MIDI Notes not sustaining beyond end of clips

[slackhead]

I'm a right that midi notes cut (ie note off is sent) at the end of a clip, which makes it not possible to sustain a note passed the boundary of the clip?

I've tried a number of ways to get a note that holds passed a clip end or repeat with no joy. I've also noticed you can't draw notes in the editor which extend beyond the clip, and if I extend the size of the clip, draw the long note and reduce the clip size - the not gets re-sized to fit. Why is this happening?

[Tearing Riots]

Just the way it works right now.
I usually get around this limitation by moving the loop bracket to an empty space in the clip, like this:

Screenshot 2016-04-21 17.23.45.jpg

[slackhead]

Thank you - that works pretty well for the situation I was trying to resolve.

[Dehenry]

slackhead, you made my day! I stumbled across this issue a few minutes after I tried Bitwig for the first time and have always wondered why no one else seemed to have a problem with it, until now! For me this is really THE biggest flaw in Bitwig (btw – same in Reaper) because it affects the most basic function a DAW has: recording and playing notes.

I am not sure I fully understand TR's workaround, but a workaround really shouldn't be required just to be able to play sustained notes. I wrote about this problem to the Bitwig support long ago and they said that sustaining notes past the end of a clip was "wrong" and would cause problems because of missing note-offs... To be honest, I think that's a bit ignorant. Of course, Bitwig should not forget sustained notes, but that really shouldn't be a technical challenge! Logic and Cubase have never had any issues with sustained notes outside the clip boundaries. This is how it already worked in Logic 5 almost 15 years ago (click on the button with the cloud symbol):

http://www.file-upload.net/download-114 ... c.avi.html

Everything legato as it was originally played. And this is how Bitwig plays the exact same notes in 2016:

http://www.file-upload.net/download-114 ... g.avi.html

Come on - someone at Bitwig must be making MUSIC with this software and realize that this is really a no-go!

[pdxindy]

I wrote about this problem to the Bitwig support long ago and they said that sustaining notes past the end of a clip was "wrong" and would cause problems because of missing note-offs... To be honest, I think that's a bit ignorant. Of course, Bitwig should not forget sustained notes, but that really shouldn't be a technical challenge! Logic and Cubase have never had any issues with sustained notes outside the clip boundaries. This is how it already worked in Logic 5 almost 15 years ago

Logic and Cubase do not have a clip launcher. The clip launcher in Bitwig or session view in Live is why they both do not have overlapping clips.

[slackhead]

Not sure what the clip launcher has to do with it ... any sequencer should be able to keep track of when a MIDI note off is required to be sent. It doesn't matter if it's being played as part of a looped / cycled part or in a clip launcher - it knows the time that a note off has to be sent. Sure, having tempo changes can complicate things, but that's not what we're talking about.

It's interesting how different DAW's / sequencers cope with these sustained notes. Of those I have been able to check:-
Logic play's them in looped clips fine, but cuts the sustained notes on cycling.
Reaper, Samplitude nor Bitwig handles them at all (no notes allowed to sustain beyond end of a clip).
Studio One has no problems with them (AFAICT) even when cycling.

Still need to check Ableton (I have seen one report that it can cope with out issue).

[Atari] Cubase v1, back in 1990, had no problems doing this including cycling. Not sure how current Cubase does.

So, it should be do-able. But I guess depends on how the DAW's MIDI engine keeps track of Note Offs - they obviously need to be very careful to avoid stuck notes.


Anyway TR's workaround is fine for me for the time being - but it would be great if this could be 'fixed'

[Dehenry]

Logic and Cubase do not have a clip launcher. The clip launcher in Bitwig or session view in Live is why they both do not have overlapping clips.

That's what the Bitwig support told me as well, but again I agree with slackhead: I don't see why the form in which a note is represented in a DAW should matter. And certainly the extra clip launcher feature should not cause a basic musical function of a DAW to be crippled. A DAW has to keep track of each note's end regardless of whether it came from a clip, clip launcher or whatever. I am by no means a software engineer, but I think that it could work like this: When a note is read by the DAW, its duration is converted into the absolute time (in terms of the sequencer position) of the note-off and stored in a pipeline. At each tick of the internal resolution of the DAW, the pipeline is read to send the note-offs. Alternatively, the note-off could generally be stored as an absolute time and the DAW reads note-ons and note-offs all the same - it should work either way. I guess that's how a sequencer works anyway, so cutting off notes seems artificial and in any case not "musical".

@ slackhead: Studio One plays sustained notes correctly, but they are not displayed correctly in the MIDI editor, i.e. the bar representing the note is cut off at the end of the clip, which is quite confusing. It is interesting that (I think) as of v. 1.3.9 Bitwig marks sustained notes by a wiggly right end, so it "knows" the note is longer, but it just does not play it like that.

Can you explain how that workaround works? Sorry if I'm a bit slow...

[fuxoft]

I must say that I, personally, have a problem with notes sustaining past the end of the clip. If I put two clips immediately next to each other, I don't want to take into account that there is a possibility that some notes can overlap from the first clip to the second because there is a long note (accidentally or not).

If I have clip boundary that intersects a note then I did something wrong in the first place and I am glad that BWS at least cuts the overlapping parts of notes off instead of not playing the offfending notes at all or refusing to put clip boundary there... I am pretty sure that doing this (cutting the long notes) was HARDER to implement than leaving it the way you want it.

[Coockie1176ln]

I must say that I, personally, have a problem with notes sustaining past the end of the clip. If I put two clips immediately next to each other, I don't want to take into account that there is a possibility that some notes can overlap from the first clip to the second because there is a long note (accidentally or not).

If I have clip boundary that intersects a note then I did something wrong in the first place and I am glad that BWS at least cuts the overlapping parts of notes off instead of not playing the offfending notes at all or refusing to put clip boundary there... I am pretty sure that doing this (cutting the long notes) was HARDER to implement than leaving it the way you want it.

+1. A clip shouldnt play a note where the clip isnt. there arent many daw that has looping like bitwig. and only another who have a cliplauncher. Is it overlaping clips you guys are after? i think bitwig should have an option to allow us to have overlapping clips or not. that way can allways change if needed.

[Dehenry]

How could it be "wrong" or even "offending" if a DAW records and plays sustained notes if that's how they were originally played? If you don't want notes to be longer than the clip, then just don't record them like that, or if you accidentally played the notes longer than intended, correct them in the MIDI editor. You can also quantize the note length to make sure that the note off comes right at the end of the clip. So your concerns can all be addressed easily and without any workarounds. But the little sequence I used in my examples cannot be played correctly by Bitwig (at least not without a workaround as it seems).

And what you have to take into account anyway is that your instrument can have a release time that makes the note sound last longer than the clip. But that's just what making music is about! How can it be "correct" that the DAW tells me when a note has to stop if I as the musician want it to be sustained?

[Coockie1176ln]

How could it be "wrong" or even "offending" if a DAW records and plays sustained notes if that's how they were originally played? If you don't want notes to be longer than the clip, then just don't record them like that, or if you accidentally played the notes longer than intended, correct them in the MIDI editor. You can also quantize the note length to make sure that the note off comes right at the end of the clip. So your concerns can all be addressed easily and without any workarounds. But the little sequence I used in my examples cannot be played correctly by Bitwig (at least not without a workaround as it seems).

And what you have to take into account anyway is that your instrument can have a release time that makes the note sound last longer than the clip. But that's just what making music is about! How can it be "correct" that the DAW tells me when a note has to stop if I as the musician want it to be sustained?

a clip starts recording when you press record and will start att bar 1 if not uses punch in. the clip length will be set to same as long as you record if not using punch out. So really the clip adjusts pretty nice at end and include everything. If you want to cut down midi to loop specific sections is that the problem for you? still want to include whats start of clip to get an even 4 bar loop etc and not a 4.5 that isnt timed. I guess that is the issue. but if bitwig had overlapping clips that would actually be fixed. then we could put a clip on top of another, have that 0.5 first bar overlapping end of another. I think looping work as it should imo. But copying clip allowing them to overlapp whould be a nice feature for fixing this and that is how most daws does it. most daws where you cut a clip wont play the rest inside the clip either.

[Dehenry]

If you want to cut down midi to loop specific sections is that the problem for you? still want to include whats start of clip to get an even 4 bar loop etc and not a 4.5 that isnt timed. I guess that is the issue. but if bitwig had overlapping clips that would actually be fixed. then we could put a clip on top of another, have that 0.5 first bar overlapping end of another. I think looping work as it should imo. But copying clip allowing them to overlapp whould be a nice feature for fixing this and that is how most daws does it. most daws where you cut a clip wont play the rest inside the clip either.

Yes and no. Yes, I want the clip to have an even length so that when it is looped it remains in sync with the rest. But overlappling sequences would not address the problem because a 4.5 bar clip could not be looped in sync. So instead of looping one would have to duplicate the clip x times and probably have to manually move each copy so that the 0.5 portion overlaps with the next clip. That would work, but to me that would still be an awkward and burdensome workaround if I just want the same short sequence to be repeated throughout the song. And as long as Bitwig does not offer dependent or "ghost" copies that reflect changes made to the source clip, duplicating is not really an alternative to looping.

This is how it's done in Logic: Set, say, a 1 bar cycle and record the clip with the sustained note in one go (because Logic records and sends the note-off correctly even if it comes after the cycle jump), click once on "loop" in the clip properties (no need to drag corners to loop) and that's it! I think this is by far the simplest and most intuitive approach and it's really a mystery to me why this is not standard in all DAWs.

[pdxindy]

Anyway TR's workaround is fine for me for the time being - but it would be great if this could be 'fixed'

Aint gonna happen... would mess up the clip launcher.

Clips can be launched anytime in the clip launcher and in any order and timing. So suppose I have 3 different clips with long notes extending past the clip end. Using Push launch clip1, then switch to clip2... note(s) from clip1 will still be playing... now switch to clip3... notes from clip1 and clip2 will still be playing. What a clusterf*ck! Worst idea ever!

If you value the clip launcher, accept it is how it is... if you want notes to sustain, then use other software.

[pdxindy]

How could it be "wrong" or even "offending" if a DAW records and plays sustained notes if that's how they were originally played?

Originally as it was played included a clip the length of the notes. It is your edit after the fact that changes it. If you don't want it to play differently, then don't edit it.

[pdxindy]

This is how it's done in Logic: Set, say, a 1 bar cycle and record the clip with the sustained note in one go (because Logic records and sends the note-off correctly even if it comes after the cycle jump), click once on "loop" in the clip properties (no need to drag corners to loop) and that's it! I think this is by far the simplest and most intuitive approach and it's really a mystery to me why this is not standard in all DAWs.

If you want notes to sustain like that, use Logic. ... Bitwig will never do this. It would be a disaster because of the non-linear nature of the clip launcher.