There's probably an easy answer for this.

I have a MIDI Piano track on the Melody track, named 'Piano 2'

I have RealDrums & RealTracks on the first 3 tracks

Audio Settings is MME

Use VSTi is checked and MIDI is routed to ForteDxi.

In the mixer, if I mute the Melody (Piano 2) track, it mutes. If I solo the track, it solos. But if I try to change the volume of the track, nothing happens. It just remains playing the song at the same volume.

Ideas?

Trev,

Have you had a look at the midi events for the melody track? Each note on a Supertrack (if that's what you're using) has its own individual velocity setting. I wonder if this is what's overriding the overall volume.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel, thanks for jumping in.

Well, yes I did check that there is velocity information with the MIDI events, but I believe that this is a normal part of a MIDI note-on event.
The three bytes for a Note-On event should consist of
Status Byte
- Upper nibble = 1001 for a Note-On event
- Channel in the lower nibble - in this case 8

1st data Byte:
Note number in the lower 7 bits

2nd Data Byte:
Velocity in the lower 7 bits

It's not using MIDI Super Track data, just a standard MIDI file for that track. Although there is velocity data, I would have expected that the volume control on that track would have affected the relative volume.

Rather confusing, actually.

Thanks
Trev

Thanks for the graphics Trev. That looks like a pretty standard piano midi track. (I've been playing around with midi piano a lot lately.)

Does the volume control within Forte work? Also, if the piano track is on a track other than Melody, does the volume control work there?

With pretty much all the songs I write, I notate a melody (on the Melody track) and use the Acoustic Piano sound. I just checked my latest song and slider is working as expected.

If I have other thoughts, I'll pass them on.

Hi Trev

Yes you are correct midi track volume is a continuous controller Cnt 7 and is independent of note velocity,

Note velocity is most often sent by the keyboards touch setting if on and is 0 to 127 depending how hard you press the note, in fact this is measured by how quickly the key descends the harder you hit em the faster they fall!
If a midi keyboard does not have touch or it is switched of then the velocity value will always be 127 for all notes,

But the track volume will depend on the last value sent by Cnt 7 to that track and hold at that until it receives a new value or series of values as in a fade.
Sometimes sequenced midi files fade by reducing velocity can be a bit confusing at times,

Just my thoughts
Mike

Trev if you want you could post that song and we could take a look at it on our systems.

You probably looked for this already but just in case is the track frozen?

Did/can you place a CC7 at the beginning of the track and see if that changes the volume? If it doesn't something is wrong with that track.

Afterthought, look for CC7s in the track. If there are any they would override the slider. If there are CC7s change them to CC11s and the slider then should work.

I hope this helps.

{edit} afterthough #2 - I just read Mike's response and if you are working with a DLed MIDI file look through every track for CH8 CC7 numbers. Some programmers hide track effects in other tracks so people will find it difficult to modify their work.

A check of the MIDI data showed that there were no CC 7 messages in the data (neither were there CC11)

There is certainly velocity data associated with each note, that's a normal part of the note on event.

Still looking.

Hi Mario

Thanks for your assistance and ideas.

Couldn't find any CC7 or CC11's in the data. Interestingly, the VU meters fade down and up with the volume slider, but the output level never changes. It's as though the volume slider has no affect on the actual output, it gets bypassed.

I've sent you a PM. Maybe you could have a look? Many thanks for everyone's assistance

Trev

Hi Trev

Just done some test
And can confirm that the midi slider in the mixer melody track works fine for me.

With a three realtrack style and a midi melody track.

It works sending the midi to the coyote internal dxi or to a midi driver then out to an external midi synth module or my clavinova

I made the melody midi track by first importing a midi super track I then changed the patch to gen midi, and then told it no real track this left the notes on the melody track to play any midi voice and the melody track displayed in yellow
Track volume slider fully effective.
So your problem is a mystery.
Mike

Trevor - Have you tried switching temporarily from the Coyote Forte to the Coyote WT to see if that one responds. Sometimes selecting a different synth, then going back can fix weird problems. Just a thought.

Interesting Mike. Here is a PM that I just sent Trev:

"Trev, here is what I have come up with:

In BiaB - there are only two tracks playing, the piano MIDI track and the horns. The horn's volume slider worked but the piano one doesn't. That is because the piano is a MIDI track and MIDI tracks are not controlled by the piano volume slider. Both tracks are controlled by the master volume slider.

Is this what you are seeing also?

In Sonar - I brought the mid file into Sonar and found there were no CC7, CC2 or CC11 controllers. Thus there is nothing controlling the volume of the piano MIDI track.

If you want to control both the horns and piano individually I would suggest that you convert the horn file into a mid file and work in your DAW. With automation that will give you total control over each track plus you can add drums, bass etc.

I hope this helps."

This happened on 2 different computers. I only heard the horns and no drums or RTs. That is probably because Trev didn't send them to me. But the piano slider did nothing.

Note by MIDI tracks I mean external MIDI tracks you get from DLs.

Note both computers are using coyote.

I think there are two tracks in the MIDI file (some notes are on Ch 8 and others on Ch 9). I have no idea why there are two channels. I did look for channel data suggesting lower and upper octaves, but this didn't follow a particular pattern. I understand that the MIDI data was recorded on a NORD piano2.

My understanding is that the MIDI file is only a piano recording, there are no other instruments involved.

If one heard horns, presumably this this is probably because one of those channels was set to horns on the MIDI device.

IIRC, BiaB treats MIDI data as MIDI Type 0 (everything on one track)

There are no patch changes in the MIDI data. If I set Ch 8 and 9 to a piano instrument in the sound device I get the full piano sound, no horns.

- If I use Coyote in RealBand I can adjust the volume with the slider.

- If I use Forte in RealBand I cannot adjust the volume with the slider.

- If I use Forte or Coyote or Ketron SD2 in BiaB I cannot adjust the volume. (The VU meter adjusts, but the output volume doesn't).

I don't think the problem is the MIDI file itself, but rather the way BiaB processes the MIDI data. It's just as though there is a bypass switch turned on.

Trev,

If I'm understanding Mario's and your recent comments correctly, the midi on the Melody track contains more than one channel of information. Have you tried rechannelling some of notes so that they are all on a single midi channel (and then only a single midi channel is loaded into the melody)? It might be easier to do this in Realband.

Just a thought...

Regards,
Noel

Thanks John, good idea, but sadly, no dice.

The MIDI file that I used is available from this link.

One might be able to Right-click and download the file from this page, navigating to the location as shown below (about 2/3rds of the way down).

That is exactly what is happening. If you choose tools/sequence you will see the channels in the mid file, see attached image. In this case only the drum and one piano track was affect by the track volume sliders. All were affected by the master volume slider. Don't know why as the tracks are listed in the mixer, thus they should have worked.

You gave a better explanation to what I was hinting at in my messages to Trev. In Sonar it is very easy to split a MIDI file into different tracks with each track having an individual instrument on its original channel . I have no idea if that can be done in RB.

Trev, it is not your system it is BiaB. I DLed The Pink Panther theme. It had 6 different channels but only on two, the drums and one piano, did the track volume sliders work: see my message to Noel. This is identical to how your mid worked on my systems. Apparently this is how BiaB works with imported mid files.

Maybe you should contact PGMusic about this and/or put it on the wish list forum.

PS - Now I am really glad that I don't use imported mid files in BiaB. I only use them in Sonar.

Ahhhaaa
Success!
In BiaB, I re-channeled Ch 9 to Ch 8 and set to single channel.
We have Fade again.
Thanks to everyone who chipped in, appreciated!

(PS: Although I really do think this should NOT have stopped the volume slider from doing anything at all)

Reading through this thread I just knew this was a downloaded midi file.

Put the file in RB and then hit F2 (I think) for each track and look for stuff like Sysex and embedded controllers. Some midi's even have a separate data track with no music info on it but lots of embedded stuff. Some have a CC setting the volume to zero (Why? No idea). I even have a few files that play some tracks and not others no matter what I try to do with them. They just don't work, period. Try deleting all that stuff using the Data Filter, do a save as and then reopen it in Biab and see what happens. If that still doesn't work then chalk it up to a bad midi file and move on.

If that file has a track that you just have to have then in RB copy the midi data alone but not any controllers and paste that one track into a new main project.

Yes, I know Biab can work with midi files, I never bother with that. RB is much better with midi's.

Hmmm, I just checked out the midi page and I see it's from Doug Mckenzie. I have pretty much all of his files and they're usually good. I'll check this out some more when I get home.

Bob

Thanks Bob for the input

All of that as you suggested was tried, including opening in RB, examining the MIDI data, looking for CC events etc.

As mentioned, there were no program changes, control changes etc in the file.

What was in the file were note data on two separate channels (8 & 9). This didn't represent two different instruments tracks, because it was just a solo piano recording. I'm not sure why there were 2 channels.

The file played fine. The file was actually created by a BiaB user, but I think this was recorded on a Nord Keyboard.

The problem turned out to be that BiaB (and RB) wouldn't change the volume using the slider. The notes were all changed to use the same channel, and the slider volume worked.

The VU meters faded down and up with the Track volume slider, but the output level never changed.

As mentioned: I really do think this should NOT have stopped the volume slider from doing anything at all. Why couldn't the volume slider for the track change the volume on channel 8 & 9? After all, they are just 2 channels on the same 'Track'.

Trev

Trev here is my opinion based on a similar situation on my DAW. There were two volume controls trying to control the gain of one track. It doesn't matter what channel or channels are involved it is still only one track. So the software sees the first channel's volume control then ignores the rest. If it didn't there would be constant fighting between the two volume controls and the track would use both, causing the volume to jump all over the place. For both volume controls to work all of channel 8's data should be on one track and channel 9's data on another track. By data I mean notes, volume and whatever else was used in the channels.

This is just my opinion and if it is wrong would someone please explain the real reason to me.

Since you're saying this isn't an original MacKenzie midi file but another user, the file itself could still be messed up. As I said earlier I have some files in a test folder going back years that I'll play with from time to time just for fun. Or more aggravation, ha. So far no matter what I do they simply will not play correctly and I don't know why. I did the same thing you did, I put them in RB and used every trick I know to manipulate them and got squat.

I was thinking it could be the synth but you initially said you're using the Forte Dxi and we all know it responds to the volume slider just fine. It's some of the other synths like Garritan or Sampletank that don't.

I dunno boss, I would usually ask you about something like this not the other way around...

Bob

Hi Bob
Re: "Since you're saying this isn't an original MacKenzie midi file but another user". There might be some confusion. I'm very sure this is a Doug McKenzie file, but I think he produced it from the Nord output, not BiaB output.

What is confusing with BiaB is that the VU meter level in the Mixer reacts with the notes in the music perfectly. If I lower the volume, the VU meter level also visibly lowers. If I raise it, the VU meter level increases. But the entire time, the output volume never changes.

The way I see it is that whatever is on that track should change. I compare this to mixing desk where the sound engineer has two separate audio sources connected to one track. Just because there are two inputs shouldn't mean that the mixer volume cannot be adjusted. After all it is controlling the audio level of downstream equipment, not the upstream source.

And the BiaB VU meter does change, indicating that it is recognizing the adjustment somehow.

Anyway, I know how to resolve now. And I definitely agree that MIDI can be troublesome, especially with the virtually unlimited variations in file content.

I'm going to use this tomorrow .. some way, some how

/thanks

The file may have used two midi channels to independently record left hand and right hand playing.

Midi files with each hand on a different channel use to be common. It is easier to step sequence and correct playing mistakes during file creation. During playback the hardware does not need to play as many notes at one time and the voicing can be set up differently between the two hands to enhance the audio performance.

Good point Jim, and I did expect that was the case, however, when I studied the data, this did not make sense as there was no clear separation. The same notes appeared sometimes on channel 8 and sometimes on channel 9.

And I'm sure this wasn't step sequenced, because there is a video of the performer playing this live.

Very strange.

Hi
Just a final thought on this one.

Some midi files and daws use automation tracks to control fade in and out by controlling the mixer.

So let’s say you had a piano on track 8 ch 8 track volume 64

Automation for that could be on track 9 it would have to be ch 8 to control the same piano.

Now if some had used cc7 volume events instead of cc11 expression, to make a fade up to say 100 that is what the piano would play at, .its last received value for that channel.

Cc7 is a continuous controller that is the last value sent holds until it gets a new one.
However the tracks are read in order the high number being the last read is the last value sent to the channel

In this case what ever you sent to track 8 would be overwritten by the info on track 9 which has sent a volume vale of 100 in this example

Don’t want to muddy the water but worth a thought

Best regards
Mike

That would explain it, except as mentioned there were absolutely no CC messages in the file. Changing the channel 9 data to channel 8 resolved the problem.

Hi
Yes I see. in that case track9 must have sent a volume level to ch 8 in the header information that you cant see .
You only see cc sent to a tracks later , you can not see the opening value in the header except that it sets the initial value for that track / channel
Just another thought,
Mike

I just popped in here to ask a similar question, but in RealBand. I couldn't find how to lower a MIDI Supertrack volume in the Mixer or Tracks windows. For anyone that it might help, I hit the 'fx' button, got into the synth controls and used the 'trim' button as the volume control, which worked well. Feel free to tell me an alternative control! Thanks.