Posted
Somewhow, I'm not sure how I did it, but the durations of a few notes have been extremely lengthened
(http://www.box.net/shared/flyzo46csj).
Notice also how the 'trace parameter' doesn't seem to work right either. I snapped a picture and placed it below in the instruement track section mThis track parameters displayed correctly, while the top one does not. . Notice on Track 8 GM String Ensemble 1, there is an extremely long note. Hence this hangs out all the way thru the song, and when a new container plays, this note get double.
Not sure if it's a bug or something wrong I did.
Is there an easy way to extract all the string parts and put in one container.
Tue, 2011-03-08 - 03:21 Permalink
I have encountered a bug many many times after midi import where throughout a piece there will be several very long notes that were short in the original. The can go on for 3 minutes at time and trimming them is tricky -- they are so long that they don't display in the window at all unless the window is zoomed way out.
Tue, 2011-03-08 - 13:28 Permalink
Next Question - How do you fix it? I was adjusting lengths with Duration tool (first tool on left). Is there a 'scissor' tool that will cut anywhere I want?
Wed, 2011-03-09 - 16:24 Permalink
Thanx Michael;
I had over looked the Text entry box for length. Does 240/480 mean this is a quarter note and the space available is a half note?
I was looking for a global command. There were too many notes hanging out, and the string line is spread over several containers, (I need some new braincells - can anyone spare any!)
Seriously I would like to do a global length command, so there are no overlaps. Guitar and piano overlaps on 1/2 or whole steps are ok, but not strings (at least to me).
I tried re-analyzing it as 'monophonic' but did not get expected results. (I'm overlooking something)?
Thanx
Wed, 2011-03-09 - 22:12 Permalink
These long notes are caused by incorrect midi files that contain overlapping notes with the same pitch on the same channel, or note-on events missing the corresponding note-off event.
AFAIK, I provided a fix for this long time ago, but obviously it does not handle all cases well. If someone could send me a midi file for testing, I will have a look (send to support at cognitone com).
A length of 240/480 ust be a rounding artifact. Actually that's 1/2.
There is a command "Shorten Overlaps" that might do what you want.
Thu, 2011-03-10 - 16:09 Permalink
Hi together
The funny thing about this phenomen is that the what-synfire-aktually-is-doing-window tells us about "Encountered NOTEOFF without NOTEON" -- what i would expect would be just the opposite, that it finds noteons without noteoffs. If that would be, one could set a "maxmimal note length" of, say, a half or one or two whole notes. But this way? I had notes occuring over long distances, say six or more bars, not easy to find the beginning, when other extreme notes are laying "behind" them.
As i noticed, the extremly long notes all have the same few pitches, i think its about e-flat. I aktually has no extreme-long-notes, so I'm sorry i can't reproduce the error. But anyway - maybe maybe it "could" be a solution that user can set a maimal length of importing notes?
best, Michael
Thu, 2011-03-10 - 18:35 Permalink
Andre, I emailed an example file that is short and has the problem clearly.
Mark, the best way I've found to edit the note lengths (this only works for cleaning up a figure..the problem will still exist in the "take" parameter...) but my method is this:
Turn on hyperedit mode (the "H" button) and go to the orange parameter "length".
Use the span tool (CMD or CTRL+1..the first tool) and set the snapping to the first option which is "snap to already existing positions." This is the first mode, it looks like a ">|" on the toolbar.
Depending on how long some of the note lengths are, the display might get very squished or busy, but you should be able to snap the tool directly on the offending notes and have access to the length parameter text box there, so you can paste in 1/1 or 2/1, whatever.
I've had files with notes that ran for 70+ measures, but once you start editing the offending lengths, the display will clean up a bit. If there is more than one note at the location you are editing, they will all be enclosed in parentheses in the text edit box.
I'll cast my vote for some sort of command to trim lengths down to a maximum length or something? None of the vector overlap tools seemed to work for me to fix this in a take because they remove the overlaps for everything, and don't work with individually selected notes. I should mention that my first guess was to try using the gestalt tool on the note lengths in hyperedit mode, but it didn't seem to work intuitively to me.
Thu, 2011-03-10 - 18:54 Permalink
I've seen it happen many times over the years. When I'm importing a MIDI file.. Thanx for note duration tip, I was just reading that section of manual, but haven't gotten around to try it yet.
Not to give you a headache Andre, but take a look at Logic's MIDI FUNCTION commands if you can. They put in a bunch of mathematical processes to help you manipulate MIDI data. A shrink/lengthen command using a scale, humanize process where you control the amount of each parameter, timing +/- clock counts, note pitch variation length, velocity . . (Shrink note duration by %, force legato, delete overlaps, pick lowest/highest note in chord to work on etc.
I've find myself, doing a tremendous amount of individual note editing in Logic these days. I use the functions, but I'm finding the more small deviations, the less machine like the music feels. I'm not sure if this should be the job of SF. It's amazing what it does, and the concept of editing in another program makes sense. Still we would want SF to do some of the work, so that we can have a good 'prototype' to start with. An easy way of fixing note lengths would be very nice.
Thu, 2011-03-10 - 19:22 Permalink
It should absolutely be the job of SF.... Actually most the things you mentioned are already implemented unless i'm misunderstanding your request. Random time shift can be done with Shift, random velocity with the %5-%15 functions, length with length. There is no macro manipulator for them though. I know you're looking for a single panel to control all of them, but since nothing in Synfire is actually random, having the values as parameters gives necessary control.
First, the midifile approach is soon to be superceded by a vst system where having the randomization done in SF is necessary as there is not tangible note data.
Assuming that tweaks can be done on the midi file ignores a huge component of revisions and tweaks. The moment a change is needed in SF every change made to the midi notes would be blown away. There is no way to 'save it for the end' where in a professional situation it is not the composers opinion of what constitutes a finished score that matters - the end comes when 'they' decide they don't need more revisions.
I'm not worried because all of this is intrinsic in a VST implementation anyway but I though I should clafify that working directly on the midi file is not a workable solution in a professional context.
Mon, 2011-03-14 - 21:03 Permalink
@keith: Thanks for the sample midi file!
I was able to narrow down the issue and hopefully fixed it. The file included slightly overlapping notes of the same pitch on the same channel, which requires especially careful interpretation when reading the file. Midi does not support overlapping identical notes.
Some other imported files now also seem to look cleaner than before, but that's certainly a placebo effect. I didn't take the time to do an indepth comparison. I'm just glad it works better now.