Some MIDI notes not being played back

[ph0zz]

Hi, I'm trying to record MIDI notes from an electronic drum kit to a Waveform track.
My equipment is simple: an Alesis DM5 kit connected via a USB-to-MIDI cable to my Windows 10 laptop, running Waveform 13.0.33.
I created a project named "test1", and in track 1 I set "USB2.0-MIDI" as the input. I then added a Micro Drum Sampler to the plugin chain so there would be something to play back the MIDI notes coming from the kit. Within the plugin dialog I chose the Micro 909 sample kit because it sounded like an acoustic set (even though it's missing a sound for a hi-hat pedal close, hmm). Then I recorded a brief clip where I repeatedly hit only the snare drum pad.
During recording everything sounded right and the 32 hits I played were audible from the computer speaker, and were recorded correctly (all are visible in the timeline). However when I play the clip back a random subset of the notes (always the same ones) are dropped. Only about 20 out of the 32 notes are actually heard. Is this a bug? I am attaching the project files if anyone wants to reproduce this. Thanks.

[pough]

This one comes up every once in a while. When recording a MIDI drum kit some notes have a length of zero.

0. Open the controls panel at the bottom into "Useful" mode
1. Open a clip in the MIDI editor
2. Drag around a note to select it (as it is difficult or impossible to click on a zero-length note)
3. Change the note length

Why does it do this? I don't know. Is there any way to make it record notes with a non-stupid length? I don't know

[Watchful]

Using the MIDI editor's select tool, you can select all notes on a given key, and then select all notes of an identical length to make this go quicker. Once all notes of 0 length are highlighted, you can change their length values in one step.

[pough]

Once all notes of 0 length are highlighted, you can change their length values in one step.

How is that done? Once I select more than one note, the note length editor disappears.

[ph0zz]

Ugh, how can this possibly not be considered a showstopper bug?
One thing I've noticed is that some notes are played despite being of zero length - but their Start Time and End Time differ by one unit (see the fourth note in my recording). The notes that are not played have the same start and end times.
I'm new to the world of DAWs, is this phenomenon common to all of them or is this a Waveform specific issue?
Is there anyone from Tracktion on this forum who can respond? Thanks.

[pough]

Ugh, how can this possibly not be considered a showstopper bug?

The number of people who record their MIDI drum kit is way, way smaller than the number of people who use Waveform. It doesn't stop many shows. I've only seen this issue reported about once or twice per year. Also, why are you assuming this is a bug in Waveform? See below.

I'm new to the world of DAWs, is this phenomenon common to all of them or is this a Waveform specific issue?

https://www.google.com/search?q=midi+dr ... ero+length

[ph0zz]

You're right, I was a little rash in my previous post. I now realize that this is a common issue, apparently affecting mostly users of low-budget equipment.
It would be nice if (wish A) there would be an option to automatically increase recorded zero-length notes to a minimum length. This should not be enabled by default, but (wish B) in case zero-length notes are detected in a new MIDI recording, Waveform would alert the user and suggest that they turn on this setting.
Until a fairy grants my wish, could anyone think of a plugin or script that could perform this action? Doing this manually after each recording would be a nasty chore. Thanks.

[Maarid]

I will support you, I recorded notes with a midi file mid exporting from other daws and often received some notes of minimal length when importing to Waveform. Although, for example, they play correctly in a music player. I have been manually rewriting music notes for a long time without using export. Therefore, I no longer face a similar problem. And I met this particular problem right here. On the other hand, if I download any old midi files from the Internet, this error did not come across. I think, based on this, that this is a Waveform problem, but not really a mistake, most likely we are dealing with more difficulty in verifying midi information, from which outdated simplification leads to small disadvantages.
The most obvious example that proves my point is that shortened notes become, if they start a little earlier than the tempo grid, they shorten to the edge of the grid.
Perhaps it makes sense to look at the midi hardware version? And tell us.

[Watchful]

Once all notes of 0 length are highlighted, you can change their length values in one step.

How is that done? Once I select more than one note, the note length editor disappears.

From the Actions menu. Or I guess Properties could do it, too. You can enter in a non-zero length for their values.

[Markperrymiller]

I run into this issue all the time with my Nitro Mesh kit. I think the blame is actually on the kit side rather than with Waveform. My solution is to just 1) select a single note. This enables a new menu that allows me to then select 2) "Select: Select all notes in the clip". After that I go to "Quantize: Quantize note lengths" and change the length of all notes to closest 1/8 beat. Takes just a couple of seconds and works every time. Try it!

[Watchful]

And that's a third way to do it--thanks! I do that one myself quite often, but forgot to mention it.

I also think you're correct that this is usually hardware generated--Waveform is quite strict in how it handles and deals with MIDI (and just about everything else). All the "zero length" note issues I've ever had have always been generated by hardware going too quickly for MIDI's slow data rate.

[pough]

From the Actions menu. Or I guess Properties could do it, too. You can enter in a non-zero length for their values.

Where? If I select more than one note the editor for note length disappears. I can't find a place to enter a note length value.

[Watchful]

Ummm...this sounds like new behavior. It sure used to do it. Try using Markperrymiller's suggestion about quantizing the note length. I just did this the other day in v13 and it worked.

[Peter Widdicombe]

Isn't there an option in the drum sampler, to allow the envelope to continue, even with 0-length MIDI events? I don't have one of these, but yep, this has come up before.

[pough]

Ummm...this sounds like new behavior. It sure used to do it.

I wish that it would. It makes a lot more sense to me to be able to change the note length for multiple notes than to change the start and end times for multiple notes.

I checked WF9 and the behaviour was the same - no note length editing for multiple notes.