I have a midi track at 185 bpm, 4/4 time, in which I have a measure-long run of 16th notes (moving stepwise up and down on the F scale). I find that some notes are skipped when logic is playing just this track by itself. Is there a setting which I can modify which will fix this problem?
Thanks in advance.
Thank you for your response. I don't believe this is the problem. I have tried many quantize settings, and nothing changes. It IS instrument specific. It doesn't happen, for example, with the Steinberg acoustic piano, but it does seem to happen with strings, at least sometimes.
Possibly the quantize problem has to do with note overlaps, which can occur when recording and which can mask notes. I am entering notes "by hand" (that is, not recording), and there is no overlap.
Check your quantize settings for the track/region.
I have never had Logic skip any notes unless i set the quantize to a settings less than the length of the notes I have played/recorded.
Another clue: It appears that the skipped note is actually played, but very very softly. If I make the note much louder than the other notes (using the velocity tool), and even double it (ie, make it 2 notes of the same pitch) both very loud, that sort-of compensates. However, it would be nice to understand the problem, as I have it in a number of places.
What instrument are you using that skips?
Violins, violas.
For another clue, see my post asking how to hide a note in the score.
I don't want a clue... I wanted to know what "Instrument" EXS24, Kontakt, ...etc was producing the sounds, not what sounds were being produced.
You mentioned the Steinberg Ac. piano does not skip and that strings do so the logical thing to look at would be the instrument that produces the "strings" sound, it may be running out of polyphony or the release envelope my be so long that's it interfering with the execution of following notes.
Note also that some string instruments, particuarly those that use Kontakt scripts, are carefully crafted to preserve realism by restricting you to what can physically be played on the instrument.
They are EXS24 instruments - violins, violas. (orchestral -> strings -> violin section 01", for example.
I'm sorry about the "extra clue", but it does seem to indicate that something truly weird is going on. I have found no relation to the sound envelope (envelope 2 which i manipulate by automation) - that's the first thing I tried.
The problem I'm having is actually with a violin which I modified. The violin has different sets of samples for different kinds of sounds. For my case - the vanilla violin sound - different samples are played depending on the velocity. As the velocity of the note increases, a different sample may be played. The problem is that, in the high-velocity range, the transition from one sample to another occurs rapidly leading to a very rapid increase in sound - increase the velocity from 110 to 112, say, and the volume of the sound doubles. I'm only using the sounds for an idea of what a composition will sound like, not for commercial purposes, so I removed all the samples except one, giving me a smoother velocity vs volume curve.I also zeroed out all the LFOs and modified the "via vel" to its full range. You would think this would make things simpler, but it does not.
It is this modified instrument that I'm having trouble with. The sound is much more uniform and there are no clicks or other glitches with small values (0.22%) of the suspend. I modify the suspend during play using automation in order to imitate legatto or spocatto/stocatto without having to change actual instruments.
Now the weirdness is this. Consider the skipped note - the original not-played note.I copy this note and move the copy a few whole steps below the original note (say from C4 to G3) and set its velocity to zero, so it does not sound. Now the original note plays correctly - it does not skip. The fake note, however, appears in the score, where it is not wanted.
Ok, first.... in the left upper quadrant of the EXS you will see small print that says "voices" and a small box with a number, if it's set to 16 you may be running out of polyphony, double the value to 32.
The envelope I was speaking of, #4 is the release volume, this is how long the note holds after releasing the key, during fast passages all of the notes could be playing if the release envelope is set too long. You could automate a shorter release envelope during fast passages but you may not need it if you increase polyphony.
The "fake" note probably stops the previous note.
The other possible solution is to go into the Piano Roll editor and slightly shorten the length of the note previous to the one that's not playing.
The voices did it. Thank you so much - so simple. What does it mean to "run out of polyphony" and why during a fast passage and not anywhere? Anyway, it's the only track playing.
Sound's like you know music, polyphony is more than one voice sounding at a time or in the case of an electronic instrument, the number of simultaneous voices possible.
As I said... if the "release envelope" is set so that notes ring after the key is released then to the instrument, that note is still being played. During a fast passage at faster tempos the number of simultaneous voices increases as the previous notes release envelope has not yet cut the note off.
Early commercial hardware synthesizers 1970's (Arp...etc) could only play one or two notes, later synths expanded to 4 and 6 notes, Roland upped it to 8, Yamaha upped it to 16 on their flagship DX7.
On a computer the more voices used mean more CPU is required, the EXS is efficient so you don't have to worry about increasing the voices... however, there are some plugins that would make any Mac fall over dead with 32 simultaneous voices.
That's very interesting. I use counterpoint in my compositions so I understand polyphony in composition, but I didn't realize that, in Logic, as the release continues more voices could be playing simultaneously - an "electronic polyphony", very different from what Bach meant. I did notice that if the release is too fast, one can get strange clicks or popping sounds.
keystrike wrote:
That's very interesting. I use counterpoint in my compositions so I understand polyphony in composition, but I didn't realize that, in Logic, as the release continues more voices could be playing simultaneously - an "electronic polyphony", very different from what Bach meant. I did notice that if the release is too fast, one can get strange clicks or popping sounds.
Yes, the click or popping comes from shutting the sample off before it's finished playing.
What you're looking for is a natural release for the type of instrument and style of music.
A long release can simulate the reverb/echo of a concert hall but uses up a lot of voices so a more natural release and a reverb plugin could do a better job.
And yes, very different from Bach's day when polyphony was limited by instrument, fingers and the number of players or musical idiom. (3-part fugue...etc)
logic skips notes when playing midi fast. A fix?
