Note Duration Question

[aulos43]

Hi folks,

MIDI has many mysteries, especially when looking for a realistic sound. Under Piano Roll, using Edit as-performed, I've attempted to implement various articulations by adjusting the lengths of notes, such as: last note under a slur ~= -1/6 or -1/7 of the full number of ticks; or for staccato ~= -1/2 full number of ticks. Also, some of the string-section textures I encounter in transcribing sinfonie seem to need adjustment, e.g., the many repeated notes in some chordal accompaniment passages need more space after them to imply the change of bow direction between notes.

Haven't gone the other way to get a better legato, but now I think I'll give it a try.

Swing and "humanization" and other "feel" features I have stayed away from lately. This may be largely due to my preference for "square" music. In the early sequencers that I used (Dr T's KCS and CLab Notator) I did more recording from my midi keyboard synthesizer, with a fair amount of improvising in more popular idioms, but even then, capturing or superimposing swing feel left a lot of tedious editing to be done.

Though I've tried to produce realistic sounding midi-based music -- with Notation Composer, CUBASE, Logic Pro or Aria (Garritan) -- in the back of my mind I think of midi-based works as sketches: preliminary impressions of the intended music -- even though I have no access to performing groups at this time.

OK, this has been a ramble.

Walt

[dj]

Hi, Walt, Ralph, Sherry:

I recall that the first "swing" feature on a midi sequencer happened when Roger Linn tried to add quantization to one of his drum machines. The processor was so slow that it chopped off some notes and lengthened others. Instant "swing".

Of course, the best way to capture human feel in a midi recording is to play it live, but my fingers don't always manage it. Multi-tracking helps a lot and Composer's step-time record mode is a useful tool for "real" performance feel. I find that the variations in volume of notes are as important as the variations in length for human feel, and step-time recording captures those variations.

In the end, even the best real-time performance can often require note-by-note editing, though.

Nature of the beast.

David