Key switch on first note doesn't take

Dorico
21

When monitoring the MIDI stream VIA Plogue’s Bidule, the First Note on the score is always sent before the key-switch that I have set in the “natural” technique of the expressionmap.

In this test I’ve a very simple expression map with:
“natural” - Sends a MIDI Note 0 key-switch, and uses CC1 for dynamics.
“pizzicato” - Sends a MIDI Note 5 key-switch, and uses Velocity for dynamics.

I’ve also asked Dorico NOT to humanize notes in the Playback settings.

This is for a violin stave on channel 8. It uses a pizz. technique on the very first note of the stave.

Here’s what I get in the MIDI Monitor views:

Note that:
F0 (MIDI Note 5) is my key-switch for pizzicato.
C0 (MIDI Note 0) is my key-switch for arco.
A#4 is the first note on this stave (Violin, set to channel 8).

Monitor 1 Format:

143F2000 14B 97 3A 28 08 Note On (A#4)
143F2000 14B 97 05 7F 08 Note On (F0)
143FB200 1AE 87 3A 00 08 Note Off(A#4)

Monitor 1 Table:
BO: sample offset inside the buffer for the MIDI event
ST: status byte of the MIDI event
D1: first data byte of the MIDI event
D2: second data byte of the MIDI event
CH: channel of the MIDI event
Event: short string representation for the MIDI event

It would seem that the key switch and first note on are technically being sent on the same time stamp (143F2000), but apparently in Plogue engine stuff it can matter which one is first in the serial stream?

Monitor 2 Format (Same data but a bit easier to read):

Chn:  8 Note On ( 58 -  A#4):  40
Chn:  8 Note On (  5 -   F0): 127
Chn:  8 Note Off( 58 -  A#4):   0

In Bidule’s MIDI monitor I get this sequence every time.

I’ve also got this MIDI stream piped to an ARIA Instance in Bidule. Sometimes it plays pizzicato and sometimes not, but the sequence showing in my monitor ALWAYS shows the key-switch being sent AFTER the first note in the piece.

Next I’ll try a similar setup, but this time with Halion 6 using HSO tutti Strings (Since I can’t get Halion SE 2 to load inside Bidule). I’ve changed the key-switch type in HSO instruments so that it uses the same type as Garritan/ARIA libraries.
So, we’ve got:
“natural” - MIDI Note 30 = acro, dynamics type CC1
“pizzicato” - MIDI Note 25 = pizzicato, dynamics type CC1

Again, the event order is the same in my MIDI Monitor.
Format 1:

1E086800 193 B7 01 28 08 CC(1)
1E086800 193 97 3A 64 08 Note On (A#4)
1E086800 193 B7 01 28 08 CC(1)
1E086800 193 97 19 7F 08 Note On (C#2)
1E08FA00 1F6 87 3A 00 08 Note Off(A#4)

Format 2:

Chn:  8 CC(  1):  40
Chn:  8 Note On ( 58 -  A#4): 100
Chn:  8 CC(  1):  40
Chn:  8 Note On ( 25 -  C#2): 127
Chn:  8 Note Off( 58 -  A#4):   0

The key-switch (MIDI Note 25, or C#2) is always sent AFTER the first note (A#4) but on the same time stamp (1E086800).

The difference between using Halion 6/HSO and ARIA/GPO5 is, Halion/HSO plays back pizzicato properly every time while ARIA/GPO5 doesn’t.


I’d post screen shots to show this setup, but my image posting service seems to be down at the moment…will insert them here when it’s possible again.

22

Thanks for digging in to this. Does this happen only if the first note is right at the very start of the score? ie if you insert a rest and have the note on the 2nd beat does it start working again? If so, I suspect that the cause of this is that the usual logic to do the program changes/key switches a tick early isn’t having any effect because it’s already at time zero. We don’t currently have the ability to handle negative times – it’s on our list (grace notes at the start of the score can’t be played back for instance.

As noted above, you should be able to work around it by dragging the note in play mode so that it starts a tiny amount after the beat. Editing in play mode is not currently very discoverable, but it’s something we’re working on.

23

For me at least, yes.

ie if you insert a rest and have the note on the 2nd beat does it start working again?

yes.

negative time should do it!

24

Yes, it’s just on the first note of a stave thus far.

Moving the note-on event a bit off the beat using the piano scroll editor does fix things to the proper order in the event list. Plays as expected in ARIA this way :slight_smile:

A bit off topic, but does any one else find that the edit frame at the bottom of the Play Mode (It pops up when selecting a note in the editor) gets clipped? Resizing my windows doesn’t fix it, and so far I can’t find anything to drag the frame around so things fit.

25

Yes.

26

Ok, that’s good that we’ve established the circumstances of it, and we do now have a workaround for the moment. The negative timestamp requirement is on our list. I’ve been working today on making note editing in play mode more responsive too.