Digital Performer doesn’t play notes correctly

[Ervasio]

Hi, as you can see in the video DP does not correctly reproduce the notes I write. I already tried to contact Motu but they didn't solve my problem. In this example I loaded the Musio plugin from Cinesamples, also used by Mike Patti on DP, so it should be fine. It's not a VI problem because DP gives me the same problem with other plugins too. What could I do to solve this problem? I forgot, Motu suggested me to change the nudge setting to ticks but this solution didn't work either. I have a MacBook Pro M1pro 16gb ram

https://youtube.com/shorts/BjBp2y1pEAA? ... I_llK8-Uc5

[zounds]

Yes I have this problem also. It’s seems to be related to the note duration butting up the end of one note to the beginning of another note. My workaround is to select all the notes and to change their durations to slightly less than what would cause them to butt up against the next note. I rarely set quantize to include durations.

[Michael Canavan]

What Zounds says, no DAW likes legato chords when it's just the same note played again, there should always be a pause before the start of the next note. This is especially true of sample libraries.

[stubbsonic]

This a pretty old DP bug having to do DP not properly handling note-offs and note-ons of the same pitch that are quantized to the same tick. My theory is that MOTU never really fixed it properly, they just stuck a band-aid on it. I say this because it continued to be broken when scrubbing, even when playback worked properly.

viewtopic.php?t=67494

viewtopic.php?t=63090

One workaround is to put a change duration insert plugin on the MIDI track, so that it subtracks 1 or 2 ticks from every note. I put those in my default project so they're always there.

[James Steele]

Yeah... although that's a weird situation having not durations of the same note end just 1 tick prior to the new note. I've done like you describe and just select the whole track and subtract 1 tick from all note durations. Granted be nice if MOTU fixed it, but the workaround isn't that arduous and when done correctly, it doesn't mess up anything about the original performance.

[bayswater]

One workaround is to put a change duration insert plugin on the MIDI track, so that it subtracks 1 or 2 ticks from every note. I put those in my default project so they're always there.

There's a preset in the Durations command, right? If makes sure that you don't have the same note playing more than once.

For some reason, DP gives priority to the note playing rather than the one that happens later. Maybe there was a good reason for this at the time -- maybe in the expectation there would be instruments that can play the same note more than once at the same time. The way other DAWs do it, you can't get this. Either way, I never thought of it as a bug but they could make it a preference.

[James Steele]

One workaround is to put a change duration insert plugin on the MIDI track, so that it subtracks 1 or 2 ticks from every note. I put those in my default project so they're always there.

There's a preset in the Durations command, right? If makes sure that you don't have the same note playing more than once.

For some reason, DP gives priority to the note playing rather than the one that happens later. Maybe there was a good reason for this at the time -- maybe in the expectation there would be instruments that can play the same note more than once at the same time. The way other DAWs do it, you can't get this. Either way, I never thought of it as a bug but they could make it a preference.

Great thing about presets, is once they are created, you can often assign a hotkey to a preset in the Commands window. Pretty sure I did this with presets for shifting notes up or down an octave.

[stubbsonic]

It used to work correctly in an older DP version. At some point, MOTU did one of their "from the ground up" updates and broke it.

My working theory is that when there are multiple events on the same tick (as can happen with quantized durations), DP used to prioritize note OFF's (over note ONs)-- so an old note would stop, followed by a new note ON's so those new notes would sound correctly. In some update, MOTU changed it so that note ONs were given top priority-- so now you have the new note ON instantly killed by the old note OFF.

In my exchanges with MOTU via technote, MOTU blamed the VI developers for not handling things correctly. Even though I could easily prove that MOTU was sending these instructions in the wrong order. (Pianoteq provides a log of input)

They did do something to fix it, but it doesn't work consistently (as above, and with scrubbing). I haven't tested 11.3 about this, nor have I studied the release notes to see if anything was done about this particular old bug.

[Ervasio]

This a pretty old DP bug having to do DP not properly handling note-offs and note-ons of the same pitch that are quantized to the same tick. My theory is that MOTU never really fixed it properly, they just stuck a band-aid on it. I say this because it continued to be broken when scrubbing, even when playback worked properly.

viewtopic.php?t=67494

viewtopic.php?t=63090

One workaround is to put a change duration insert plugin on the MIDI track, so that it subtracks 1 or 2 ticks from every note. I put those in my default project so they're always there.

Sorry if I'm only replying now but I've been busy. What is the plugin you insert into the MIDI track to change the duration of the ticks?

[stubbsonic]

Open the mixer window. On the top of each MIDI track, there are some insert slots. (I think the top one is reserved for insert meta-functions). In one of the three lower insert slots choose "Change Duration". It is 2nd in the list on my system.

Once you have that Change Duration insert window open, you'll see in the lower section the word "Set..." which is the mode/option that let's you set all the durations to a single value. Click on the disclose triangle to the right of "Set..." and choose "Subtract". Now for the amount to subtract, start with 2 ticks 0|002. (1 tick might be enough?) You can save the preset in the plugin window if you want. "2 ticks shorter"

Next, go back the mixer window, now hold down the OPTION key while you drag your new plugin to the same insert slot on all your other MIDI tracks.

I did this for my templates/defaults, for my workaround.

[bayswater]

Not able to to try this now, and I haven’t had this problem for a long time, but wasn’t there a duration factory preset to change all durations so any note ends just before the same note is triggered again? With that you didn’t need to know how much to trim the durations.

[stubbsonic]

There's an option to "move releases" to closest attack, but that will lengthen notes that might not want to be lengthened.

Extend releases has a few options, but it is not clear what it does when the options are off.

There are no factory presets that I can see.

Trimming 1 or 2 ticks off every note is pretty harmless unless you are using legato to do some portamento action.

MOTU could possibly address this by adapting the Quantize function. When choosing to quantize releases, there could be a checkbox (minus 1 tick)

[bayswater]

There's an option to "move releases" to closest attack, but that will lengthen notes that might not want to be lengthened.

Yes, that must be what I was thinking off. I suppose you could us some sort of genius Shooshie Select or Find command to choose the notes that have to be shortened.

Perhaps MOTU could set Note On versus Note Off Priority as a Preference.

[stubbsonic]

Perhaps MOTU could set Note On versus Note Off Priority as a Preference.

MOTU just need to universally prioritize NOTE OFFs before NOTE ONs for events on the same tick. That solves everything.

[bayswater]

Perhaps MOTU could set Note On versus Note Off Priority as a Preference.

MOTU just need to universally prioritize NOTE OFFs before NOTE ONs for events on the same tick. That solves everything.

This came up back in the dark ages, and someone explained the reason for Note On priority, but I agree, yes, it should prioritize Note Off. We can always work around the rare cases where we want the opposite, if we come up with a reason for it.