Hello all,
I have a strange behaviour while recording and playing back midi notes with Tracktion.
First let me list my setup :
Tracktion 10.3.6
Akaï MPK mini
Roli Block keyboard
The strange thing : on both of my midi keyboards when i play the C1 note it shows the C1 note on the keyboard shown on the input parameters. But when i record the C1 note it is shown as C2 on the piano roll. And when i play back the clip it seems that note sent to the plugin is not C2 but C1.
I must precise that i haven't used the octave shit capability of my midi keyboards nor any kind of midi transform plugin.
It's very confusing to me. Does anyone know how to expain this behaviour or how to workaround it ?
Have a good day !
Regards, Laurent
Midi octave shift on piano roll when recording
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- KVRAF
- 3335 posts since 18 May, 2003 from Sweden
Yeah, above all keep away from octave shit… 
If it were easy, anybody could do it!
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- KVRAF
- 2417 posts since 17 Jun, 2003
Under settings, MIDI devices, find the section that says "Middle-C: Use "C4" to represent middle-C" and change that to whatever suits your keyboard.
"my gosh it's a friggin hardware"
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- KVRian
- 524 posts since 16 Mar, 2017
To explain, the concept of "C1" vs. "C2" is not part of the MIDI standard, and is ill-defined, with different manufacturers choosing different octave numbers for the same note.
In the actual MIDI information, notes are numbered from 0 to 127 with middle C being defined as note 60, the C# above that then becoming note 61, D becoming 62, etc.
To make things easier for the musician most devices will display that as something like "C4" meaning note C in octave 4, but there is no real agreement on which octave number is which. Most companies define middle C to be in octave 4 (the default setting that the Tracktion DAWs use - as well as being the ISO standard and the one used by Korg, Kurzweil and Roland), while Yamaha calls it C3 (as do Cubase, Ableton Live and Studio One) and several DAWs call it C5 (such as FL Studio and Sonar).
If you have the DAW set to use C4 as middle C and are seeing C2 on the DAW when the keyboard is showing C1, then your keyboard is using C3 as middle C. The actual note number in the MIDI data is the same regardless, so it is just a difference in how it is being displayed by the keyboard vs. the DAW. If you had another keyboard and that one used C4 as middle C (which is the closest thing we have to an actual "standard") then your keyboards wouldn't agree with each other either.
In the actual MIDI information, notes are numbered from 0 to 127 with middle C being defined as note 60, the C# above that then becoming note 61, D becoming 62, etc.
To make things easier for the musician most devices will display that as something like "C4" meaning note C in octave 4, but there is no real agreement on which octave number is which. Most companies define middle C to be in octave 4 (the default setting that the Tracktion DAWs use - as well as being the ISO standard and the one used by Korg, Kurzweil and Roland), while Yamaha calls it C3 (as do Cubase, Ableton Live and Studio One) and several DAWs call it C5 (such as FL Studio and Sonar).
If you have the DAW set to use C4 as middle C and are seeing C2 on the DAW when the keyboard is showing C1, then your keyboard is using C3 as middle C. The actual note number in the MIDI data is the same regardless, so it is just a difference in how it is being displayed by the keyboard vs. the DAW. If you had another keyboard and that one used C4 as middle C (which is the closest thing we have to an actual "standard") then your keyboards wouldn't agree with each other either.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 2 posts since 12 Dec, 2019
Thanks all for your quick answers !
As suggested by two of you switching to "C3 to represent the middle-C" does the trick.
Now all is clear and i'm aware that there is no standard mapping between the C notes and the number carried by the midi protocol.
Thanks a lot !
As suggested by two of you switching to "C3 to represent the middle-C" does the trick.
Now all is clear and i'm aware that there is no standard mapping between the C notes and the number carried by the midi protocol.
Thanks a lot !