DP Gripes, and things that have (almost) pushed me to Cubase

[stubbsonic]

If quantizing for notation, as opposed to audio, purposes, perhaps a "Save As (Notation)" would be a good approach. That, or shortening quantized notes by a few ticks.

If I'm also needing a proper demo, I'll make two versions of a MIDI track: "Playback" and "Notation". But I'm often editing and working only with the notation tracks so, yes, I have to insert "CHANGE DURATION" insert and remove ticks. It's not too painful. Does NOT work at all for scrubbing, but it's an ok workaround for a bug that is what? 10 years old?

[dix]

This consecutive note problem hasn't always been the case. It worked fine in some previous version of DP. It broke at some point.

Previously, when note #1's OFF was on the same tick as note #2's ON, the OFF was prioritized. Then later, the ON was prioritized causing the note to be shorted. It's obvious and dumb. It serves no purpose.

All they have to do is execute all OFF's on that tick first.

I do use a CHANGE DURATION to subtract ticks on all MIDI tracks. For a time, I thought this was fixed. But it just reared up again. Perhaps it was broken again in some update? Not sure.

With consecutive notes of the same pitch, where starts & ends are quantized for notation purposes, playback doesn't work right. The 2nd note's duration is reduced to the shortest note possible. DP seems to be prioritizing note-ons and note offs in a dumb way.

I've experienced the consecutive note playback problem so often that I've been reflexively shortening durations when ever I quantize the releases of notes on the same pitch or slice them on the grid for years. I've never even bothered to check if it was "fixed" or not. However, I just tried quantizing the releases and grid-slicing with DP11.31 and I can't get the problem to happen. Are we sure this isn't a VI or patch specific problem? ...I'm testing on a fresh, simple sequence using Pianoteq and Omnisphere. Does the problem only occur on bigger projects?

[stubbsonic]

Any projects, and Pianoteq is where I notice it most, because I use it for my composition, arrangements, mockups, etc.

[dix]

Oh, duh. I guess it's tempo dependent? On my little test track at 120bpm or slower I get no cutoff notes, but at 121bpm or faster I do get them. So yeah, it's a problem. I’ve set up a key command that shortens durations by one tick. Guess I'll need to continue using that whenever I quantize releases or slice same-note MIDI events. It's foolproof.

[stubbsonic]

It's not very consistent. I just did a test and the 2nd note of a series was always shorted, then after than it was more random. It did change with tempo, but slowing down didn't make it better, just different of the notes in the series would short.

I guess since it is inconsistent, that pokes holes in my theory about DP having some "rule" about priorities. Perhaps it is more random than that?

Sorry to hijack the thread. I suppose it is "DP Gripes" and things that have pushed me... off the edge of my patience.

[dix]

It's not very consistent. I just did a test and the 2nd note of a series was always shorted, then after than it was more random. It did change with tempo, but slowing down didn't make it better, just different of the notes in the series would short.

Sorry to hijack the thread. I suppose it is "DP Gripes" and things that have pushed me... off the edge of my patience.

Oh. I guess that's right. Some slower tempos do still exhibit the behavior I now see.

It like seems the problem doesn't happen at certain tempos. For example the notes cut off randomly at 119bpm, 124bpm and 151bpm, but never at 120bpm, 125bpm or 150bpm. It's as if there's certain magic tempos where DP behaves as it should...very weird.

[stubbsonic]

It like seems the problem doesn't happen at certain tempos. For example the notes cut off randomly at 119bpm, 124bpm and 151bpm, but never at 120bpm, 125bpm or 150bpm. It's as if there's certain magic tempos where DP behaves as it should...very weird.

WOW!! You're onto something there! At 120, 125, 150, it plays back normally. I tried 180 which also seems to work.

This explains several things. Why I thought it was partially fixed, why MOTU denied it was an issue, etc.

Whatever fix DP employed, I think it was a sloppy patch-- because scrubbing has been broken for as long as this bug existed.

I won't get my hopes up, but this new info does give me some hope that MOTU can see this on their end.

[James Steele]

Maybe someone could upload the test project demonstrating where that happens? And if we don't have the piano VI we can substitute one? I'd like to try this. Especially to see how it works fine at *specific* tempos. That's pretty interesting!

[HCMarkus]

And send your findings to MOTU!

[stubbsonic]

I just updated my TechLink at MOTU. I decided to add a note about how much I don't like that now even the scrub bar snaps to the grid (Ugh!! at long last, have they no decency?!)

Here's a project. It has a Pianoteq 8 track already enabled, so you might have to swap that out.

https://www.jonstubbsmusic.com/misc/Con ... roject.zip

[James Steele]

I changed your link to have an https:// in front of it. Seemed my browser (Brave) wasn't letting my directly download it. Works for me now. Going to give this a try.

[dix]

Maybe someone could upload the test project demonstrating where that happens? And if we don't have the piano VI we can substitute one? I'd like to try this. Especially to see how it works fine at *specific* tempos. That's pretty interesting!

I tried this on a few different VIs and they all did the same thing. It's super simple to test: Play or pencil in a note or chord and slice along the the grid with the scissor tool.

I only tried finding a few "magic tempos". I sure there's more...always on 10s or 5s so far

[James Steele]

I'll tell you what's really weird: Indeed just now it happened for me with 4Front True Pianos, but for giggles I loaded an instance of MOTU PolySynth (on the theory it might make it easier for MOTO to reproduce with one of their own VIs) and it played back perfectly. What's interesting is PolySynth is actually a MAS plugin and is found inside the DP application. You can find the MAS plugs by right-clicking the DP application and choosing Show Package Contents and drilling down to /Contents/MacOS/Plugins/MAS/ and you'll see them.

I would think MOTU would have tested this on third party AU VIs... might be that might help. Be interesting to try this on a VST3 VI. Maybe it's an AU issue?

[James Steele]

Oh and for me the buggy behavior was certain notes just didn't play at all when I had True Pianos loaded.

[James Steele]

Just tried this with MOTU Bassline and Modulo. Those worked fine. So definitely seems like something affecting third party VIs that are in a non-native format (anything other than MAS) that requires the support bundles that act as a translator between MAS and other formats.

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