Applying velocity and timing offsets to layers/patterns

Hi,

In other sequencers, part of my mixing process is to make fine adjustments to the velocity of tracks, and apply timing offsets (e.g. +10 ticks or -15 ticks) to tracks (e.g. to improve the feel of a drum part). In Project5, I'm stuck on this.

There's no problem with Transpose and MIDI Channel Destination settings - they can easily be applied to Layers of tracks as well as individual Pattern Instances.

But it seems Velocity can only be set at the entire Track level, or to individual notes -- I can't find any way to set a velocity offset on a Layer, a Pattern Class or a Pattern Instance. The only workarounds I can find are - 1. Use velocity automation (which is awkward if all you want to do is set a fixed offset for the entire layer or pattern), or 2. in the case of Layers only, apply a MIDI FX like Cakewalk Velocity, or 3. in the case of Pattern Classes, select all the notes in the pattern and Process > Scale Velocity > Type in the value (twice) - which isn't really as nice as dragging a fader is it?

For Timing offsets, the situation is even worse. I can't find ANY way to set a timing offset for a Track, a Layer, or a Pattern Class! I can't find a MIDI FX that would apply a timing offset to a Layer. The ONLY way I can find to make a timing offset to a Pattern Class is select all the notes in a pattern, and drag them left or right. But that is incredibly awkward as you have to zoom in so much to make fine adjustments, and if there's a note on beat 1:01:000, you can't slide the notes to the left to make a negative offset - so you have to move the first note to the end of the pattern, then slide all notes left - but that means that in the arrangement pane, you have to drag out the left-hand edge of any instances of the pattern (which of course, means those clips lose their snap-to-gridability...) You can make a timing offset to a Pattern Instance by dragging the pattern in the arrange pane with Snap-to-Grid turned off - but that's not ideal because it loses snap-to-gridability, and it's a nightmare for applying the same offset to multiple instances because you can't tell if you've selected them all and the all have the same offset. And there's no easy way to add a NEW instance of the pattern to the arrange pane with the same timing offset as existing ones.

Velocity and Timing Offsets are at least as important as Transpose - if not more!!!! Why can't I make them more easily? Am I missing something?

tj

ORIGINAL: b rock
Welcome to the forum, James.

Thanks b rock!

ORIGINAL: b rock
Let's take on velocity first. That message is inextricably (well, sort of) tied to MIDI notes, as far as the MIDI spec is concerned. It's actually one part of each Note On/Off message that you send. You can prove that to yourself in P5's Editor. You can't draw a velocity curve without a companion MIDI note, and you can't continue a curve beyond existing MIDI notes in a pattern. That's why velocity isn't controlled at the other levels that you've mentioned. But you can manipulate the velocity messages, as you've said with the MIDI FX plugin, or also with Process->Scale Velocity.

That's right, but all I'm talking about is a simple volume slider that affects all the notes in the layer/pattern/pattern instance at once non-destructively, just like the Transpose slider. E.g. if you set the volume to 80%, it plays back all the notes at 80% of their recorded value. Sonar and P5 both already do this at the track level, so it should be possible to do it in P5 at the other levels too (layer, pattern class and pattern instance).

My problem with Process > Scale Velocity is that it's destructive (i.e. actually changes the MIDI notes), and much less instantaneous than sliding a fader. I mean come on, I just want to set a volume!!! (Not you, Cakewalk!!!!) Automation seems like overkill for setting a fixed volume for the entire layer/pattern, but i'll try out the 'widget' thing to control it with a fader - thanks.

ORIGINAL: b rock
As for timing offsets, I'm surprised that you're not using Process > Slide for repeatable adjustments in ticks. The implementation of Arrange Pane movement could stand some help, and zooming has always been problematic, but you may find it useful to try coarse-to-fine Snap to Grid settings to get you in the ballpark, then Snap off if your adjustment gets finer than a 128th note equivalent. The Snap keyboard shortcuts make it a little easier to jump from eighth to sixteenth to thirty-second note snaps, on to finer levels.

The problem with Process> Slide is first of all, it's destructive, and secondly, if you have a note exactly on beat one, you can't make a negative offset (i.e. move everything to the left) - it just refuses to move anything. You have to manually move the note on beat one to the end of pattern, then slide everything left, and then go through all the ridiculous work-around I described in the arrange pane (i.e. drag out the left hand edges of all the copies of the pattern in the arrange pane, to include the 'early' note which is now wrapped round to the end of the pattern).

Bear in mind what I'm talking about is subtle changes, typically less than 40 ticks. E.g. if you move a hi-hat part "ahead" of the beat slightly, it can change the feel of the whole track. It can also compensate for samples that have a slight attack or gap at the beginning. You can't make changes like this with snap-to-grid, you need to set the number of ticks.

The thing is, I thought this was a fundamental part of drum sequencing - even on my old Yamaha QY700 hardware sequencer, you could set a non-destructive timing offset on each track in ticks. I was surprised to find there's no easy way to do this in P5.

ORIGINAL: jardim do mar
layers do have "independent mfx",,,,, also for ,,,manipulating ,,feels,, i use 'sample slide",,,,,(these will give you that "slider feel" remember indivdual "outs" can have their own,, fx,,,,,, or you can increase the tempo and "bounce to track" an,,"out" of a synth,,,, say,, an hihat ,,,,, then 'crop it" ,,,,,

Yes, the fact that you can have independent mfx on each layer is great - but I can't find an mfx that slides the layer left or right in time by very small amounts.

What's "sample slide"? Where is that?

the "cyclone " is a world ,, within itself,,,,,

Thanks, I'll check it out.

tj

Marcella,

velomaster is extremely useful as well

What do you use this for?