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Phrase editor playback: wrong pitches and melodic contour

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HawkingRa
Posted

In the phrase editor, sequence of three descending notes was playing correctly, but after I used monophonic figure recognition, while the figure was descending, the playback had the pitch momentarily dipping down then returning to the first pitch. The harmonic context didn't change (Am chord throughout) and shortening the first pitch didn't help. Neither did deleting pitch bend. However, when moved into the Arranger, the phrase played correctly, so the issue seems to just be with phrase editor playback.

Windows 10, Synfire 1.9 build 31.

(More generally, I had noticed that figure recognition made sequences of notes sound awful and terribly off, but that that could just be bugged playback in the phrase editor.)

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andre
Thu, 2019-02-28 - 16:55 Permalink

Thanks for this obervation.

If you could upload the phrase, we can have a look. Just create a new library and add the phrase to it.

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HawkingRa
Sun, 2019-03-03 - 20:38 Permalink

Playback of the preview under "Phrases" also seems to be bugged, though it plays correctly once placed in Arranger. Includes Takes.

I tried harvesting the phrase again from what I'm pretty sure was the same source and didn't reproduce the bug. I might have forgotten to check "Input as static pitches" in the previous import, though I think the only other thing I did differently was import a single track using Phrase -> Import instead of using File -> Import.  

Attachments
bugged_phrase.coglib

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andre
Mon, 2019-03-04 - 16:06 Permalink

Thanks for the file. The phrase doesn't include a Take parameter. Therefore Synfire needs to grab some Harmony from wherever you are previewing it, in order to render MIDI. Of course, if you preview it in the original arrangement, it is likely the same Harmony you harvested it from. However, if you preview it in a standalone library window, Synfire will assume a default Harmony, which will result in different MIDI output.

I see how it can be confusing, but Figure has in fact no idea of pitch. It is impossible to listen to a Figure without some Harmony it can projected against.

This "momentarily dipping" is due to a change in Harmony which the sustained note would violate. Therefore it is split and transposed. This behavior can be changed in the Interpretation parameter under "Auto-Split"