Play from start and play after reset button sound different

Use this forum to discuss Midi Issues as they relate to Cakewalk.
RFacter

Post by RFacter » Sat Jul 03, 2004 2:42 pm

I originally posted this in another forum and got no responses. Perhaps someone here may be able to help.

I've been writing music for years with Cakewalk, never having used any advanced features with the way I compose. Recently I began writing a new song and found that when I start it, the pan on one of the instruments is way off. I reset my keyboard, closed and reopened Cakewalk, and even played with various sysx settings. I just can't get the instrumentation to balance from the start. I know it's not a problem with the instrument I'm using as it doesn't have a pan problem in the other song I use it in. This led me to hit the Cakewalk reset button (!) after starting other songs I've composed. In every single case there are slight volume and pan variances in the play sound before and after hitting the button.
In a nutshell here's how it works. I start a song and it sounds ok, but not exactly perfect. I hit the reset button and every sound is suddenly centered and louder (lets just say it sound's 'richer' for the rest of the argument). If I stop the song and restart from the same place, the song still sounds richer. If I restart from the beginning the song sounds dull again. I'm my own worst critic and have always been somewhat disappointed by my compositions, but at the same time I've always wondered why my MIDI songs never sounded as rich as when I simply jam on the board.
Is there a way to insert a 'reset all' signal at the beginning of a song or is there a different solution to this problem?
Should I resort to a different program?


HDB
Posts: 46
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2004 12:19 am

Post by HDB » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:06 pm

Dunno RF, but here's some things you might play around with:

Highlight a track, go to View>Event List, and see if your files have patch change messages in them. If they don't, it might be a good idea to insert the proper patches for whatever tracks. Insert them at the beginning of the track. It may be prudent to also put any other performance data in there that may be useful, such as Volume, Pan, Reverb, Chorus, etc. Fit these in BEFORE the first Note data of each track.

May also be a good thing to insert a Sysex Reset message at the beginning of the song, before ANY other data. I'm not sure about yours, but I put a GS reset at the very beginning. You may try an XG, or GM reset, depending on what your card/module wants, and if it will receive it. If you set it to the proper port that you are sending data to the module, it may reset the module for every MIDI file, if you include it in every MIDI file. This will clear out previous data, and load all the data you have for your next tune. It's in View>Sysex.

That's all I can think of at this point.

HDB

RFacter

Post by RFacter » Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:16 am

I was playing with every setting I could think of tonight and eventually stumbled upon Track -> Property -> Pan and was finally able to balance it from there. However, I still don't understand why the track didn't reflect the pan changes before or after using the menu option. I've checked the pan view and it remains blank. At least the playback is now balanced.

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