsafe in the event of a system crash or power outage.
Rename files to match MIDI song titles. By default, when you change a song's title, and then save the file, MIDI Maestro will attempt to rename the file to match. This makes it easy to reconcile a set's song list to the files that you see on your system's hard drive. Some people do not prefer this behavior, however. Just unselect this item and MIDI Maestro will leave the file name alone!
What are the Karaoke options?
Font. Use the five buttons to change the font and foreground and background colors. A preview window is provided--the first line of text represents "un-highlighted" text, and the second line of text represents "highlighted" text (that is, the current syllable or line). By selecting identical colors for both lines, you can achieve the affect of no apparent highlighting in the Lyrics View--the lyrics will simply scroll with the "text to be sung" in the middle of the screen.
Center text. Choose this option to center-justify lyrics both horizontally and vertically.
Automatic pagination. Choose this option to automatically break lyrics into pages rather than one long scrolling page.
Display background graphic. Enable this option to display an image in place of the solid font background color. Enter a filename, or use the "..." button to browse for a file. There are three ways to display background files: Center (one image), Tile (as many images as it takes to fill the window), and Stretch (one image, but drawn, possible out of proportion, to fill the window).
What are the Conductor options?
Conductor options are discussed in a separate acticle.
What are the Set options?
Delay. When you are in performance mode and the current song ends, the next song in the set is automatically opened and ready to play. (When this occurs, the song position is always reset to the beginning regardless of where you may have previously left it.) A "delay" between songs allows MIDI Maestro to wait for sounds to release before sending the reset commands and switching songs.
Immediately begin playback. Additionally, you may choose to "immediately begin playback" after the song advances automatically. You might find this option useful for an unattended "jukebox" scenario.
Reset. When changing songs, you may also choose the way in which you wish for your MIDI devices to be reset in preparation for the next song. You may choose to send the MIDI reset commands (equivalent to the Adjust/Reset menu command), or to manually reset controllers to their defaults, or to do nothing at all. The "do nothing at all" approach most treats your set as one continuous performance--it will best preserve the sound "release phase" without abruptly cutting-off sound as may occur when using the other options. However, the other reset options may provide more security in the sense that your devices will be returned to a "known state" periodically during your performance.
Automatically expand/collapse marker list. By default, when you switch songs, the current song's markers are automatically shown in the Songs and Markers View, and the previous song's markers are hidden.
Large sets. When a set is a "large set" songs are not pre-loaded. They are loaded only as they are required.
What are the Macros options?
Macros are character sequences which are "expanded" to their full values when they are used in the Karaoke View. MIDI Maestro supports 9 user-defined macros.
You may also insert the macros %t, %s, %a, %c, and %m, which represent the song's title, subtitle, author, copyright, and memo, respectively. | 
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