Question: Can anyone provide me with some info on how much variation around a particular note is considered “normal”?
The wave displays as being centered on the note that I’m attempting to sing (so that’s good), but the peaks and valleys stray from that line more than I would have predicted (edging on being both flat and sharp). I’m wondering if this is typical.
Thanks guys
BJ
Update – we now have a new version of Sing & See that doesn’t have the MIDI opening problem on Windows 10. On the Sing&See menu go to “Help” and then “Check for updates” to download the updated version for your system.
Update 2 – one person still had problems – it appears that some audio software may disable the inbuilt Windows MIDI Synth. The best alternative in this case (or if you want to experiment with changing the sound fonts used in your in-built Synth) is to download and install the VirtualMIDISynth program from the coolsoft website below. There’s a donation button on the site to help the developer of that software.
Download VirtualMIDISynth from http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
On the webpage there are some “SoundFonts” that contain the actual MIDI synth sounds for each key. Any of these should work, however one of the smaller ones is TimGM6mb.
Some of the other sound fonts (e.g. the FluidR3_GM which is also good) require you to also download and install a decompression program called sfArk.
By the way, you might want to copy the extracted sound font file (e.g. TimGM6mb.sf2 or FluidR3_GM.SF2) to somewhere safer than the Downloads folder.
Then, install virtualmidisynth and run the Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth Configurator program. You need to add a sound font file, so select the one you just saved above:
Click on Apply, restart Sing&See, and, hopefully, Sing&See will now play notes!
VirtualMIDISynth has other cool features such as the ability to add more than one sound font and choose which one you want to use at any time.
After using S&S student successfully for some time, I’ve recently upgraded to Pro – with the spectrograms – to help me further with vocal development (I am that dreaded beast – an amateur dramatic tenor). I’ve been needing help with getting reliable singers’ formants, and also with getting a purer tone, free of “rough edges”. These become very clear with the spectrograms. If you heven’t seen these – there’s a sliding “Fourier” trace, clearly showing the harmonic zones, and also a plain frequency/ amplitude display, to show you which harmonics are present.
With the Fourier trace, many of the things that teachers tell you become crystal clear: drop your soft palate, and bang go the formants; do careless consonants, and you can see the pitch-slide at the start of the vowel, if you have any “gurgle” in the note, it shows as a fuzzy outline on the trace (and irregularity on the amplitude display) – and lots more.
This sort of feedback is a very efficient learning aid – far better that just recording a few notes and playing them back. You can “see” immediately what your voice is sounding like, and correct it almost in the same breath.
I don’t necessarily think that it’s a complete substitute for your (good) teacher’s feedback of how you are sounding, but just at home in my own studio, I think it’s a “secret weapon”. Absolutely bravo – this is splendid software.
Incidentally – I run it on a desktop machine with a second monitor set up at my standing eye-level, so I can sing straight at it without crouching over a screen – this makes it much more “real”
By: Don Taylor
>> I just installed Yosemite OS X on my Macbook Pro and can’t open Sing and See.
When upgrading to Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) it is necessary to reinstall XQuartz. Download the latest installer from http://xquartz.macosforge.org and install. You may need to log out and log in again.
I upgraded my computer and need to reinstall Sing and See. As I was trying to activate I received a message that I have already activated it.
Please help.
Kristen
The Sing&See registration system tracks when the software is installed. Upgrading your computer may mean that the system determines that the software is running on another computer. Currently the registration system allows the software to be re-installed twice before it gives a message that it has already been installed on too many machines. Please contact us to re-enable your registration code so that you can get it on your new computer.
Question: Some years ago I bought a professional version of Sing and See which has proved very useful in my private voice teaching. Reading through the manual recently I noticed a reference to noise reduction using a ‘filter’ button. This button is nowhere on my toolbar. How do I access this button – since it’s in the manual I should be able to access it.
– Seamus
The noise reduction function has been removed in recent updates to the software, because it wasn’t working properly on some people’s computers.
If you are having problems with audio, let us know and so that we can advise on how to improve. Mostly, these can be solved by using a better quality input microphone – for instance a USB headset or vocal microphone. Using the built-in microphone on a laptop is not recommended since it is likely to pick up vibration from the hard drive or fan.
Several people have reported issues with entering the registration code on the Mac version of Sing & See. The problem is that you can’t use “command+v” as the usual short-cut for Paste (this is a technical limitation of the Wine package that we used to produce the Mac version of Sing & See).
However, it is still possible to use copy and paste, even though you can’t use “command+v” for paste in the application. You can use “control+v”, which is the old Windows equivalent, and which does work in Sing & See (as an aside, most of the usual Windows short cuts work in the Wine version of Sing & See).
Alternatively, you can “right-click” with the mouse inside the entry box to get the paste popup menu (to do “right-click on a single-button mouse, you control+click, or on a multi-touch trackpad you can tap with two fingers or in the bottom corner depending on your trackpad configuration).
A few people have reported trouble getting Sing & See working with their professional-grade audio interfaces. Generally these require some configuration options to enable Sing & See to connect. The underlying issue with all these products is that they don’t use the standard “Windows” audio system but a specialized audio standard that is specialized for real-time audio production – “ASIO”.
Almost always, these audio systems have options that can be configured to route audio to the “WDM” standard Windows audio system. The trick is to figure out the specific steps you need to take for your particular device in order to enable this, and then to tell it to route your microphone through to the WDM audio channel. Please check your installation manual for your hardware device, or the support pages on the vendor’s website. They usually provide driver updates for download. Most professional audio interfaces have these “WDM” drivers either as an additional install or as an option that can be selected.
Following are some suggestions for a few of these audio devices.
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Greetings! I purchased your software on 08/06/11 And loved it. I recently formated my machine and no longer have it, where or how can I download it again? Thanks in advance.
Jesus
