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Keep sound sustained when switching stage settings


Nick

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I'm using the original Symphonic stage settings (57 in the alternative order) and when I switch to the GranPiano (00) stage setting the sustain of the notes (my pedal is pressed) is completed cut off.

How can I keep the sound sustained during a stage setting switching (this is important during a live performance) ?

Thank you.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hi, the suggestion of Scott even though was very logical and did make a lot of sense to me did not work. My first experiment was very simple but very effective. If you copy the symphonic stage setting in a different slot without any change and switch between the original symphonic stage setting and its identical copy, the sustain of the notes is still cut off. So even though both effects are the same, the sound is interrupted. Now if you select stage setting 00 (concert grand) and change the instrument to an organ and you sustain it with a pedal and then you switch to stage setting 01 (BalladPnolyr alternative order) magically the sound is sustained!!.

it worked also with the piano sound !!!! At this point, I stopped experimenting because of lack of time. Next step would be to vivisect stage settings BalladPnolyr and Concert Grand to find out which combination of parameter is making the trick. So if you change all parameters (one at time) in BalladPnolyr, you might find out which one will break the sustain. For now, if I use stage setting 00 as template A and 01 as template B, I can edit the instrument of the stage settings and the sustain is preserved when switching between A and B. That is all. Sorry, I still don't have a full explanation. Hope it helps.

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I tend not to think it is a function of melody tone vs hex.  I'll do a few more experiments.  I think it has more to do with how the midi events are passed when a stage setting is switched to.  I could swear I tested this before and couldn't come to a consistent conclusion.  I may be wrong; wouldn't be the first time! :lol:

 

When a stage setting is changed, a program change among other midi events is transmitted.  A note on message should not allow a program change without a note off message.  Depending on the case/tone/SS , a note off message may be sent or a reset all may be sent when a stage setting is selected.  When the sustain pedal is used, if a key is released, a note off message is sent allowing for a program change.  Different things can happen:

 

no note off - the sound of the current program is sustained

no note off - the sound may completely cut off

note off sent - the NEW sound will sustain

note off sent - the sound may completely cut off

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I can say that Korg seem to manage this quite well in the Kronos series. So I guess it is possible (from a midi and audio sampling p.o.v.), however the K series has huge amounts of resources to be able to pull this off. The PX, while decent, cannot even begin to match this level. And I don't think a firmware/OS update will do it either...as the memory and ROM capabilities are probs stretched as it is, so I think perhaps only a hardware change (read new keyboard) will be able to do this satisfactorily.

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This type of thing usually doesn't have to do with resources - often with how the software is programmed.  A DAW is a good example.  A well written DAW will allow you start anywhere in the piece and will automatically switch the corresponding midi tracks to the last program change that was entered, even if it was 30 measures ago.  A poorly written DAW will play the midi tracks at the default which is usually bank 0 program 0.

 

On the PX, the software should look at the last and most current program changes and midi states and play the appropriate part based on the circumstances.  If a note is held by pressing the keys, then a NOTE OFF event hasn't occurred therefore the sound generator should maintain the last program change and log a new program change that becomes active after the note off.  The sound generator should just switch to the next sound to play.  It should all be controlled by midi events.  With 256 polyphony, an approach to manage the sound might be a stack (a block or several blocks of memory).  A program change would determine whether to replace items (sounds) on the stack or add new sounds to empty slots on the stack.   That should mean that no sound needs to cut out when a note or series of notes are sustained. 

 

Without really knowing the hardware or the programming, I'm just making assumptions on the functionality in the PX but I would think this is all managed in the software.  The hardware is finite.  The management of the sound, the samples, the sound generator, is already there.  It's meant to handle 256 sounds at once.  How that's broken up into samples or layers or other things, I don't know, but on the idea of 256 simultaneous sounds that are already accounted for in the hardware, the sustaining of the tones seems to me a programming issue.

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I agree with Choppin, I think it is a software issue: management of midi msg. It seems that the keyboards in some circumstances do not queue ( in a smart way) the next set of messages to allow for asynch events to be excuted (e.g. release of the pedal) but pass immediately the messages to the sound generator creating an interruption of sound. It shouldn't matter how much processing power is required to generate a sound. Loosely speaking, an hex layer is only a vector of pointers to different sound banks in the synthesizer wave table. The hardware is perfectly capable to handle different sounds, however the software is not designed to handle well stage setting switching. The fact that hex layer and drums are used in zone 1 is a software design choice and not necessarily because requires additional resources. Probably those constrains made development faster. Anyway, I will try to monitor the midi msg that are sent to my ipad during a stage setting switch to have a better idea about the order of the midi events that are sent by the keyboard. I think Choppin gave a good explanation.

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Did a couple more tests... and I see where I thought Hex layers would sustain but was mistaken: a melody tone will sustain into a hex layer stage setting switch but a hex layer always cuts off when switching to any other stage setting.  However, this and what Nick said convinces me more that the sustainability may be related to programming rather than a hardware issue.  If a melody tone can sustain into a hex layer stage setting, then the ability exists in the PX hardware to sound the two simultaneously. 

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