Working in sonar x3
 
I own an expensive guitar-to-midi synth and I have been using the unit
as a synthesizer for my orchestral tracks (triggering it from a keyboard).
It's an expensive unit and after doing a heap of recording with it (on a
track), I found that the pitch is slightly off. - I could hear it audibly then
confirmed it with auto-tune. ***Enough to make it unusable.
 
 
Amazingly the unit itself doesn't have fine-pitch correction (only transpose)
so I'm left with trying to find a way to alter it within the actual midi (in sonar).
None of the controls in the console window (for the midi-track) seem to do
fine tuning. Are there any other solutions? Perhaps a 3rd party plugin
if not within sonar itself??
 
Thanks.

You are using the internal sounds on an external hardware synth?
 
I'm pretty sure in that scenario you are going to have to print the sound to an audio track and then use an audio pitch shifting tool to fine tune it (like Melodyne or the Sonar DSP tuning thingie).
 
You could do this on a temporary basis as you work (like let's say you want to get it in your desired pitch while you track other instruments) by recording the audio output of the synth into a new track then applying the pitch correction, muting the original tracks and then continueing to work.
 
If you need to make adjustments to the the actual MIDI of the performance just revert back to the original (and scrap your scratch audio version) then do it again.
 
Of course as you work you will have to suffer through the off pitch output of the hardware synth as you play/write.
 
To avoid THAT though if it is too distracting is you could do an audio bounce/export of EVERYTHING ELSE in the project into a stereo wave that would go into a new track then pitch adjust that audio to match the tuning of the external synth. Record your part to that.
 
Then mute the pitch adjusted export track (and unmute the original tracks) and then bounce to audio your newly created external synth parts to audio and tune it to the project material.
 
I do think it's pretty odd a hardware synth of any quality would be outputting out of tune audio.
 
Maybe Sonar's tuning base is off? I don't know much about that stuff so I'll defer to the smarter dudes/dusdette's on that.
 
Cheers.

Yes i'm saving the track as audio (from the audio outputs of the synth) but we are talking about a complex orchestral strings track (with up to 8 notes playing at one time). It would be completely impractical (or just a ridiculous waste of time) to correct that with audio pitch-correction software. - With all its layers and note-changes.
 
Does midi not have fine-tune pitch directly within its native language (I'm getting the feeling it doesn't)?
My keyboard has it, and I have Trilogy (VI) which has it..
 
The orchestral string sound is extremely realistic and by far my best available option right now.
Worst case scenario I could download a strings VI but the only one I know is Omnisphere (which is 80 gig).
 
 
I'm going to bed now (been awake for 20 hours now) but/and will read replies when I wake.

If there are no controls in the synth front panel (yours is external h/w, right?), there are still two other possibilities:
1. Insert a pitch wheel event at the beginning of the track for each midi channel you use. You'll have to fiddle and guess at the proper value (unless you have a pitch "wheel" on your guitar synth to try out) because synths and even different patches in synths can have different sensitivities to the pitch wheel.
2. There may still be an internal pitch adjustment in the synth that can be set by some other controller or a sysex message, which you would then have to hand-craft. This is deeper and requires looking at the MIDI implementation document for the synth.
 
There might be some other things going on, such as a stray pitch wheel event from whatever controls are on your guitar controller part.

Well as you seem to be aware this type of tuning usually happens inside the synth. The notes just trigger what the synth is outputting.
 
If it's high quality as you say there's gotta be something in there that can fine tune it. After 20 hours awake and futzing with stuff the absolute best advice would be to sleep on it and take another stab at it in the morning.
 
It should NOT be outputting out of tune notes at all. Only the worst of the worst keyboards/synths will do that.
 
I am only just really digging into midi stuff though so again I'll defer to others. There may be some interface stuff or other hardware settings causing the issue.
 
Maybe there is some kind of fine tuning that can happen in Sonar but if there is I cannot recall ever seeing it mentioned and I just took a look at the MIDI track Inspector and even loaded the MIDI Transpose plugin. Nothing there for fine tuning.
 
Good luck.

There appears to be coarse and fine tuning control messages available, but I have no idea how to use them or if you gear will recognize them
 

 
I found that here
 

bv and Bob are definitely pointing to absolute worst case scenario solutions so totally listen to them.
 
That seems TOTALLY whack to have to do though and would require writing in the pitch change on all your tracks (I think).
 
There has to be an answer inside the hardware source. Otherwise... that would really suck.

To answer your question directly, no, MIDI can not be tuned. (AFAIK)
MIDI sends messages to a device, in this case a synth. MIDI will send note on and note off messages by note number. It is up to the synth to play back that note number and create audio. Therefor there is no way to "tune" a MIDI clip, you must tune the instrument. Your particular synth may have a controller that adjusts pitch and therefore you could send a MIDI message to that controller and fine tune the synth. However, if the synth has a controller to adjust pitch, then there should also be a way to adjust the pitch without using MIDI!
Could the synth be using an alternate tuning? Or is it tuned properly but off a few cents?
 
If you tell us what "expensive guitar-to-midi synth" you have, we may be able to track it down for you.

jatoth
Could the synth be using an alternate tuning? Or is it tuned properly but off a few cents?

This actually brings up an interesting point.
 
This is supposed to be an orchestral synth/patch bank?
 
Perhaps because it is orchestral it is tuned to "concert pitch" which is A335.
 
Most modern music is tuned to A440.
 
Sooooo.... maybe see if there is an option to switch between A335/Concert Pitch and A440/"Standard" pitch.
 
Long shot but without actually reading up on your particular synth long shots is all we'z gotz.
 
Cheers.
 
yes... i know you are probably sleeping but so will i soonish...

I must say I am confused about what is out of tune here. A "guitar to MIDI synth" sounds like it is a guitar MIDI controller that allows you to play a guitar-like controller and write a MIDI output. If it is a MIDI to guitar synth then it sounds like it would be a dedicated sound module that sounds like a guitar. Why is the OP not just telling us the make and model of his gear? In any event there is no way that the MIDI track can go out of tune since it is just note numbers, unless there is a MIDI tuning or pitch bend message in the MIDI data somewhere. It may be time to clarify exactly what gear is being used and what the signal chain is, and what is out of tune relative to what. "Expensive" is not a very useful description in this case.