transferring MIDI velocity

[MrSong]

Hey MIDI & Cakewalk gurus. I'm hoping you can provide me with your insight as I'm kinda stuck!

I'm using:
Yamaha W7 Workstation (16-track onboard sequencer)
SB Audigy Soundcard (with frontplate)
Sonar 1.0

What I'm trying to do (which I've successfully achieved up to this point):

transfer the keyboard sequence from the W7 into Sonar. I've got this accomplished...

What the problem is now...

It seems that the dynamics were lost. Partially anyway... In the Piano Roll View I can still see the volume levels are there... but the piano sound that I'm using (Pch: Acoustic Grand Piano) doesn't allow me to audilbly hear what the levels are playing. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[James Argo]

What kind of MIDI device do you use to playback MIDI in SONAR ? If it's soundfonts (as you say SB Audigy), it could be the soundfont you attached. Try to load another (better) soundfonts file, and see if it helps


Jaymz

[MrSong]

hey james, thansk for replying.

I was using merely a patch for the Piano sound, but I'm trying to incorporate a piano sound font because I was kinda suspecting the same thing. Now I'm having trouble getting the SoundFont to even show up but I'm hoping to figure it out.

I feel really smart doing this stuff for about 10 minutes... the rest of the hour I feel to be a complete moron.

[MrSong]

hey again, James...

I Started searching through the threads and I found the wonderul forum you posted on Sound fonts... (you need to put that on this site as feature... my hat's off to you!)... anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about

needs to go here

Now, I have got them to work before... I don't know why I can't now.

Anyway, I wanted to show you what I'm seeing because now I can't seem to add sound fonts.

What's wrong with this picture?

Anyway, thanks for looking!

[BluesMeister]

Hey Mr Song,

The first thing I notice is that you've got the Piano SoundFont on Channel 3 but your Piano Part is on Channel 2.
That's probably why you're hearing a Generic Piano and the Piano SoundFont isn't showing.

--
BluesMeister

[moskus]

Originally posted by BluesMeister
The first thing I notice is that you've got the Piano SoundFont on Channel 3 but your Piano Part is on Channel 2.

I didn't think that would matter, but I've been wrong before...

Have you tried to use the demo of the Livesynth Pro DXi (it's a soundfont player) just to see what's going on?

[James Argo]

Originally posted by BluesMeister
The first thing I notice is that you've got the Piano SoundFont on Channel 3 but your Piano Part is on Channel 2.

Well, have a look again, BluesMeister, it's Bank 3, not channel 3 And as moskus stated, it's all okay

moskus, IMHO Live synth pro is good for percusive sound (drums, percussion, etc...) but for piano, it sometimes gives you trouble on playback. Specially when you have so many controller message on the track.

Anyway, MrSong, the only strange thing I saw is the port's name shown "1-Soundfonts device". Have you tried "3-SB Audigy synth B" ?

And if you don't want to loose the velocity touch, try not to set the Velocity + to 126 Leave it zero...


Jaymz

[BluesMeister]

Yes Jaymz, it is indeed Bank 3 not Channel 3. I should have realised that, but the Drum SoundFont in Bank 10 fooled me into thinking it was Channels that were shown. (See how easy it is to fool me...)

However, since the two other SoundFonts are showing up, maybe it would be an idea to Copy the errant Piano SoundFont file into C:\Program Files\Creative\SBLive\SFBank and see if that shows up in the dialogue box.

I'm not an SBLive user, so again I must bow to your superior knowledge of the subject Jaymz.

--
BluesMeister

[MrSong]

you know, I love this forum. I wish the whole world worked this way and realized it's only about making music.

Thank you so much for your help- everyone (argo, moskus & BluesMeister)

The first solution- thank you James- was to set the velocity at 0 instead of 127. I was mistakenly under the impression that the value of 127 here would allow the incoming MIDI velocity information to be used to its fullest dynamics. I was wrong in my assumption. Your solution solved that problem.

But the second issue still eludes me. Why won't my sound fonts change?

I tired your solution here as well, James:

"Anyway, MrSong, the only strange thing I saw is the port's name shown "1-Soundfonts device". Have you tried "3-SB Audigy synth B" ?:

I did this, and I noticed that now I have nothing in my banks. how strange. (btw, nothing shows in the banks even when I change the OUT back... so I don't mean to make it sound like this was your fault. I've been suspecting that something's not quite right. Maybe I should visit the river Anduin and look for a ring of invisibility so I can sneak up on the problem... ha ha)

To see this, look at the fourth picture
here

The good news (at least in my situation) is that I accomplished all that I set out to do and that was print out the manuscript for an upcoming session player. But I would have liked to be able to change sound fonts. Pity it can't work as easily as fonts do in a print program... Ok, any good programmers out there want to become rich? Make this stuff work! I think I'm on to something. And, James, for Gawd's sake... write a book... you have too much good info in your head.

[MrSong]

BluesMeister

Your logic made good sense, too. And I just tried that. Same thing as before... the darn things just disappeared.

See more screen shots

Anyway, I'll be a monkey's uncle... and aunt.. and second cousin.

[moskus]

Originally posted by James Argo
moskus, IMHO Live synth pro is good for percusive sound (drums, percussion, etc...) but for piano, it sometimes gives you trouble on playback. Specially when you have so many controller message on the track.

I was suggesting the Livesynth only to test that the soundfont itself is OK.

And when have Livesynth had problems with piano?

[James Argo]

And when have Livesynth had problems with piano?

Most of the time as for me I don't blame it, it could be only in my case, but who can trust trial (demo SE) version which I had ? I dunno, it's expired now... You may try it with any >20Mb Piano soundfont you have download some free .mid files piano song (classical) in google, and have a try...

MrSong... I get it
I suspect you didn't "assign instruments" to the soundfont port propherly If you assign the port to "instrument" other than soundfont devices in Options --> Instruments... , then the bank / patch wont show up in the track view

To solve the problem, In SONAR, please go

Options --> Instruments...

and set the "Output/channel" to match SoundFont Device in the "Uses Instrument" field. Don't set it to Default or other instruments. Here's the pic...

Hope it helps...


Jaymz

ps. We do try to write the online FAQ
and moskus is the project manager...

[James Argo]

The BBS realy goes bad these days...

That was my seventh attempt to reply... and it doesn't bump the thread... (and no post counted)

Anyway... finally it's there


Jaymz