How to Make Staccato Notes More Legato

[Stephen Power]

Is there a simple and easy way to make very jerky MIDI notes (due to my bad playing) sound smoother (more legato) in Cakewalk? I've tried many times to do it when inputting the notes on my keyboard, but it still sounds like it's being played by a very bad computer.

UPDATE: I've adjusted some notes in PRV, to make them fit the bars a bit better and it's not awful now, but still very robotic.

Thanks for any ideas.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Kerryman

[mettelus]

Keep focusing your editing in the PRV. MIDI data captures note pitch, on/off data and note duration basically. If the VSTi (instrument) you are using has legato functionality, then overlapping notes will sound smoother, but that is dependent on what is playing the notes (not the MIDI data). If the durations are simply too short, you can elongate them in the PRV (drag the right edge out). For the robotic aspect, there are "humanize" functions (which may be hit or miss), but you can also turn off "snap to grid" and nudge notes to your taste. This is a common technique with guitar chords, since the pick doesn't hit each string at  the same time (that sounds insanely robotic for a guitar), but rather a slight delay between them. Piano is the same in that the slight delay between notes is what the hand is actually doing. Don't have notes always landing perfectly on bar timing if you want it to sound realistic.

Edited April 23, 2023 by mettelus

[Stephen Power]

4 minutes ago, mettelus said:

Keep focusing your editing in the PRV. MIDI data captures note pitch, on/off data and note duration basically. If the VSTi (instrument) you are using has legato functionality, then overlapping notes will sound smoother, but that is dependent on what is playing the notes (not the MIDI data). If the durations are simply too short, you can elongate them in the PRV (drag the right edge out). For the robotic aspect, there are "humanize" functions (which may be hit or miss), but you can also turn off "snap to grid" and nudge notes to your taste. This is a common technique with guitar chords, since the pick doesn't hit each string at  the same time (that sounds insanely robotic for a guitar), but rather a slight delay between them. Piano is the same in that the slight delay between notes is what the hand is actually doing. Don't have notes always landing perfectly on bar timing if you want it to sound realistic.

Very help thank you @mettelus. I'll try out your suggestions.

[Andres Medina]

Also, be aware that you can select a bunch of notes, and by dragging (extending) one of them, all will follow, so you don't need to edit one by one.

[sjoens]

To make several notes the same length, select them in PRV and change length in the Control Bar Event module.

[Promidi]

On 4/25/2023 at 7:21 AM, sjoens said:

To make several notes the same length, select them in PRV and change length in the Control Bar Event module.

Or hold SHIFT while adjusting the durations of one of the selected notes.  That will make all the selected note the same duration as the note you are adjusting.

[sjoens]

... while NOT holding SHIFT will extend all selected notes BY the same duration.

so many options

[Andres Medina]

2 hours ago, Promidi said:

Or hold SHIFT while adjusting the durations of one of the selected notes.  That will make all the selected note the same duration as the note you are adjusting.

Didn't know that!

Great for speeding my workflow!

Thanks -

[mettelus]

+1 to the above, there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts in CbB to make workflows easier. Finding them, or even knowing they exist, can be the real challenge. This forum packs a lot of knowledge, so don't be afraid to ask questions.