MusicDevelopments

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:49 pm

yellukhan wrote:Hi ,
i want to re suggest
allow to select multiple phrases/generators with a key combo (for example Ctrl+Shift+Click)
while "inhibit phrase selection in multiple tracks" is "active".
bypassing this feature temporarily and selecting multiple generators and regenerating at once and then de selecting all via single click to the empty area,
this would be really time saver and also helpful to avoid mistakes if you working on complex arrangement

Warm Regards
Yıldırım.

Yes. Totally agree. That would be very helpful.

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 9:45 pm

INCREDIBLE!!!

I realize that all that is already there!!!

In fact, Attila, there's only one thing that now we miss!... It's some explanations to use these commands of the menu below ! Simply that.

I've just tried the commands Line tool, Exponential tool, Curve tool... Of course I understand their purpose, but I've manage to draw nothing. It just clips the top of the vertical lines of amount which are already drawn. There's apparently no way to have an automatic draw of a number of columns from a start point to an end point ? It would resolve all the problems. The solution would be to make the two operations at once. When we draw a line (the thin red line)... it places the vertical columns at the same time under the thin red line.

Edit 45 minutes later:
My god!!! It does!!!

ATTILA! YOU ARE THE KING!!!
YOU'LL HAVE YOUR SEAT IN HEAVEN!!!

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 11:15 pm

I've just made a little tutorial in video (to have all the text explaining the method under the video you must of course go to Youtube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Iulr7atc0

I'm gonna create immediately also an independent thread.

musicdevelopments · Post by **musicdevelopments** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 12:13 pm

Hi BlackWinny,

You are very fast, I just wanted to send this reply but I realized you discovered a few things about MIDI CC editing...

You had a very good idea about the "MIDI CC event track".

BTW you can use portamento in the current version, although not as elegantly as your solution. If you add this to GeneralMIDI.rcCTRL, you will be able to add a portamento controller to any MIDI/SF2/VSTi track:

Code: Select all

,{name="Portamento Time"; num=5; default=0; },{name="Portamento"; num=65; default=0; }

If you click on the envelope icon of the controller, you can set values. Less than 64 means portamento off, more than 64 means portamento on. I made a screenshot:

Thanks,
Attila

musicdevelopments · Post by **musicdevelopments** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 12:21 pm

It is also possible to set the time resolution of the "pitch bend" and other MIDI control messages.
Use Snap&Quantize in the pop-up menu...

musicdevelopments · Post by **musicdevelopments** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 1:03 pm

BlackWinny wrote:
yellukhan wrote:Hi ,
i want to re suggest
allow to select multiple phrases/generators with a key combo (for example Ctrl+Shift+Click)
while "inhibit phrase selection in multiple tracks" is "active".
bypassing this feature temporarily and selecting multiple generators and regenerating at once and then de selecting all via single click to the empty area,
this would be really time saver and also helpful to avoid mistakes if you working on complex arrangement

Warm Regards
Yıldırım.
Yes. Totally agree. That would be very helpful.

Sure, this will be added in a few days. I continue to upload beta versions with the latest improvements, if you don't mind.

Best,
Attila

yellukhan · Post by **yellukhan** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 6:08 pm

great ..

thank you!

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 6:13 pm

musicdevelopments wrote:Hi BlackWinny,

You are very fast, I just wanted to send this reply but I realized you discovered a few things about MIDI CC editing...

You had a very good idea about the "MIDI CC event track".

musicdevelopments wrote:If you add this to GeneralMIDI.rcCTRL, you will be able to add a portamento controller to any MIDI/SF2/VSTi track:
Code: Select all
,{name="Portamento Time"; num=5; default=0; },{name="Portamento"; num=65; default=0; }

I'm gonna try that...

musicdevelopments wrote:If you click on the envelope icon of the controller, you can set values. Less than 64 means portamento off, more than 64 means portamento on.

Yes, it works like in electronics a transistor mounted to be a trigger providing 0V (the min) or 5V (the max) regarding the curve of the voltage at its input.

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 1:31 am

Curious... I have no problem with the pitch bend method, but I have probably forgotten something in the portamento method... With this very dynamic composition below, the pitch should be affected every other time, but it's not: the electroencephalo(audio)gram remains desperately flat at the ears...

RapidComposer 261- Test of Portamento.GIF

Due to the portamento set to "On" one out of two times then "Off", I should hear something in the style of:
tuuuu...tuaei...tuuuu...tuaei...tuuuu...tuaei...tuuuu...tuaei...
the first occurrence being ineffective, the second effective, the third ineffective, the fourth effective, etc. But they all remain ineffective as if the "portamento on" was not sent (or not understood by the sf2 font engine)

This zip file contains the short project file and the little GeneralMIDI.rcCTRL file where I added the complement before beginning the test:

RapidComposer 261- Test of Portamento.zip

It's serious Doctor?
You could see where I made a blunder?

Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....
(peace to his soul...)

musicdevelopments · Post by **musicdevelopments** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 9:41 am

Hi BlackWinny,

the built in soundfont renderer does not do portamento.

Portamento works when you press another key, and the sound will smoothly approach the pressed note. It won't work with holding down one key only... If you hold down one key, you can play with pitch bend.
It is very unfortunate that MIDI does not support pitch bending per note, only per channel. This is a serious limitation IMHO.

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 3:33 pm

musicdevelopments wrote:the built in soundfont renderer does not do portamento.

Ah ok. This explains that.

musicdevelopments wrote:Portamento works when you press another key, and the sound will smoothly approach the pressed note.

My bad... I've been back to my old lessons and I've just read what was certainly a good definition for all these terms (it could help other simple amateurs, of course not the geeks). In my old lesson books (published in France in the 70's, don't laugh) it was (I translate):

Legato
Continuous link between two notes having different pitches without any new attack on the second note. In perfect legato all is made during the same initial envelope, eventually with use of a sustain to have the time to finish the second note with enough release time. Therefore in legato the second note continues always the envelope of the first note and drives it up to the total release of the sound (except on pads). The legato even for only one semitone is therefore impossible on an acoustic piano since each note starts necessarily with its own attack by its own hammer. It can only be approached (very unperfectly) as a kind of imitation by a subtle work on the velocity of the following semitone. The correct legato is very easy on instruments of the family of violins and "doable" (but not easily) on every woodwind instruments (sometimes with a hard learn and long practice of the fingering techniques and a good mastering of the breath). And a real legato at the strict sense is impossible on a guitar except with the use of bottle neck.

Staccato
Succession of notes with a frank and clear attack at each note. They are generally rather brief notes. And a staccato is not necessarily a transition to a note having a different pitch, the second note might as well be of the same pitch than the previous one. The staccato is doable with all the instruments without any exception.

Glissando
Slide from a note to another note of different pitch, passing by all the intermediate semitones existing between the two notes, but each semitone being a full existing note, clearly and distinctly heard, with its own attack (which can be strong or discrete but which is mandatory). The glissando is doable with all the keyboards, all the woodwinds having holes (not the trombone for example), all the string instruments having frets (for a short interval of one semitone it is generally done on the guitar by the traditional hammer-on and pull-off, and for long intervals it is done by moving the finger all along the neck while keeping the same pressure on the string), as well as the harps, zithers, etc. But this real glissando is much more difficult with the instruments of the family of violins and for all the non fretted guitars... for all these instruments the glissando is generally rather a portamento. Note: "Rhapsody in blue" is a famous example of a score which begins by a huge glissando... generally replaced by a portamento by the musicians at the moment of playing it since this insane glissando is one of the hardest ever known!

Portamento
Slide from a note to another note of different pitch without any discontinuity and passing by all the intermediate frequencies without any new attack. The pitch-bend of the guitar is a kind of portamento on an interval of one or two tones maximum (more frequently one or two semitones). On an electric guitar another technique of portamento of three or four tones maximum (more frequently three or four semitones) is also doable by the use of the vibrato bar (the "whammy" bar). No other portamento longer than these intervals is doable by these techniques on a guitar having frets (except with a bottle neck or with some techniques of virtuoso on an electric guitar). But a portamento of any interval is doable with all the string instruments with necks having no frets and on all the instruments of the family of zithers. The portamento can be realized on almost all the woodwind instruments by a good practice of the fingering technique which consists to cover or discover very progressively a hole then very progressively the next one, etc. The portamento is undoable by the traditional techniques on the string instruments of the families of harps (but very short portamenti are hardly doable by a technique which consists to shorten the length of the string by pinching it between two nails then sliding the position along the string). And to end this review the portamento is totally undoable (as the legato) on the acoustic piano (for the same reasons).

That was a citation of one of my old courses, 40 years ago.

Of course I'm not a professional. Just a very humble amateur. But I see everywhere very strange definitions of all these terms, in total disrespect of the traditional definitions used for centuries. Some of these terms may have seen their definition change a bit with the appearance of the MIDI, but it is certainly better to keep the old traditional definitions if we don't want to loose all the culture of the Past and the readability of all the splendid older scores in the new minds.

musicdevelopments wrote:It is very unfortunate that MIDI does not support pitch bending per note, only per channel. This is a serious limitation IMHO.

Yes, sure!

Oddly, I've seen that FL Studio has managed to get around the problem for their internal instruments (although compatible MIDI), but I don't know by which technical trick since I haven't at all FL Studio. I've seen that here:

http://www.image-line.com/support/FLHel ... oll_slides

I can see clearly what must do the composer by reading their text, but I wonder how the hell they have been able to code "MIDI" messages (they have probably created a "dialect" for their internal instruments) to do that since I've always learned that independent portamenti on notes of a same track at the same time is not implemented in MIDI codes as far as I know... This is something which escapes me totally...

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 11:23 pm

I have noted some little things about the edition of the MIDI events, and I bring a few suggestions based on these observations:

Create a new empty composition.

Add a "Pitch Bend" controller to a track.

Open the envelope line of the "Pitch Bend" controller.

Increase a bit the height of the envelope line for ease.

Choose "Exponential Tool Replace Mode" (for example) in the contextual menu of the line.

And now we are ready for the explanations of my observations...

Draw a curve from the left to the right and climbing to, say, 75%. But beware!: before releasing the mouse, get back a little centimeters to the left with the mouse a little quivering as it keeps on going a bit too high (say, to about 77%-80%). You'll see that the result is very uncertain and very dirty because we can't never be precise enough with the mouse in a small surface, and not really better on a quite larger surface if you try. And this dirty columns are not easy to remove, believe me. So now, my request: it should be good that the point materialized by the pointer of the mouse be always the last column at the right extremity of the curve being in a non ended state, even when getting back to the left (when moving to this direction - easy to detect as it gets back in the timeline - it should automatically remove the surplus columns which are now undesired at the right as long as the mouse is not released, because of fatal imprecision of the movements we are always groping whatever the size of the surface... and it becomes worse with the age). In fact, there is even a far better solution which consists to show only the red curve, that's all... and place the black columns only when the hand releases the mouse. This could be even the best behavior for the edition of all the events in these kinds of lines.

Another request about the same thing...

When we release the mouse, we are never sure that we are definitely satisfied by the exact place of the curve in the time line compared to the note that it is purposed to affect just above. Very often we would like to move the effect a bit towards the left or a bit towards the right to find the exact and definitive place. My request: it would be really nice to select a group of columns (whatever the group) from a first column to a last column (in the sense of the time), with the mouse as we do in graphical editors as Paint, Paintshop Pro and all other similar graphic editors even the most simple of them (or as we do to select several icons which are side by side on the desktop of our computers). Due to the context that we know in RapidComposer about the modifier keys, such a selection should be done by Shift-Drag or Alt-Drag or Ctrl-Drag (I let you choose) knowing that the single Drag is already used to draw the line. When selected, a column is included in a temporary collection (ordered by timeline from an offset) in the RAM memory with for each one all its own parameters. From black, each selected column gets the red color when it enters the collection (and goes back to its black color when it is removed from the collection), so... following the displacement of the mouse (exactly as a selection of icons on our desktops) along the group of columns from the chosen point of start. Then the collection is locked when the mouse is released. Then the mouse, now re-pressed, has just now to move all the selected group to the left or to the right to reach a new place (once more, exactly as it does on our desktops). But here, the end of the operation of displacement is validated by a terminal click of the mouse at any place outside the current line being in edition (here the "Pitch Bend" line), and it is only at this moment (a click somewhere outside the 'Pitch Bend' line) that the displacement is validated, that the collection in RAM is emptied, therefore automatically all the columns get back their black color if the logic is respected since, as we saw above, each column gets back its black color when it is exited from the collection... and finally the temporary collection is destroyed "at the end of the end" of the operation. So as long as the operator clicks somewhere inside the line, the collection remains full and locked in order to let the composer to be able to choose still another place (we are always groping, you know...) without having to recreate the collection (if we are working on very short notes like sixteenth notes it could be amazingly tedious to have often to recreate the collections destroyed too early. Here again, all this could be even the best behavior for the edition of all the events in these kinds of lines of event controllers.

And a last request for the moment, far more easy, and only concerning the pitch bend:

In my humble opinion it should be better that the default value was 0 instead of 8192. Because as soon as we set a Pitch Bend controller to the track, actually the pitch of the notes is immediately affected as early as the first note of the track and even if we don't use any pitch bend on any note of the track (all the track sounds immediately an octave too high even if we have not yet put a curve or a first "dummy" column at 0 in the "pitch bend" line).

I hope I don't bother anybody...

All that are reflections for nice improvements of the ease of work for us, composers.. and I know, Attila, that you enjoy to have good and interesting challenges.

In fact my suggestions, as old scientist, are humble occasions to think on methods of coding which also probably simplify the reusability...

Warm regards to everyone!

pleasewinner · Post by **pleasewinner** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:31 am

First, let me say what a joyous and astounding tool you have created. I am amazed at all the great work you have done. I was wondering if you have given any consideration to expanding the strumming feature in Variations. It would be wonderful if the automation of alternate up/down strokes would be possible to imitate the real strumming of a guitar. Also, would it be possible to create a slider that effects the strength of the descending or ascending notes. In this way, the first note struck would be louder than the rest, and so on. I am very new to RapidComposer, so if this has already been suggested or considered, I apologize. Once again, thank you for all your hard work.

Cheers,
Thom

musicdevelopments · Post by **musicdevelopments** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:10 am

Hello Thom,

thank you for your kind words

You have a good point; I was talking to a forum member privately about improving the strumming variation.
A new menu will be added: Down, Up, Down-Up Alternating, Up-Down Alternating, Automatic

When strumming is set to 'Automatic' , longer notes (>=1 beat) would be always down stroke, but shorter notes are strummed alternating starting with a down stroke.

In the current version 'Down'/'Up' is incorrectly labelled because a down-stroke should happen from lowest note to highest note...

Also, would it be possible to create a slider that effects the strength of the descending or ascending notes. In this way, the first note struck would be louder than the rest, and so on

Good idea, I try to add this too!
I'll make these improvements in a few days and upload a beta version.

Thanks!
Attila

musicdevelopments · Post by **musicdevelopments** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:19 am

BlackWinny wrote:I have noted some little things about the edition of the MIDI events, and I bring a few suggestions based on these observations:

Hello BlackWinny,

thank you for your observations and suggestions!
MIDI CC editing has not been improved for a long time, maybe it is time to make its usage more convenient. I added your thoughts to the to-do list.

Thanks,
Attila

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