Midi Sustain: notes are overlapping

Shorten their release times.

Christian

Put up an mp3 demo with the problem and a screenshot of the instrument in question, so I can speculate more focused.

Christian

Hm, you could also load an EXS24, open the French Horn instrument in that and
1. Set it to monophonic
!http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2589/4177946003 b937690ef9m.jpg!
2: Set the number of voices to 1:
!http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2674/4178707660 41415ea53dm.jpg!
3. Lower the release time to somewhere between 5 and 20 ms:
!http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4178707690 4b524711b9m.jpg!

Also make sure you do NOT have any *Sustain Pedal Down* events in your track. MIDI CC 64, value 127. Open your event list (E) and hide the notes:
!http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4009/4178716316 42075a67d8m.jpg!


regards, Erik.

Here are a few things I would check:

• In the Piano Roll menu go to Functions>Note Events

• Experiment with Note Overlap Correction and Sustain Pedal to Note length.

• If your midi notes and have been cleaned up via these menus then it could be your 'philharmonik french horn' - experiment with other sounds for the same midi notes.

• If you still have the problem then switch your midi interface on and off to reset it

• make sure that your midi keyboard isnt somehow creating a midi loop ( try switching Local OFF)

.. hope that helps

M S

Even though a single french horn can't play polyphonically, and with apologies to Erik, you don't want to set your polyphony to 1, or set the sound to play legato. Instead, you want your polyphony to be at least 3 or 4 (or just leave it at 16 or whatever the default is) and not set to legato. Here's why...

First of all, it doesn't matter that it's a sampled real horn. Once it's sampled it becomes a synthetic instrument and thus it requires a different approach to making your phrasing sound realistic than you might otherwise expect. To begin with, no one ever hears a french horn (or other monophonic orchestral instrument) played in an anechoic environment. Even if you're practicing in a closet there is going to be a small amount of reverberation from the space around you. That reverb will tend to smear the transitions from note to note and thus the sound that an audience hears (even if it's just you) is no longer monophonic. For lack of a better term, it becomes "faux" polyphonic. If this weren't the case then instrumental performances would sound rather awful, just like the sound of (again, with apologies to Erik) sampler instruments set to a polyphony of 1. When you do this, the sound of the previous note gets cut off unnaturally when you play the next note. It's much more preferable IMO to achieve some "smear" so that notes sound connected, and that's only possible with a polyphony of 2 or higher.

So aside from the issue of polyphony, the most basic techniques needed to make a monophonic orchestral instrument sound real are:

1) setting the Release Time appropriately. Christian has already mentioned this. If you don't know what release time is then you owe it to yourself to experiment with it (on EXS-24 it's ENV2's release control). You have to spend a little time tweaking this so that when you stop playing a note there's a slight bit of decay. The sound should not suddenly cut off, nor should it ring too long. I would recommend a release time of between 20 and 80 milliseconds, depending on the sound, your phrasing, etc. Note that your basic setting for release time will vary with the tempo of the music you're playing. I have the feeling that the release time of the instrument you're using is set too long. Just because it comes pre-programmed that way doesn't mean it's going to be right for what you're doing. You don't know what kind of music the programmer of that sound was playing when he/she saved it. And if it's not right for what you're doing you have to change it to suit your music.

2) When you play legato lines, notes should (generally) overlap ever so slightly (as seen in the piano roll editor). Just how legato the sound will be is a function of the amount of overlap in your playing, including the use of sustain pedal (as Erik mentioned) as well as the release time you've set. But it's not like you have to get nuts trying to play slightly overlapping notes. Normal piano legato playing technique and pedaling combined with an optimum release setting should give you a natural sounding result, even without any added reverb (that's the acid test).

And if you happen to play a phrase where the notes overlap too much, you can always go into the piano roll editor and shorten them. There are several automatic functions available (note overlap correction, for one). Or, you can manually tweak the ends of notes to where they need to be. I do a lot of orchestral mockups and half of my time is spent adjusting release times and note endings. But I will never set polyphony to 1. It just never works. At least not for me.

HTH

iSchwartz wrote:
Even though a single french horn can't play polyphonically, and with apologies to Erik, you don't want to set your polyphony to 1, or set the sound to play legato.

Yes, I know. The only time I would set any synth to mono is because it has to sound like a monophonic synth... 🙂
My answer was (alas) partly motivated by irritation at the question (and the beliefs uttered with it).
You are a far more patient guy, therefore a better teacher.
What I actually suspect has happened is that the OP doesn't realise he's already recorded damper events and that they are playing while he is playing along, and to him it seems like the pedal reacts strangely, where there are simply Sustain on/off events coming from the track.
So why didn't I write/ask that earlier?

So, iSchwartz, apologies not accepted, as you are not the one having to apologize, for I gave the practically (though maybe not literally ) incorrect answer, out of misguided arrotation .
So: sorry.

regards, Erik.

(who will now read the rest of iS' post...)