Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Issues with recording MIDI files from a DP

Something that I noticed from my recent escapades in recording was that the MIDI files weren't exactly how I played them. There were inaccuracies in the rhythm that I know were not there when I played them. Notes would be too close together or too far apart, making running 16ths sound uneven. I would then have to Quantize things in hopes of fixing most of them, and manually moving notes to their proper place if the quantization didn't help.

I've compared the results of midi recordings vs. audio recordings, so I know that it wasn't just errors in my playing that I didn't pick up on when playing them. I know that can happen, but this was extreme. My initial thoughts are that on a DP, the onset of sound is at a different point than on an acoustic. With an acoustic, for example, the onset of sound occurs when the key is completely depressed to the keybed, and no sooner. On a DP, however, I'm thinking that this point of sound may happen sooner. Either that, or the MIDI registers the sound sooner than when the key is all the way down.

Has anyone had this happen? Is it a known flaw in MIDI? I always thought the quantize option was for people who didn't play accurately and so I felt like I was cheating a bit when I would have to use this, but I realize that the recording wasn't actually how I played it to begin with, so it was returning it to where it should be.

Can you give information about:
- What piano?
- What type of MIDI connection?
- What type of computer?
- What type of MIDI capture program?

I don't do MIDI captures very often (tried it just a couple of times when I bought my piano just to see if it worked). But it worked fine. In my case:
- Yamaha CLP240
- USB connection
- Windows laptop
- "Red Dot Forever" MIDI capture software
I had no problems with the capture at all.

Conversely, when using Pianoteq software (to translate the incoming MIDI to piano sound), I had latency issues. It was hard/annoying to play (because of the latency). But all notes were (apparently) delayed by the same amount. So a listener would not notice. The notes played at the proper pace.

What is your setup?

-FP-7
-USB connection
-Window/Vista PC
-Reaper

Getting this to work was relatively easy. I was not recording the MIDI with the VST due to the annoying latency, but added the VST (Ivory) after the MIDI capture.

Make sure that you don't have quantize enabled when you make the MIDI recording.

As far as I can tell, the Quantize only happens if I select that after making the recording. I couldn't find a place where that could be a default setting for making recording, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't on.

What ppq setting are you using?

What's ppq and do you have any idea where in Reaper I'd find it? I looked in the Preferences but didn't see this there. Is there perhaps another name for it?

Morodiene,

Here is the Reaper User Guide (for version 3.16).

http://www.reaper.fm/userguide/ReaperUserGuide316.pdf

The settings to quantize input notes are on page 231. (12.15 Input Quantization)

You do not want Quantize track MIDI recording or Quantize notes-off checked.

See if these settings help.

MIDI is not a perfect recording method, but the differences between what you play and what you record should be almost imperceptible.

Rich

I'm not familiar with Reaper. (I use Cubase).

You could also try searching your doc on MIDI resolution, timebase.

From Wikapedia:

PPQ (Pulses Per Quarter note) is the smallest unit of time used for sequencing note and automation events in the MIDI standard. Most MIDI sequencers allow the number of PPQ to be varied for more or less temporal resolution depending on the needs of the performer.
If there are too few PPQ any performance recorded into the MIDI sequencer may sound artificial (being quantised by the Pulse rate) or lose subtle variations in timing that gives music a 'human' feeling. Generally 96 PPQ is sufficient to capture enough temporal variation. Although some musicians like to work with PPQs around 960 or more.
PPQ is a relative measure of time since it is the tempo of the MIDI sequence, set in Beats Per Minute BPM, that defines the length of a quarter note (in seconds) and so the duration of 1 Pulse (or 'tick' as it is sometimes known to programmers).

There are to kinds of "quantize".

The first one depends on you software and the over-all accuracy of your system. The recorder runs a clock that counts ticks. The number starts at zero and goes on forever. Any time you play a note, or raise a key that action gets tagged with the current "tick number". If the ticks occur at 10 per second you get horrible time accuracy. At 1000 per second it's better. Also some systems are just poor at counting and the ticks have un-even intervals. Every action is tagged with the tick number so you want very fast and even counting. Some systems are just poor at this, Windows Vista on an under powered computer is not ideal for this task but maybe you can set the counting speed faster? It might be called any number of things but set the number up. A common standard is "960" per quarter note. This allows 1/16th notes to be accurate to about one part per hundred (or about 1% error) which might be undetectable. This process is where your real-time laying is "quanitized" to ticks.


The other kind of "quantize" is the one you might have been thinking of. This is simple, the software simply rounds the "tick number" of each note so that each number falls on the nearest 1/16th or 1/32nd note.

Your problem is certainly with the first kind of quantize

I can't comment on Windows because I don't use it. But I doubt that the problem is a fundamental problem with MIDI -- set up properly it does allow for a higher level of timing precision than most (probably all) human ears can discriminate. More likely, as Chris A says, either your software is set up so that it is quantizing note on/off events as they are recorded, or there are inherent timing inaccuracies caused either by the operating system or input drivers.

I am not familiar with either Reaper or Windows but many Midi timing issues can be solved by setting the internal clock of the instrument from the DAW software.

This might be a little bit of topic but can someone explain to me when you would choose MIDI connection and when you would go with USB setup.

Thank you

Since most PCs have a USB port but no MIDI port, it's convenient to just connect the piano USB port to the computer USB port (assuming your piano has USB).

If your piano does not have USB, you can connect its MIDI port to the computer's USB using a MIDI-to-USB adapter (about $40).

If you add a MIDI-capable sound card (about $80 and up) to your computer, you can connect the piano MIDI directly to the computer MIDI port.

OK. So, MIDI and USB can be used interchangeably?

My piano Roland RD 700SX has both ports. I would like to use some kind of soft pianos (Ivory, Pianoteq, etc.) with it. When I tried to connect trial version of Pianoteq 3.5 using USB connection,it says that there is no MIDI output selected and I won't be able to hear it.

What do I do next?

Have you installed the Roland MIDI driver?

I installed Roland's driver, not sure how to install Roland's MIDI driver though

I think we're talking about the same thing. (I'm working from memory here). Are you trying to use Pianoteq stand alone or within a host, such as Cubase? In either case you need to point to (select) the appropriate inputs and outputs.

Lawrence

Pianoteq stand alone

I'm having almost the same problem so if anyone could give me any input, I'd appreciate it. My DP is the Clavinova CLP-270. I recorded a MIDI file directly on the piano. It plays fine there. However, when I transfer the MIDI over to my PC, it has the exact same problem with the timing as described in the original post.