piano sound stops immediately

[namicus]

I'm very new to midi and music making, so please bear with me as I try to explain my problem. I just installed cantabile and wired in my yamaha p-100. I want to be able to record my wife playing piano (using midi). Everything seems to be working fine using the 4Front piano vsti except that when she takes her finger off any piano key, the sound immediately stops. Does anyone know how to get the notes to hold?

Thanks!

[bradr]

Hi namicus,

Firstly, please note that Cantabile is currently in beta and possibly unstable. Particularly in the last few builds I've made some not-insignificant changes which may be causing trouble.

That said, here's some questions to help diagnose this:

* When you say the notes stop sounding immediately, do you mean just the note you're releasing gets cut off, or all sounds stops (including other held notes).
* If you play another note, does it sound or is the app dead. If so what do you have to do to get it to sound again (restart Cantabile, does stopping restarting Cantabile's audio engine help, does reloading the plugin work etc...)
* Does Cantabile's on-screen keyboard work correctly?
* Have you tried any other VSTs and do they work correctly?

Brad

[namicus]

Thank you for the quick reply.

I believe the software is working properly. My son was mashing at the computer keyboard making sounds and the problem just occurred. when you push the piano key (or the on-screen piano key), the sound holds for as long as you hold the key. But as soon as you release the key, the sound stops. That means if you click the on-board key and release right away, the sound stops as soon as you release. Earlier today before I had this problem, I could push either the piano or virtual key and release and the note would hold for a bit (like a real piano).

To answer your other questions:

* when I play another note, it sounds
* on screen keys work, but don't hold the note like it did earlier today.
* haven't tried any other vsts as I don't have any others.

[namicus]

I just uninstalled the program and deleted all cantabile entries in my registry. Then I installed the program again. Now it's even worse. The midi circles in the bottom right hand corner are flashing between red and green without me touching anything. Pushing a key now makes a bit of a sound that gets cut off whether I'm holding the key down or releasing right away.

[TiUser]

Hi

I am not quite sure what the main problem is, so let me offer some ideas.

When you release a piano key the sound is damped very fast. This is normal. I just tried 4front piano on my PC again (Performer beta 2014) and could not hear any obvious problem. However, if the sound is cut off abruptly on your PC I have no clue.

When you want piano sustain you need a sustain pedal. When you press it notes are sustained even when you release the keys.

If you suspect midi problems I recommend you to look for "MidiOX" on the net, download and install it. It has many tools that allow you to analyse and check your configuration. However it needs a minimal understanding of midi ports and midi on your PC.

As goodie on top, try "Luxonix LXF 1310" effect VST. It's free and produces most classic audio effects including simple reverb. Possibly it's reverb you miss with the sound... try "medium hall" or "large hall" to overcome the basic dry sound.

Good luck!

[bradr]

TiUser's comments are very valid especially in regard to the sustain pedal.

Perhaps the plugin got into a state where it thought the sustain pedal was down but it wasn't. You can simulate the sustain pedal with the on-screen keyboard by pressing the Shift key while the keyboard has focus or is captured.

The flashing red/green midi indicator is a little weird. The green indicates it's receiving some sort of passive MIDI event such as MIDI clock or MIDI active sense - this is quite normal for many MIDI keyboards/digital pianos. The red though shouldn't be lighting up unless you're actually playing notes or fiddling with controllers/pedal.

I'm wondering if you've got a suspect connection between youre pc and keyboard causing rubbish midi events - which would in turn explain a stuck sustain pedal. Perhaps a midi monitoring tool like MidiOX would be a good thing to try.

Alternatively you could enable Cantabile's debug log (see http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/support/debug.html for information on how to do this) but also in the diagnostics settings turn on "Log VST MIDI events", send me the log and I'll take a look. I'm very interested in this random activity indicator.

[namicus]

When you want piano sustain you need a sustain pedal. When you press it notes are sustained even when you release the keys

Unfortunately the issue isn't with the sustain pedal. The piano sound unnaturally cuts off when you release the key. Could it be something to do with velocity curves (of which I have very limited understanding)? Thanks for the suggestion to use MidiOX. I'll give it a try.

I installed the program and have no idea what to do with it. Any pointers would be appreciated.

also in the diagnostics settings turn on "Log VST MIDI events", send me the log and I'll take a look. I'm very interested in this random activity indicator

after I create the log, I'll email you the results from my namg account.

Thanks for your continued help, much appreciated.

[namicus]

Ok. I emailed it to techsupport

Hopefully that's right.

[namicus]

I figured out how to stop the circles from flashing red. It was caused when I hit the pitch wheel up. When I pushed it down the midi light stayed green and the red stopped flashing. Now if I could only get the piano sound to work properly, that would make my night!

[TiUser]

...Unfortunately the issue isn't with the sustain pedal. The piano sound unnaturally cuts off when you release the key. Could it be something to do with velocity curves (of which I have very limited understanding)? Thanks for the suggestion to use MidiOX. I'll give it a try.

I installed the program and have no idea what to do with it. Any pointers would be appreciated.
...

Ok, when the piano sound cuts off unnaturally there is something with the plugin or maybe cantabile, but I cant help because both works on my PC.

Do you use other plugins that maybe "gate" audio or external gear?

MidiOx is a Midi flow analysis tool, If you have no clue about midi ports and basic midi command flow it's of few use. To put it inbetween your keyboard OUT and cantabile IN you'll also need a "virtual midi cable" like MidiYoke or Marple... I guess trying to explain how to do this would possibly enhance your current problems...

Did you try other plugins except the piano? Do these cut off sustaining sound too?

[bradr]

I figured out how to stop the circles from flashing red. It was caused when I hit the pitch wheel up. When I pushed it down the midi light stayed green and the red stopped flashing. Now if I could only get the piano sound to work properly, that would make my night!

I've had a look at the log files and one thing stood out. There are lots of cases of note on and note off events in the one audio cycle. eg:

Code: Select all

sending 12 midi messages
   Event 1: Ch:00 Note On: 70 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 2: Ch:00 Note On: 68 @ 124, deltaframes=0
   Event 3: Ch:00 Note On: 68 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 4: Ch:00 Note On: 65 @ 93, deltaframes=0
   Event 5: Ch:00 Note On: 65 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 6: Ch:00 Note On: 64 @ 93, deltaframes=0
   Event 7: Ch:00 Note On: 64 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 8: Ch:00 Note On: 62 @ 94, deltaframes=0
   Event 9: Ch:00 Note On: 62 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 10: Ch:00 Note On: 60 @ 94, deltaframes=0
   Event 11: Ch:00 Note On: 60 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 12: Ch:00 Note On: 59 @ 94, deltaframes=0
sending 12 midi messages
   Event 1: Ch:00 Note On: 59 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 2: Ch:00 Note On: 57 @ 94, deltaframes=0
   Event 3: Ch:00 Note On: 57 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 4: Ch:00 Note On: 55 @ 94, deltaframes=0
   Event 5: Ch:00 Note On: 55 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 6: Ch:00 Note On: 53 @ 94, deltaframes=0
   Event 7: Ch:00 Note On: 53 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 8: Ch:00 Note On: 50 @ 89, deltaframes=0
   Event 9: Ch:00 Note On: 50 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 10: Ch:00 Note On: 49 @ 116, deltaframes=0
   Event 11: Ch:00 Note On: 49 @ 0, deltaframes=0
   Event 12: Ch:00 Note On: 48 @ 87, deltaframes=0

Each audio cycle starts with a "Sending XX midi messages" and the note on events with velocity 0 (@ 0) are actually note off events. So looking at the second and third events in the first block you'll see this is a note on immediately followed by a note off for the same note and in the same audio block. Since real-time events don't have an delta frames into the audio block, the plugin sees this as a note on/off at the same instant in time and may not be happy about it. There are alot of example like this in the log file.

Looking closer at the log I see you're using an audio driver with 2500 samples at 48Khz. Doing the math that's about 50 milliseconds per buffer (too big) which explains so many events landing in the same audio cycle.

You want to try and get that down to below 10ms in order to not notice latency between pressing a key and hearing the note. Check out the settings for the driver (Options -> Audio Engine -> with your driver selected -> Click control panel.)

I'd also highly recommend trying ASIO4ALL (www.asio4all.com) for a probably better driver and try to get the buffer sizes right down.

Another tiny, free piano VSTi you'd might like to try is mdaPiano - http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/download.asp?ID=72.

I hope this helps, let us know how it goes... I'm going to go think about this a little more.

Brad

[namicus]

You ROCK!! Success.

I thought I'd try the stable cantabile version again and it worked, leading me to believe there was an issue with cantabile 2. But after I tried the new piano vst you recommended - success! Maybe there is some kind of incompatibility happening using 4Front and cantabile beta. Regardless, thank you so much for getting me back on track. Your program is awesome, and your customer service flawless. Thanx!

[bradr]

You ROCK!! Success.

I thought I'd try the stable cantabile version again and it worked, leading me to believe there was an issue with cantabile 2. But after I tried the new piano vst you recommended - success! Maybe there is some kind of incompatibility happening using 4Front and cantabile beta. Regardless, thank you so much for getting me back on track. Your program is awesome, and your customer service flawless. Thanx!

Glad to hear you got something working. As promised though I thought about this some more and figured out a solution. In the next build (2016) there will be new audio engine option called constant latency real-time MIDI.

As I mentioned in a previous post, real-time MIDI events all get scheduled for the very start of the next audio buffer cycle (deltaFrames=0). The idea behind this is to reduce latency and play the note as soon as possible after the player hit the key.

The problem is that this changes the timing of events - anything played during the previous audio buffer all gets lumped on the first sample of the next buffer instead of being spread out through the buffer as they were played. This results in the note on/off events at the same instant problem described previously.

This new constant latency option, schedules the event for the same position in the next audio buffer as they were played in this audio buffer. eg: if a note is played half way through the currently sounding audio buffer, then it's scheduled for half way through the next buffer.

By default constant latency is turned off to avoid changing behaviour without explanation. So when the next build is out, try turning this on and I think you'll find 4Front sounds fine.

[bradr]

Build 2016 is out now and has this new "Constant Latency Real-time MIDI" option (in Options -> Audio Engine Settings). I'd appreciate you letting me know if this resolves the 4Front piano problems.