MIDI record query....

[Jon_Atkinson]

Hi all,
Just been doing some work with a friend on his Logic setup....
What a nightmare in terms of stability, but there we go, that's for another thread...!! That being said, there were a couple of things which I can see have a better workflow than I've been doing in PT. I am wondering if there's a way of achieving the same ease of use as there is in Logic?

In Logic, when you go to record a section of MIDI, lets say you want to put a bit of a pad sound down over the chorus, you go into record and have a count off.
You record for your eight bars, or whatever, and Logic creates a MIDI region which is eight bars long, and starts exactly on the bar line at the beginning of the chorus.
If you happen to come in a fraction early on the downbeat this doesn't matter, it seems to still drop into record, and simply start the MIDI notes exactly on beat one.
This makes it really easy to move sections around to quickly create an arrangement, because everything is automatically cut into sections beginning on the downbeat of the bar.

However in PT (at least this is how I have it set up), even in GRID mode, if you come in a fraction early on the downbeat, it creates a MIDI region which starts early to accommodate the placing of the original note.

This kind of makes sense, in that you are getting a far truer representation of the actual MIDI performance... All well and good.
Except that if I'm trying to quickly piece together an arrangement for a demo, Logic's way of working seems much quicker.....
Even if the MIDI region is too long, and starts a little early, in Logic the scissors tool can cut the region on the barline and splits the MIDI notes contained within it.
However, chopping the MIDI region in PT doesn't behave like this... The MIDI region itself bears no relation to the length of notes within it (they can be hanging off the end of the region) and the only thing that matters is the MIDI note start-point.....

Am I missing something here, or is this just something I have to get used to?
Do I really have to quantize the first notes in the region to be able to trim it to the barline?


I'm not really wanting to start a PT vs Logic war here at all, I'm just wondering if any of the heavy MIDI users in PT have a better workflow than I currently do for this?

Thanks

Jon

[filosofem]

Jon try Quantize (Event>Event Operations) 'Note On' and maybe 'Note Off' depending on the Grid setting. Sometimes I'll quantize with Note On and Preserve Note Duration checked then change the Grid value disabling Preserve Note Duration and quantize Note Off to a finer Grid setting.

filosofem

[Jon_Atkinson]

Thanks for that...
The quantize bit is less of an issue I think (unless I misunderstood your reply...!)

I suppose I'm just trying to make my workflow a little quicker....
This is specifically for the time when I'm trying to get a demo arrangement together quickly....

With audio this is not an issue... In keyboard focus you can make a selection in grid mode (with the grid set to 1 bar) and press 'A' and you get a file trimmed perfectly to the downbeat of the bar.

If you do the same with a MIDI region you lose ALL the information where the note on message was before the downbeat (even if the note sustains for a while), rather than it slicing the MIDI data and creating new note-on messages at the slice point.

Is there really no quick workaround for this?.... The whole rigmarole of having to quantize BEFORE slicing regions seems to add a whole extra level of editing which is a little unnecessary...

J

[Rubicon]

The solution for me is to use "Wait for note" when recording midi. I save a lot of time not waiting through the count in and all my data starts from the first note I hit at the beginning of the bar/region. When I saw that logic does not have wait for note, I knew I would never be happy sequencing in that app. I think the old opcode vision thing had really thought all this through many many years ago. I really wish more of those things would have been adopted by now.

Rubicon

[filosofem]

Real-Time MIDI recording 'Input Quantize' checking Note On and Note Off to a click track with vigorous grid values is the alternative. Cropping MIDI Regions with either Note Starts or Note Ends that exceed the region boundary is a PITA IMO and there is just to many actions for correction.

filosofem

[doopadee]

What helps me is to play in time.

[Jon_Atkinson]

I'm not really talking about quantization here....

I know that method works, but it's INCREDIBLY klunky....

Let me give a better example:

I record a full arrangement... All MIDI information, and several tracks of it...
I have a section in the middle which is 16 bars long, but I decide that I want to repeat just the second eight bars of this 16 bar section.

In Logic I could simply use the scissors tool and make a slice on the downbeat of bar 9 across all 16 tracks, rubber band across the whole arrangement capturing the eight bars that I want, by holding down alt, and copy the section to elsewhere in the arrangement.

If I do this in Protools, that works absolutely fine with audio, but not with MIDI....
Each individual MIDI region has to be individually checked at the slice point to ensure that I haven't missed off the note on message....

Is there really no way of doing this to quickly comp together an arrangement?

[mrbobb]

Let me pipe in and say I completely understand what he is going through and what a pain it can be.

The problem with quantizing (and I think this is Jon's issue too) is I don't want the whole thing absolutely to the grid, a little feel is nice, especially in a piano part, strings, whatever. As it is now, if any little part hangs over the top of a midi region, a copy and past won't include any of those notes, even if they hold for 700 bars. It sound like the "smart" thing would be to do what logic does. Move those "note ons" to the start of the bar when I duplicate or copy and paste, instead of just dropping them.

A solution to this would save me TONS of time.

[Jon_Atkinson]

Ok.... So I might have found a workaround....

The 'E' command in keyboard focus DOES cut MIDI notes at the selection IF you're in the MIDI editor in PT8.

So... If you instantiate a MIDI editor at the bottom of the page (rather than the floating window), if you select the ALL group and are in GRID mode, a selection across (say) an 8 bar section, then pressing 'E' will in fact cut the MIDI notes in the same way as Logic....
You can then discard the unneeded top and tail of the MIDI regions without losing any notes hanging over the bar line....

This kind of covers what I was looking for....

[Fraternize]

As the title says, really sorry if this has nothing to do with the thread, never used a thread or asked anything like this before so here it goes...

I'm quite frustrated at the moment, I'm using ProTools LE 8.0 Software and my synth is a good ol' Microkorg. I know about MIDI routing, since I have an M-box it's fairly simple, though I have come across one big problem.

I've been using my synth (Microkorg) as a MIDI controller ever since I recieved ProTools, but the thing is, I really want to use the sounds my Microkorg has and use them in ProTools, to obviously record with the amazing sounds and patches made on the Microkorg itself. I've been looking for weeks trying to find a solution to the problem, It's probably really quite simple but being new to MIDI It's difficult.

Can someone please reply to this question and help me out? It would me much appreciated!