Basic Pro Tools midi question

[jakedavis]

When I delete part of a midi clip. Some midi notes that started before the clip will still extend out past the clip.

There must be some way to turn this off right? How can I get it so that when there isn't a clip on the board, midi cuts out completely.

[Phil Ogden]

Just trim the notes in notes mode.

[jakedavis]

Originally Posted by Phil Ogden

Just trim the notes in notes mode.

Ridiculous, I'm not gonna trim the notes everyone I want to make one cut. There has to be a way. Every other midi program ever does this correctly.

[Hanswurstlsepp]

Originally Posted by jakedavis

Ridiculous, I'm not gonna trim the notes everyone I want to make one cut. There has to be a way. Every other midi program ever does this correctly.

i.e. Logic does this correct - PT not. At least I haven't found a method to avoid this since I switched over from Logic to PT.

You have to trim notes back manually in MidiEditor.

[Stig Eliassen]

Originally Posted by Hanswurstlsepp

i.e. Logic does this correct - PT not. At least I haven't found a method to avoid this since I switched over from Logic to PT.

You have to trim notes back manually in MidiEditor.

In the MIDI Editor, you can click in the Bars|Beats ruler to snap location/cursor to the grid, and then use A and S (Keyboard Commands Focus) to trim all notes simultaneously. You can do this in the edit window too in Notes view, just add Option when you click in the MIDI track to snap to the grid.

At least that's something...

[jakedavis]

Originally Posted by Hanswurstlsepp

i.e. Logic does this correct - PT not. At least I haven't found a method to avoid this since I switched over from Logic to PT.

You have to trim notes back manually in MidiEditor.

Do you know how I can get logic to run in pro tools with ReWire just for MIDI? Or some other plug in that can run midi better. Because this is a bit of a joke that Pro Tools has had 10 versions but hasn't figured out something this basic...

[Philthy]

Originally Posted by jakedavis

Do you know how I can get logic to run in pro tools with ReWire just for MIDI? Or some other plug in that can run midi better. Because this is a bit of a joke that Pro Tools has had 10 versions but hasn't figured out something this basic...

Trust me, if the guys at Avid wanted MIDI notes to behave as you described, they could "figure it out." But the behavior you describe is low rent behavior for serious MIDI users.

MIDI notes are not solid things, even though it looks like it. A MIDI note has an on signal at the start and an off signal at the end. When you want to delete a MIDI note with a timerange selection tool, you need to select the on signal of the note. That's the actual "basic" fact about MIDI notes.

If you want to delete notes that start in an earlier measure, just use the hand tool (its an object selector and not a timerange selector) to draw a box instead of using the timerange selector. The hand tool chooses the entirety of selected notes since it treats them as objects. You are trying to use a timerange selector to select something that is OUTSIDE THE TIME RANGE. To me, that seems pretty basic, like something a beginning user should know.

It helps to understand a little bit about the underlying technologies to what you're doing. Programs that alter the basic established behaviors of MIDI data or user interaction are doing your thinking for you, which is always bad in the long run. Because when you actually start to gain mastery, you realize those fuzzy "user friendly" actions are actually just that, fuzzy, and impediments to true power users. It's always better for you to know what you're doing yourself than have software trying to compensate for your missing knowledge.

[jakedavis]

Originally Posted by Philthy

Trust me, if the guys at Avid wanted MIDI notes to behave as you described, they could "figure it out." But the behavior you describe is low rent behavior for serious MIDI users.

MIDI notes are not solid things, even though it looks like it. A MIDI note has an on signal at the start and an off signal at the end. When you want to delete a MIDI note with a timerange selection tool, you need to select the on signal of the note. That's the actual "basic" fact about MIDI notes.

If you want to delete notes that start in an earlier measure, just use the hand tool (its an object selector and not a timerange selector) to draw a box instead of using the timerange selector. The hand tool chooses the entirety of selected notes since it treats them as objects. You are trying to use a timerange selector to select something that is OUTSIDE THE TIME RANGE. To me, that seems pretty basic, like something a beginning user should know.

It helps to understand a little bit about the underlying technologies to what you're doing. Programs that alter the basic established behaviors of MIDI data or user interaction are doing your thinking for you, which is always bad in the long run. Because when you actually start to gain mastery, you realize those fuzzy "user friendly" actions are actually just that, fuzzy, and impediments to true power users. It's always better for you to know what you're doing yourself than have software trying to compensate for your missing knowledge.

I understand midi plenty, I've used software and hardware sequencers for it I'm not an idiot. The feature I'm talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the start time of notes, it has to do with creating a new end note point to coincide with the fact that pro tools 10 uses clips to represent midi when viewing in clip mode. Under that visual basis, shortening a clip should create new end points for any note that is still in duration during the cut. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of why clips exist in the first place. Could you imagine how pointless the clip system would be if audio continued after a clip? And you had to switch to waveform view and then go in and actually shorten the waveform after you've already shortened the clip with the time range selector. It would be tedious and make no sense.

Just like the current clip (or region) midi system doesn't make any sense. The "user friendly" feature ur talking about is exactly that, it's time friendly, and it makes sense for a lot of users who are doing editing (hint: see every other midi sequencer ever made and why much of the industry is starting to have logic instead of pro tools in professional studios).

It is not "doing thinking for you," it is simply behaving within the parameters you have set for it based on the mode you are dealing with the midi data. Had Pro Tools programmed this properly, you would still be able to just as easily set your preference for notes view and do the same type of editing that you're accustomed to. By not having both, they are simply limiting themselves as a program that does such a good job at presenting all possible editing styles and formats in every other aspect. For an industry (especially for popular music) that is moving so strongly to using midi for a large majority of background instrumentation these days it's shocking to me that they have not kept up their midi editor to be as versatile as their audio. It has nothing to do with changing the nature of midi itself, it's a simple programming choice that allows options, increasing versatility, but not limiting in anyway. And it's the reason why Cubase, Logic, (insert all other major DAWs here) have this option.

To think that it's a necessity to limit yourself to only one option seems massively foolish, and completely goes against the nature of Pro Tools

[jakedavis]

Seems to me if the folks at Avid only wanted Pro Tools to appeal to "serious users" they wouldn't have regular and HD versions.

[Stig Eliassen]

I agree with you, jakedavis.

Personally, I think it's strange that this hasn't been implemented into PT a long time ago, but I'm far from using other DAWs for MIDI because of it. I use Clips view for arranging, and Notes view for editing, and by using keyboard shortcuts I can do this really fast.