Importing
Open Guitar Pro, MusicXML and MIDI files, and choose how a MIDI file becomes a score.
Available on iPad, iPhone and Mac.
On this page
Reflow opens scores written in other apps: Guitar Pro, MusicXML and MIDI. It reads the file into a score you can edit and play, and leaves the file itself as it was.
Opening Guitar Pro, MusicXML and MIDI files
- In Reflow’s file browser, go to the file, in iCloud Drive, On My iPad or iPhone, or a cloud service you added to Files, and tap it.
- From another app (Files, Mail, a browser’s downloads): touch and hold the file, then choose Share and Reflow. A file Reflow’s browser can’t reach where it is, an attachment say, is copied into Reflow’s own folder (On My iPad › Reflow, On My iPhone › Reflow) and opens from there.
- File › Open… ⌘O, then choose the file.
- Or in the Finder, Control-click the file and choose Open With › Reflow.
Reflow doesn’t write your changes back into a Guitar Pro, MusicXML or MIDI file: they are kept in a Reflow score (.flow). File › Save… ⌘S asks where to put it, beside the original or elsewhere. To send the score back to another app, export it in that app’s format.
The formats Reflow opens
| Format | Files |
|---|---|
| Reflow | .flow |
| Guitar Pro 3, 4 and 5 | .gp3, .gp4, .gp5 |
| Guitar Pro 7 and later | .gp |
| MusicXML | .musicxml, .mxl (compressed) |
| MIDI | .mid, .midi |
Guitar Pro 6 files (.gpx) don’t open: save them as .gp or .gp5 in Guitar Pro first. Notes, tracks, tunings, bars, repeats and tempo come through; a layout made in another app is laid out again by Reflow.
MIDI files: the import settings
A MIDI file holds notes and timings, not tab or notation: Reflow guesses which instrument each track is and how its notes are written, then lets you change its guesses.
A score made from a MIDI file shows a banner at its top, Imported from MIDI:
- Settings opens MIDI Import Settings.
- Reimport builds the score again from the MIDI file. Change Source picks another MIDI file to build it from.
- ✕ hides the banner.
In MIDI Import Settings:
- Source File: the file’s format, its length in bars, its first tempo and time signature.
- Track Mapping: each track of the file, with its MIDI channel, its name, its program (the instrument the file asks for) and how many notes it holds. Untick a track to leave it out, and choose what it becomes: Auto (Reflow’s guess), Standard (a notation staff, for keys and other instruments), Guitar Tab, Bass Tab or Drums.
- Quantization: Grid, the shortest step notes are lined up on (Quarter, Eighth, Sixteenth or 32nd); Min, the shortest note written (Sixteenth, 32nd or 64th); Allow dotted notes and Allow triplets. A coarser grid gives a score that is easier to read from a file played by hand.
- Channel Mode: Auto-detect; One channel per track, as most MIDI files are; or Channel per string (Guitar Pro), for a guitar exported from Guitar Pro with each string on its own channel, put back on one tab.
Apply & Reimport builds the score again with these settings. The score keeps the MIDI file it came from, so you can change them later.