MIDI and sustain - SOLVED

[greg54]

I'm recording keyboard with MIDI.   When I record the chords of the song and go from one chord to another, everything is fine.   I play it back, and initially it's fine.

Then I play it back again, and the sustain doesn't stop with the previous chord.    One chord plays through the next, and it all sounds mixed together.   I checked my sustain pedal, and that's not the issue.  But I don't know what the issue is.   Ideas?

Edited September 1, 2020 by greg54

[msmcleod]

Have you got CC 64 set as your "SHIFT" key within Keyboard Shortcuts?

[mdiemer]

Sounds like you have "stuck notes." This sometimes happens with midi or sample libraries. Although as suggested above the most obvious cause is a CC event. what libraries are you using? If you can, maybe try a different library with the same instrument, to check if that is the issue.

[greg54]

I haven't found a lot of information about this, so I'm not sure how to correct it.   

[User 905133]

57 minutes ago, greg54 said:

I haven't found a lot of information about this, so I'm not sure how to correct it.   

Diagnostic question: Does it happen with different patches? different soft synths? external synths?

13 hours ago, greg54 said:

 I checked my sustain pedal, and that's not the issue.  

Are you saying literally you checked your sustain pedal to see if it was working or you checked all midi events to see if there were Sustain CCs that were not being turned off?

Edited August 22, 2020 by User 905133
To add a question of clarification about the sustain pedal comment.

[greg54]

I play MIDI keyboard through Toontrack EZKeys, and during playback it happens.  I have not checked it with any other snyths other than EZKeys, since I don't use other MIDI synths.

I haven't experienced this before, so I had no idea what's causing it.  So yes, I thought perhaps my pedal was stuck.

I haven't found info that explains how to fix  the CC 64.  I've been looking on youtube.

[mdiemer]

An easy way to deal with CC events is to use Event List. you will see them there in red ink, if you have in fact put any in. With CC64, any values below 64 will do one thing, values above 64 will do the opposite. I can't remember at the moment which way it's set up, but for example, if this way: Set CC64 to 0, pedal will go down. Set CC64 to 127, pedal will go up. Or it may be the reverse of that, but it's one or the other.

If there are no CC64 events, put one in. Set it to 0. see if that does anything. If not, set it to 127. how to put in a CC events? Again, I use Event List. I find it easier than PRV. Go to the first note of the sequence of music you are concerned with (that is, select it). Then just hit the "insert" key on your keyboard (the one you type with). The event will be duplicated. Now, double- click on "note." In the drop-down box, change the event from "note" to CC event. Then make the CC event 64. Finally, change the value of the CC64 event to 0 or 64, and see what effect it has.

Edited August 22, 2020 by mdiemer

[greg54]

2 hours ago, mdiemer said:

An easy way to deal with CC events is to use Event List. you will see them there in red ink, if you have in fact put any in. With CC64, any values below 64 will do one thing, values above 64 will do the opposite. I can't remember at the moment which way it's set up, but for example, if this way: Set CC64 to 0, pedal will go down. Set CC64 to 127, pedal will go up. Or it may be the reverse of that, but it's one or the other.

If there are no CC64 events, put one in. Set it to 0. see if that does anything. If not, set it to 127. how to put in a CC events? Again, I use Event List. I find it easier than PRV. Go to the first note of the sequence of music you are concerned with (that is, select it). Then just hit the "insert" key on your keyboard (the one you type with). The event will be duplicated. Now, double- click on "note." In the drop-down box, change the event from "note" to CC event. Then make the CC event 64. Finally, change the value of the CC64 event to 0 or 64, and see what effect it has.

There were some in red that were 0 and some that were 127.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I set the ones at 0 to 127, and everything sustained worse.   I'm guessing it has to be more fine-tuned that just doing all either one number or the other.

And I double-clicked on a note and a box came up.   I could change the velocity and some other things, but nothing that I could see that allowed me to change the CC to 64.

Edited August 22, 2020 by greg54

[User 905133]

[quotes and comments withdrawn]

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by User 905133
to withdraw two sets of quotes and comments

[greg54]

As I said, I have never dealt with this before and did not know anything about checking sustain CC's.   

But I did go into Event List, as my post above yours shows.    Some were at 0 and some were at 127.   Since I'm new at dealing with this issue, I tried turning the 0's to 127.  That didn't work.   So later when I have time (since it's on a different computer) I'll see exactly what needs to be done - if I have to change some from 0 to 127 and vise versa.

 

I did find this video....

Don't know if this is necessary or if Cakewalk is capable of it.   It starts around :40

 

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by greg54

[Lynn Wilson]

You can set the CC to any number between 0 and 127, you're not stuck with just those values.  At least, in my experience.

I should mention, you can go into the piano roll view and change sustained notes from there by simply grabbing the edge of a note(s) and dragging  left or right (as needed).  Hope this helps.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Lynn

[User 905133]

1 hour ago, greg54 said:

I did find this video....

Don't know if this is necessary or if Cakewalk is capable of it.   It starts around :40

If the video shows the specific problem you are having (sustain pedal pressed too early**) and you like the idea of using the Piano Roll View [PRV] to tweak midi data, I hope someone who uses Cakewalk's PRV can explain/show how to do it in Cakewalk. I don't use the PRV so my suggestions would be of no use to you.

**Based on what I see in the video, the performer pressed the sustain pedal on while the second cluster of notes was playing. As a result, the notes from that point sustain when the third cluster of notes comes in--what he calls "dissonance." 

Please ignore my comments about editing MIDI events using the Events List.  To make it easier, I have deleted both the comments and the quotes.  Didn't mean to confuse you.  

Good luck with that.

 

[Kurre]

You could try midi channel 1 as input instead of omni.

[greg54]

55 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

If the video shows the specific problem you are having (sustain pedal pressed too early**) and you like the idea of using the Piano Roll View [PRV] to tweak midi data, I hope someone who uses Cakewalk's PRV can explain/show how to do it in Cakewalk. I don't use the PRV so my suggestions would be of no use to you.

**Based on what I see in the video, the performer pressed the sustain pedal on while the second cluster of notes was playing. As a result, the notes from that point sustain when the third cluster of notes comes in--what he calls "dissonance." 

Please ignore my comments about editing MIDI events using the Events List.  To make it easier, I have deleted both the comments and the quotes.  Didn't mean to confuse you.  

Good luck with that.

 

I'm having the same issue in the video.   I don't see it as pressing the pedal too early.   It's just that the sound of the notes continue through the next chord, even though the pedal was pressed correctly.

[greg54]

1 hour ago, Lynn said:

You can set the CC to any number between 0 and 127, you're not stuck with just those values.  At least, in my experience.

I should mention, you can go into the piano roll view and change sustained notes from there by simply grabbing the edge of a note(s) and dragging  left or right (as needed).  Hope this helps.

I'll play with the numbers and see if anything works.

I have gone into the piano roll and tried shortening the notes, but that didn't help.   I shortened the notes to 1/4" but it still sustains too long.

[greg54]

19 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Have you got CC 64 set as your "SHIFT" key within Keyboard Shortcuts?

I went into Keyboard Shortcuts, but from there I didn't see how to  get CC 64 set as my 'shift'.

Edited August 22, 2020 by greg54

[User 905133]

16 minutes ago, greg54 said:

I'm having the same issue in the video.   I don't see it as pressing the pedal too early.   It's just that the sound of the notes continue through the next chord, even though the pedal was pressed correctly.

I could be mistaken, but it looks like the pedal was depressed while the notes in cluster two were still depressed. But I admit, I don't use the PRV.  If I saw the midi data, it might be clearer.  I will defer to others who use the PRV.

Edited August 22, 2020 by User 905133
to add an image with a line and a box which leads me to believe the sustain on happens while notes in cluster 2 are still on.

[greg54]

I've been trying what has been suggested, and it's better.

One other thing I saw in another video said that sometimes when you cut MIDI (if it's not one long track), that will cause notes to sustain.   I had a couple of cuts.  So I bounced clips into one long track, and that also helped. 

I'll keep working on it.  

Thanks for everyone's input and suggestions!

Edited September 1, 2020 by greg54

[greg54]

I wanted to follow up on this.    Instead of Event List, I went to PRV.   (And I want to say that this is what worked best...for me.)

In PRV I clicked on the bottom and dragged it up to view this.  On the bottom left I clicked on 64 sustain so that what I'm seeing is for sustain and not velocity.

Then I edited where the sustain begins and ends by using the pencil tool and dragging where I wanted it.  Very simple.

 

 

[Dan Patterson]

I am having the same issue with too much sustain and the sustain carrying over into other notes. I other DAWS I was able to edit the the levels and duration by clicking on the vertical and horizontal lines exactly the way the video above indicates. Cakewalk doesn't seem to offer this option. I've attached a screen shot and you can see where I manually changed the sustain values in the events list so each event is not 0 or 12, but this is frankly a stupid way to edit because I could just play the track a lot faster.

I probably will record the track again at this point and be more mindful of the sustain pedal, but I'd like to know if Cakewalk offers the type of edit function in the video above.  Thanks