To play the piano rolls in the Sonic Visualiser and view and listen to them at the same time, please proceed as follows:

1. Download the relevant sv file (last column 'Download' from the Subcorpus of the sheet music database) to your computer (right click → save target as).
2. You will also need a 'blank' audio file of at least the same length (which you create with Audacity, for example); you can also use one of the following MP3 files for this purpose: 5 minutes of silence (blank_audio5.mp3), 10 minutes of silence (blank_audio10.mp3), or 30 minutes of silence (blank_audio30.mp3); download by right-clicking → save target as.
3. Now open the Sonic Visualiser and load the sv file by 'drag & drop' or with the command: File → Open.
4. Now you will be asked where the corresponding audio file is located; please choose the local path to one of the 'blank' audio files (see above).

Now the piano roll becomes visible. You can play the file with MIDI sounds (default: electric piano) by pressing the play button or the space bar. Have fun!

The playback of the file is done with the spacebar or the buttons of the transport menu.
At the very bottom there is another transport window that you can click on. With the horizontal zoom wheel right above you can reduce or enlarge the size of the section shown in the main window. Alternatively, you can also use the two cursor keys down and up; the cursor keys with the arrows to left and right move the window to the left and right respectively.
You can also change the playback speed by turning or clicking the knob (bottom right).

After loading an sv-file several Layers (visualization layers) are visible, cf. the tabs in the upper right corner:

1. scroll layer: Please click on the first of the index cards (on the left) and select scroll so that the visible section scrolls when a file is played.
2. The time instants layer contains the time instants of the audio file.
3. The waveform layer: This is where the waveform can be seen.
4. Several note layers that correspond to the individual voices or, in the case of piano pieces, to the right and left hands.

You can make various settings for the note layers:

1. Colour: Here you can select the color for the individual voices.
2. Scale: Here you can switch between different representations which relate the piano roll either to absolute pitch in Hertz (log or linear) or to MIDI pitches; the corresponding scales will then appear on the left. ATTENTION: all note layers should have the same setting for a consistent piano roll display!

In addition, there is a small menu on each tab bottom right with four icons that you can click on:

1. left: Adjustment of volume and panorama (distribution to the two stereo channels)
2. Speaker icon: Turning on and off the audio of the voice in question
3. Mixer icon: Selection of the MIDI sound; unfortunately, only piano, electric piano and organ can be selected
4. Show: The light can be used to turn the display of the layer on and off.

All information of a layer is displayed when pressing the E key. This data can be exported as a csv file. (menu: File, Export Annotation Layer). The Layer itself can be exported as an image file (menu: File, Export Image File). The current Layer is deleted by: Ctrl-D Ctrl-Shift-D.

To generate a piano roll representation for the Sonic Visualiser from a score file, you have to

1. export the score file in your score editor as a midi file (.mid) and save it locally, and then
2. import this file into the Sonic Visualiser as Annotation Layer (command: File → Import Annotation Layer or Ctrl L);
3. However, this requires that you have previously loaded an ‘blank’ audio file of the same length (or longer) into the Sonic Visualizer (cf. above).
4. For polyphonic pieces you have to read in each voice individually (see 2.) to get a polyphonic representation.