Why Does Track Permanently Go Out of Tune?

It has been about 2 years since my last post. I’m just getting back in to Sonar 6 after a long break. I am doing fine except for one very bizarre problem I experience intermittently while entering MIDI data. For no apparent reason, all of the notes get completely out of tune on a track and stay that way. For example, a C note might end up being a note somewhere between a C and C sharp. I did not change the tunings and my other tracks remain unaffected. This problem is occurring more frequently, yet unpredictably.

Any ideas on what it is and how to correct? Thanks.

Greg

Hi Dave,

I checked the affected tracks in Event View. There are absolutely no pitch bend events in the track (or any other tracks for my project), so that apparently is not the problem. Any other ideas??

Thanks.

Greg

It is driving the standard onboard TTS-1 synth.

Greg

Thanks, but I don’t think it is related to pitch bend, based on the following:

1. I do not have a single pitch bend data event in the entire song, on any track (I double checked).
2. I never use pitch bend when composing and I never touched the pitch bend controller when the de-tuning problem occurred.
3. The problem happened when I was entering data on measure 50, or so, but the de-tuning affected ALL of the data in the entire track, going back to measure 1.
4. If I copy all the data from the track (not bounce the track) and paste it into a new track, the problem goes away. So if there were pitch bend data in the first track, it would be copied to the new track, right? But if I bounce the track, the problem continues.

Any other ideas????

Thanks.
Greg

Every once in a while I'll get a track with some wierd behavior like that and I just create a new midi track and copy and paste the data excluding the 1st measure. That has always worked for me.

I just noticed your #4 you did that...

New info – It’s getting stranger! It seems the problem is related to MIDI channel. MIDI channel assignment can correct or cause the problem. For example, the problem I referenced occurred on a Piano track assigned to MIDI channel 13. Everything was fine using that channel, then the detuning problem occurred. No other track is assigned to Channel 13. But just now I discovered by assigning the track to another channel (in this case 14), the problem goes away! But not every unused MIDI channel will work. On another copy of this project, all of the MIDI channels work except for Channels 3 and 4. I can assign any instrument track to any channel except 3 and 4. If assigned to 3 or 4, the detuning problem occurs to all the data on the track. But if I simply switch to a “good” MIDI channel, everything is fine again. On this latter project copy, MIDI channel 13 works fine, so there is no consistency between the good and bad MIDI channels. It is the most bizarre thing. Any ideas???

Thanks.
Greg

Have you got any midi controllers that may have a fader or rotary mapped to pitch bend via ACT or another driver? Just for giggles, have you tried disconnecting your midi controllers and opening the project to see if it manifests?

But if I simply switch to a “good” MIDI channel, everything is fine again. On this latter project copy, MIDI channel 13 works fine, so there is no consistency between the good and bad MIDI channels. It is the most bizarre thing. Any ideas???

It's not clear what is generating the pitch change data in the first place, but I suspect that if you click the Edit button at the top of a problem channel strip in the TTS-1, you will find that the coarse and/or fine tuning controls are not zeroed.

brundlefly you are a genius! After trying all the other suggestions without success, I checked the tuning controls (Edit button) on each TTS-1 strip, and sure enough for each of the problem MIDI channels, the fine tuning was set to +50. I zeroed them out and problem appears fixed! (based on a quick test.)

I am not sure how or why the fine tuning was set to +50. I guess I was playing around with it on another project and saved the settings.

Thanks to all of you for trying to help me!

Greg

Thanks Jeff.