Quantizing midi notes in Waveform

[twilli003]

I'm new to Waveform, so perhaps I could be mistaken, but one standard midi function available in other DAWs that appears to be missing from Waveform is the ability to control the quantization amount.
As far as I can tell, the quantization amount in Waveform is always 100%.

The following tip appears in the Waveform manual:
"Tip: Some styles of music are based on perfectly quantized timing while other styles aren’t.
To get a more natural feel but also fix timing errors, you can always edit timing note-by-note manually with Snap turned off."

Editing the timing note-by-note as suggested in the manual would be very laborious indeed.
Why does Waveform not provide an option to set the quantization amount?

[Stuttaton]

You can quantize in a number of ways as a playback parameter, if I reacall correctly.

[twilli003]

You can quantize in a number of ways as a playback parameter, if I reacall correctly.

Don't know what you mean. Maybe you are referring to the option to quantize to the nearest 1 beat, 1/2 beat, 1/3 beat, etc.
However, if the quantize note start time is set to the nearest 1 beat for example, then the notes will be moved exactly (100%) to the start of the nearest beat.
There is no quantize option in Waveform to set the note start time, say for example, 80% closer to the nearest beat, as opposed to exactly on the nearest beat

[Stuttaton]

Have you checked the options in Groove quantize?

[twilli003]

Have you checked the options in Groove quantize?

Yes, I am aware of the groove quantize option.
What I'm referring to is being able to set a quantize amount (without having to apply a specific groove).

[Peter Widdicombe]

Hmmm... how to you include an image without hosting it somewhere...?

Anyway, the quantize percentage is right under the quantize beat information on the track properties...

[rlindsey0]

I'm a little mystified too, because AFAIK that option has been there for years. Now, I don't think you can chage quantization on the way in, so to speak, but you can sure do it after you've recorded MIDI.

Try it. Record a scratch MIDI track, doesn't matter what. Then select the MIDI clip by click the bar at its top. Look down in the central panel at the bottom of the screen. You'll see the Quantise option, and then right under it you'll see the percentage you can choose. It's right there where you'd expect it to be. I don't do MIDI much, so I can't recall if you have to go in to the clip and select notes. But I know you can change the degree of quantization of clips you've recorded.

There's also something in the Groove menu that you can try. In between all the Swing and PushPull and stuff like that, there are two choices for varying degrees of randomness: Slightly random and More random. It's easy to miss them if you don't look carefully, but you might find them useful as an alternative way of loosening the tightness of quantization.

[jabe]

Hmmm... how to you include an image without hosting it somewhere...?

Anyway, the quantize percentage is right under the quantize beat information on the track properties...

Here, Pierre: http://tinypic.com/

[twilli003]

I was attempting to quantize at the midi note level by selecting one or more notes and selecting from the Quantise menu in either the midi editor or the Properties section for the selected notes.
Unfortunately it appears that for quantizing at the note level there is no option in Waveform for setting a quantize amount.

I do see however that there is a (quantize) Amount property at the clip level, as Peter and rlindsey0 pointed out.
The way this works does appear to be somewhat odd in that there appears to be no way to permanently apply the clip level quantization to the notes themselves.
Any subsequent change to the Quantise or Amount properties at the clip level applies to the initial unquantized note start positions.

Another oddity when quantization is set at the clip level is the way the vertical grid lines in the midi editor are displayed.
For example with Quantise set to 1/4 beat, the number of grid lines per beat appear to be limited to 2 regardless of how high the zoomed-in level is set.
Actually, on very close inspection it appears there may actually be 4 grid lines per beat, but some of the lines are extremely faint so for practical purposes it looks like 2.

[dRowAudio]

This is correct, applying quantize to selected notes is a destructive operation, currently with no way to set the amount.
Selecting the clip will provide a non-destructive quantize which is applied to the positions of the notes and the strength can be adjusted with the "Amount" control below the quantize option.

With the clip level quantize on, the grid will have a minimum resolution of the quantize amount i.e. if you set the quantize to 1 beat, the most you'll see is beat lines, no sub beat lines. This is to indicated that adding/dragging notes etc. will always be aligned to that grid.

[twilli003]

Thanks for clarifying.

Based on the way this works, quantizing at the clip level would be useless if for example there are straight and triplet notes in the same clip.

Is there any reason why no option is provided in Waveform for setting the quantization amount when quantizing at the note level?
I do think the suggestion in the Waveform manual I alluded to in the initial post about alternatively editing the timing note-by-note manually is not very practical.

[dRowAudio]

If you have triplets can't you quantise to 1/12, 1/9, 1/6 etc? Depending on where your straight notes are they will get quantised to the nearest triplet or whole?

I imagine the reason is that it complicates the note quantize. If we added an "amount" to this it wouldn't be a single menu function anymore. We'd need either to show a dialog with a slider to adjust the amount before you applied it (which would be a massive time hinderance), or we'd need a separate menu item which is "quantisation amount" which would then get applied to all note quantise operations.

I think in the end it boils down to the most common use cases. Anecdotally, the note quantise is used to snap some notes to the grid quickly, the clip level is used to adjust a whole performance, bringing it back in time.

It's a valid request but unfortunately not one we can add right now.

[twilli003]

If you have triplets can't you quantise to 1/12, 1/9, 1/6 etc? Depending on where your straight notes are they will get quantised to the nearest triplet or whole?

I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
It's true that if you quantize to a triplet value, the straight notes "will get quantised to the nearest triplet", but that's precisely the reason it won't work for the the situation I was referring to.

In other words, if you have both triplet notes and straight notes in the same clip, quantizing (at the clip level) to a straight note value will mess up the triplet notes and vice versa.

To take a more specific example, let's say there are some notes that need to be quantized to 16th note values and some notes (in the same clip) that need to be quantized to 8th note triplets (3 notes per 1/4 note).
A quantize setting of 1/4 beat will correctly quantize the 16th notes but mess up the timing of the 8th note triplets.
A quantize setting of 1/3 beat will correctly quantize the 8th note triplets but mess up the timing of the 16th notes.

[twilli003]

For what it's worth, it does appear that the vast majority of DAWS do provide the ability to control the quantization amount when quantizing notes (at the note level).

The ones I have tried and can confirm that they do support this are Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio, Reaper, Cubase, Reason, Sonar, Mixcraft, MuLab.

Until now it was a feature I took for granted.
Waveform appears to be very much in the minority as far as not supporting this feature.

[rlindsey0]

If you have triplets can't you quantise to 1/12, 1/9, 1/6 etc? Depending on where your straight notes are they will get quantised to the nearest triplet or whole?

I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
It's true that if you quantize to a triplet value, the straight notes "will get quantised to the nearest triplet", but that's precisely the reason it won't work for the the situation I was referring to.

In other words, if you have both triplet notes and straight notes in the same clip, quantizing (at the clip level) to a straight note value will mess up the triplet notes and vice versa.

To take a more specific example, let's say there are some notes that need to be quantized to 16th note values and some notes (in the same clip) that need to be quantized to 8th note triplets (3 notes per 1/4 note).
A quantize setting of 1/4 beat will correctly quantize the 16th notes but mess up the timing of the 8th note triplets.
A quantize setting of 1/3 beat will correctly quantize the 8th note triplets but mess up the timing of the 16th notes.

Then use a setting of 1/12. That will accommodate both, no?