Hey Everybody,

I am trying to write a beginners tutorial on using midi for the beginner's forum, and I am confused about something myself, because I rarely use midi in Real Band, only Sonar, though many readers might be using Real Band.

Say I open a midi style like "Dramatic Orchestra" in Real Band after having a demo loaded, or a midi I grabbed from somewhere else that has velocity and volume cues.

When I move the fader in Real Band, or right click and change the volume of the track, it won't "stay put" or save that setting. It "snaps back" to where it was when I hit return and play.

I have tried looking at envelopes and there aren't any.

The demo I was working with was Dramatic 4/4 orchestra as an FYI, which I am playing through Aria.

I know the Aria Player is the "slave" to the real band setting.

Any clues on this would be appreciated because I don't want to give newbies bad info.

I usually do all midi work in Sonar on individual tracks for more control over effects so I am not used to this.

I am sure I will feel stupid when someone gives me the answer.

Hit F2 and see if any velocity settings are hard written to the MIDI track. The envelopes are going to represent the volume setting (versus velocity setting), so you won't see it there. While velocity and volume aren't the same thing, effectively both affect volume when it comes to MIDI.

Excellent Call John.

Look at this screenshot and the stuff in purple and tell me "what I need to know" about this editing function and I will pass it on to save countless hours of head smashing.



It looks like there are velocity settings, and that some tracks and mapped to others.

For example this is F2 showing Timpani on the bass track. The Timpani plays wimpily low. When you change the volume by right click it won't save. It always "snaps back."

It is because there is a controller on 3 as well in the track? This part I don't understand. It looks like those tracks are linked.

What would I do I I wanted to arrest control back from these parts and set velocity and volume where I wanted--FOREVER.



Thanks for the tips!

Can you delete the changes in the piano roll at the bottom:

EDIT: with velocity, in piano roll select all note then holding the shift key drag the velocity level down, this will move all down.

Hey Pipleline,

Thanks.

What I am trying to do is "decouple" the timpani track (in bass slot channel 2) from piano in channel 3.) See screenshot again.

It seems they are tied to one another, if I am not mistaken.

Also, regardless of what the velocity is set at, which you can change in the box, what I ULTIMATELY want to do is rid the tracks of any and all hard wired presets so they will "do what I tell them to": when I move the volume faders and stay put--not "snap back to the old setting when I hit return as if I had not done anything.

It is pretty confusing.

You just want to delete the controls select them then hit delete.

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Hi David,
In your screen shot above the volume of the track is dictated by "VolCtrl" which is CC 7. If you want to permanently increase this, change its value which is currently 90, up to a maximum of 127. (I think you also have to change "VolNodeCtrl" to the same value as well - this is fairly new and I haven't quite got my head around envelopes).

The term "Velocity" is specific to each individual note on the track. You can see this alongside the note name in your track list above (either 85 or 90 in this case). This can also be a maximum of 127. If you record the track in real time using a MIDI controller it will represent how hard you press the key for each note you play. If you step record it will default to whatever value you set in Opt -> Other Options in the notation window.

If you are using a MIDI file created by someone else there may be "VolCtrl" changes embedded throughout the file and these will override any settings you make in the track window or the mixer. (Pipeline's screenshot above is an example of this). The author may also use "Expression" which CC 11 which will have the same effect.
Bob Norton provides a valuable list and description of MIDI Control Change messages here:
www.nortonmusic.com/midi_cc.html

If you check out the Mixer window, at the bottom you will see two buttons labelled "Ins" and "Del". They can be used to delete events and replace them with ones you set in the mixer. Hover over the buttons for an explanation of their actions.

I hope this helps.
Regards,

Sorry, there's been a couple more posts while I was typing my reply above.

The Piano on channel 3 shouldn't have any effect on the Timpani which is on channel 2. This could only happen if there is any channel 2 messages embedded in the Piano track.

Thanks Guys,

I found the easiest way seems to be just using F2 on a track and deleting those lines up top that have "control" in them--that seems to restore the ability to use the fader and have it "stick."

Thanks for all the help guys!!!

If there were only CC's in the beginning of a track then that's ok. But...on a good midi file and by that I mean one that was professionally produced, the author spent a considerable amount of time mixing the whole file so it would have good dynamics. Sure, you may want to delete all of that anyway and start over but I've found it's best to leave those alone.

What you should do then is render those tracks to audio. Now all of your controls including the mixer will work but at least you have preserved what the original author of that file did.

Bob

While in theory, I agree with this, if you use a different synth than the creator of the file used, dynamics can end up being all over the place as they don't all respond the same.

Cool and interesting thread. Thanks all.