MIDI Edit Oddities

[bayswater]

I'm working on something that needs a lot of detailed MIDI editing. At this point I'm just working with the notes, played in, then organized in QuickScribe. Editing consists mostly of small changes to note lengths and delays in the notes that start a phrase (a la baroque).

Two things are happening that I don't recall being problems in the past.

First, any note near the beginning of the sequence plays only a small duration of the attack, then cuts out. The same note plays fine when clicked on in Audible mode, and plays by every other conceivable method. If I add a silent measure to the start of the sequence, all is well. The Event list shows nothing but Notes with Velocity 64, so there is no automation happening. I've never had problems getting notes on or after the first click of a sequence to play before. It happens with a couple of unrelated VIs.

Any experience or thoughts about what is different in DP now? Do I have to now have a blank measure at the start of every piece?
Second, the damned cursor in the MIDI edit window is just about invisible. Every time I have to select a note, it takes forever and a lot of mouse shaking to find the cursor. It's a tiny cross almost the same colour as the background, just barely visible if you already know where it is. If I was being paid by the hour, not a problem. I don't recall having so much trouble locating the cursor before. Is there and option or a theme that makes the cursor bigger or more apparent?

[FMiguelez]

Do I have to now have a blank measure at the start of every piece?

I've always done that out of custom, especially from my hardware synth days where I needed space to send SYSEX. Also, a lot of post houses require some kind of heads too. I simply use a 2 second "pre-roll" that neatly matches 2 measures at 120 BPM.
If this solves your problem, then I definitely suggest you incorporate it in your template, so it's mostly a set-and-forget thing (just adjust the bars/realtime/Frames starting-times to compensate for this and to show they way you like) and voila. Actually, not having it like that looks kinda weird to me, with the sequence starting at the extreme top. No time to breathe!

Second, the damned cursor in the MIDI edit window is just about invisible. Every time I have to select a note, it takes forever and a lot of mouse shaking to find the cursor. It's a tiny cross almost the same colour as the background, just barely visible if you already know where it is. If I was being paid by the hour, not a problem. I don't recall having so much trouble locating the cursor before. Is there and option or a theme that makes the cursor bigger or more apparent?

Oh, I hear you, Bays!
Also, the lack of contrast of the MIDI grid and the shades of notes in the piano roll (so they match the keyboard b/w pattern), and the size and 0 contrast of velocities, make it painful to work with MIDI. If notes occur on the grid, you just don't see the velocity because the barline hides it... I've tried every theme, and there's never enough contrast for one or other element.
This really needs to be addressed (among a million other things).

For the cursor, I used a little add-on that made any shape of any colour of any size you liked when you shook the cursor, but it stoped working some OSs ago. Now I set the cursor bigger in OS's preferences, but the bigger you set it the weirder it is to click on things and the less precise it feels. Sometimes I shake and shake and still don't find the cursor (I use 2 big monitors).

I wish we didn't have to shake the damned thing to find it in the first place. We should be able to manipulate the cursor's appearance and behaviour natively at a deep level?

A personal unrelated pet peeve of mine is that there's no native way to make column view show full names automatically in the Finder. Shouldn't this be in the preferences in 2021? The little add-on I used for this doesn't work anymore because of the stupid SIP thing

[HCMarkus]

I always leave two bars at the top, too.

FM, do you edit MIDI in the SE at all? I really like the way it works now (DP10.13)

And I'll second your thought about Finder.

[stubbsonic]

I often have notes at the beginning of a sequence (especially where I'm using DP's quickscribe for make-shift charts), and haven't had that particular playback issue. It's interesting that it sounds like the adjacent-note symptom.

Long ago, in the days of external MIDI modules, there was a thought that putting notes at the very top of the sequence was problematic because you had other MIDI data going out all at once (like patch changes, volume, pan, exp, etc.)-- so many of us developed that habit of adding a little stress relief pre-roll at the top.

[bayswater]

Long ago, in the days of external MIDI modules, there was a thought that putting notes at the very top of the sequence was problematic because you had other MIDI data going out all at once (like patch changes, volume, pan, exp, etc.)-- so many of us developed that habit of adding a little stress relief pre-roll at the top.

Maybe that's it. Could be sending out patch, pan and volume info even though I haven't edited it. Perhaps some sort of change in the way chasing is done in later versions, which would explain why I don't recall it happening earlier. Anyway I suppose I'll get used to putting a bar or two of nothing at the start of a sequence.

[bayswater]

For the cursor, I used a little add-on that made any shape of any colour of any size you liked when you shook the cursor, but it stoped working some OSs ago. Now I set the cursor bigger in OS's preferences, but the bigger you set it the weirder it is to click on things and the less precise it feels. Sometimes I shake and shake and still don't find the cursor (I use 2 big monitors).

I wish we didn't have to shake the damned thing to find it in the first place. We should be able to manipulate the cursor's appearance and behaviour natively at a deep level?

A personal unrelated pet peeve of mine is that there's no native way to make column view show full names automatically in the Finder. Shouldn't this be in the preferences in 2021? The little add-on I used for this doesn't work anymore because of the stupid SIP thing

Thanks. I guess a big OS cursor is the thing to do. It would be fine is there was a command to move selection to the next event. That would get around some of the problems. I might see if I can find the cross hatch symbol in the DP package and change it to red so it at least shows up. Might be possible to make it bigger too.

There is a Unix command to get the full names to show in the column view. I'll see if I can find it. I used to have it set, but turned it off because there was always a file or folder name so long in any window, it often made the columns too wide to be useful. You can set a specific window to fit the volume widths to the file and folder names by alt-double clicking one of the little symbols at the bottom of one of the volume separators.

[bayswater]

Can't find the terminal command for column widths, but in addition to what I said above, you can Option drag the column width in any Finder window to set a new default width for all columns. Hope that makes it a little easier. I suppose it's difficult to deal with when you have file names that range from 3 to 200 characters.

[bayswater]

Oh, I hear you, Bays!
Also, the lack of contrast of the MIDI grid and the shades of notes in the piano roll (so they match the keyboard b/w pattern), and the size and 0 contrast of velocities, make it painful to work with MIDI. If notes occur on the grid, you just don't see the velocity because the barline hides it... I've tried every theme, and there's never enough contrast for one or other element.

I found a compromise that helps. The Producer Theme, along with a low screen resolution (1920x1080 on a 32" 4K in my case) with View>Scale turned down to 100%. The cursor has decent contrast with the background in the MIDI window, and with these settings is big enough you don't have to search around for it. You can still get the better part of 2 minutes on the screen at once, and still see the notes reasonably well. The Velocity lines are still hidden behind the measure lines, but the heads are ugly great red triangles that are easy to see and grab.

Some other windows don't work as well at this resolution, and scale, but for a long MIDI edit session, this is OK.

I found the image for the cursor and might make it a bit thicker and redder and see if that helps.

[FMiguelez]

FM, do you edit MIDI in the SE at all? I really like the way it works now (DP10.13)

And I'll second your thought about Finder.

Do you mean using the velocities lane or something else? If so, yes, I am mostly forced to edit velocities there, but then I feel a little clumsy in that window, since you can't see the MIDI instruments superimposed in the same MIDI space like you can in the GE.

What I REALLY dislike about the SE for MIDI is that the notes in each track never seem to be centered around the visible part of the track. They're always at the bottom or the top, and you must adjust this for each track and make each really tall.
I wish DP had an algorithm that automatically would place the register where most notes are played showing in the middle of the track. I see no reason to look at empty space where there are actually notes, even if you check the "show hidden notes" preference.

I'd be happy if I could set the velocity bar colour and make them thicker. I swear I'd set them to bright PINK

[FMiguelez]

Oh, I hear you, Bays!
Also, the lack of contrast of the MIDI grid and the shades of notes in the piano roll (so they match the keyboard b/w pattern), and the size and 0 contrast of velocities, make it painful to work with MIDI. If notes occur on the grid, you just don't see the velocity because the barline hides it... I've tried every theme, and there's never enough contrast for one or other element.

I found a compromise that helps. The Producer Theme, along with a low screen resolution (1920x1080 on a 32" 4K in my case) with View>Scale turned down to 100%. The cursor has decent contrast with the background in the MIDI window, and with these settings is big enough you don't have to search around for it. You can still get the better part of 2 minutes on the screen at once, and still see the notes reasonably well. The Velocity lines are still hidden behind the measure lines, but the heads are ugly great red triangles that are easy to see and grab.

Some other windows don't work as well at this resolution, and scale, but for a long MIDI edit session, this is OK.

I found the image for the cursor and might make it a bit thicker and redder and see if that helps.

Aha! I'll try that. Thanks!

So now I'll be a *real* Produza with the Producer theme

[bayswater]

So now I'll be a *real* Produza with the Producer theme

Maybe more "Productive" with a visible cursor, but for some reason the music doesn't sound any better.

[HCMarkus]

Do you mean using the velocities lane or something else? If so, yes, I am mostly forced to edit velocities there, but then I feel a little clumsy in that window, since you can't see the MIDI instruments superimposed in the same MIDI space like you can in the GE.

What I REALLY dislike about the SE for MIDI is that the notes in each track never seem to be centered around the visible part of the track. They're always at the bottom or the top, and you must adjust this for each track and make each really tall. I wish DP had an algorithm that automatically would place the register where most notes are played showing in the middle of the track. I see no reason to look at empty space where there are actually notes, even if you check the "show hidden notes" preference.

I'd be happy if I could set the velocity bar colour and make them thicker. I swear I'd set them to bright PINK

If you hold the letter V down on your computer keyboard when you click on a note, you can edit MIDI velocity in the main SE lane.

I second your wish for automatic mid-track note display scrolling and/or automatic scaling to display all notes within the display area.
EDIT: Submitted Auto Scroll/Scale Feature Request to MOTU, along with my recurring request for a MIDI Lag Plugin and note to check-out the MOTUNation Thread on Articulation Sets.

[bayswater]

I'd be happy if I could set the velocity bar colour and make them thicker. I swear I'd set them to bright PINK

They're red in the producer theme.