MIDI length for 5/4 time projects doesn't work

John-Nation wrote on 7/20/2019, 11:15 PM

Hi,

My issue is when I go to add a midi line in a track loaded in 5/4, and I click "add 8 bars", it adds 8 bars in 4/4 time, not 5/4. This makes the midi line quite a bit shorter than it should be to satisfy an 8 bar phrase. This issue has been around for a while before, but I could always get away with it by extending the midi line, which I normally could do by clicking on the horizontal zoom out button. But this does not work anymore as of the July update, and I don't know of any other way to extend a midi file. I could hypothetically cut each midi line into 4 bar lengths, but this is really unhelpful as that messes with sustains that carry over the bar lines. I know this problem only really makes 5/4 music problematic and considering people mainly write in 4 and 3, it's not too big of an issue, but it shouldn't matter what's popular stylistically - when I say add 8 measures in any time signature, it should add 8 bars in the native time signature, not 8 bars of 4/4.

Complaining aside, I wanted to ask if there was any way to extend MIDI lines with the new update? because using the horizontal zoom out button no longer extends MIDI lines and without that, it renders this entire time signature pretty agonizing to write in using the software.

Thanks

Comments

browj2 wrote on 7/21/2019, 9:07 AM

Hi,

As best I can figure, when you insert a MIDI object of 1, 2, 4 or 8 bar, a MIDI object with properties, like 4/4 time and looping, is inserted. Record something in a 1 bar inserted MIDI object and then drag the right side of the object on the timeline. It loops. As you found, inserting one switches the signature to 4/4 time and if you change it back to 5/4, you no longer have the same number of bars and beats that you intended.

Instead, when armed for MIDI and 5/4 time, simply press Record. Play nothing. Give it a bar or 2, stop. Now you have your own MIDI object that you should be able to extend by dragging the right side out. It won't loop.

John CB

ralftaro wrote on 7/26/2019, 7:21 AM

Hi there,

As far as the whole time signature mismatch thing is concerned, and the project reverting back to 4/4 time through the creation of the 8-bar MIDI object, I'll pass that on to development and ask them to look into this program behaviour.

Now, regarding the best way to get the MIDI object to the desired 8 bars, after setting the program to 5/4 again, this should be fairly easy by simply extending the MIDI object in the arranger. I suppose what was possibly throwing you off was the fact that the shortened object had loop mode enabled by default, and extending it would have simply repeated the looped area, instead of bringing you up to full 8 bars of content. So, what you should be doing is simply right-clicking the MIDI object and using the new and improved loop control functionality "Loop on/off" to disable the looping. Then grab the end of the MIDI object to extend it to the desired 8 bars. Now you're free to turn on loop mode again to define the entire 8 bars as a loop. The looped area is very clearly marked by triangular markers at the top and the bottom of the object. Further extending the MIDI object will result in the repetition of the loop now.

More improvements to MIDI workflows are already scheduled for the next few updates, including e.g. the ability to simply increase the number of bars by one or multiple bars from within the MIDI Editor window.

browj2 wrote on 7/26/2019, 9:40 AM

@ralftaro

Thanks for pointing out this great new feature.

This lead me to check out another one. Previously, it was not possible to create a loop from a self-recorded MIDI object. Now you can. Record some MIDI. Adjust the length to an even bar or bars that you want to loop. Right-click, Loop On/Off. Drag out the right side of the object and it loops. The loop point is indicated by loop markers (new in 2020).

Note, if you don't drag out the right side to an even bar, turning the object into a loop will cause the loop marker to be at the end of the object, which is where you stopped recording and may not be where you want the loop point to be.

Did I leave out anything?

John CB