Note duration times of "zero" when recording midi with a drum pad (Bug? *youtube video*)

This one has driven me nuts for about a month now. I use a Simmons midi drum pad to record midi drum parts. All of the recorded note lengths (from the drum pad) in the PRV are quite small, but about one in 10 notes show up as a single dot on the PRV. These "dot" notes do indeed play on playback with the rest of the drums. However if try to select all of the notes in the clip and quantize the note duration into say 1/16 notes, these  "dot" notes do not quantize. After further examination I've found out that they have a note duration of zero and even the selection tool will not select them. As soon as I change them to any value larger than zero (by left clicking on them), then I can select and quantize them properly. Shouldn't EVERY note recorded have a duration larger than zero? If I have played several hundred notes on a take, having to go back in and manually adjust each of these tiny note's duration is a royal PITA. This looks su****iously like a bug to me, but I've never submitted a bug report so I'm not sure where to go from here.
Thanks
 
Here is a video of the error:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7rVwg5HfI

The note duration would have to be larger than zero if it is showing up on the PRV and does playback (as is the case). Some data is getting into the DAW or it wouldn't show at all. Wouldn't "some" data have a longer duration than zero? 

brundlefly

bandso
I use a Simmons midi drum pad to record midi drum parts.

 
It's up to the drum controller to generate a suitable duration (i.e. delay between Note On and Note Off messages). SONAR just records what it receives. Check the Simmons documentation.
 
The two workarounds are:
 
1. Select the the entire clip after recording and set a duration of 60-120 in the Event Inspector module of the Control Bar.
2. Always use a drum map, and edit in the Drum Pane of the PRV where drum hits are shown with a special icon that does not show duration.
 
 

I've got to disagree on this one. Simple error checking in sonar would fix this. If a note exists and its duration is less than one then set it to one.
 
1. Select the the entire clip after recording and set a duration of 60-120 in the Event Inspector module of the Control Bar
 
Thank you 1000x for this! Excellent! I'll try this later.
 
2. Always use a drum map,
Why always use a drum map?  I drag the note to find the sound I want.
 
and edit in the Drum Pane of the PRV where drum hits are shown with a special icon that does not show duration.
 
and where might this "special icon that does not show duration" be located?
 
Thanks again!!!

bandso
 
2. Always use a drum map,
Why always use a drum map?  I drag the note to find the sound I want.
 
and edit in the Drum Pane of the PRV where drum hits are shown with a special icon that does not show duration.
 
and where might this "special icon that does not show duration" be located?
 

A drum map uses the drum grid pane in the PRV. You can drag notes there just like the note pane. The drum grid pane displays notes the same regardless of duration.

Are you sure that your drum controller is not sending notes with a duration of 0? I know that, with my DrumKat, for example, the note duration that it transmits for a pad is configurable.

Another simple workaround could be to select the recorded midi and run "Find/Change" filtering out everything with duration 0 (or excluding everything over maybe 5) and replacing with something else.
It's possible to save a preset in the dialogue to use next time.
 
CAL is also possible of course - wouldn't be surprised if there's a script around.
 

I'll drop a note to Simmons about the midi duration issues. There may be a hardware firmware update (I didn't even think to look for one until this discussion). I'm also going to do some tests with PT and S1 to see if I can replicate the errors there as well.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Short-MIDI-notes-from-Alesis-D4-do-not-reliably-trigger-Dimension-Pro-m878474.aspx
 
same problem - lfm has a CAL in post #13

... which brings up the PPQ configuration in Sonar: do you (OP) have your note resolution at 960 PPQ? Smaller values might round down.

I have my quantize note resolution for drums normally at a 1/16 note, however quantize doesn't touch the notes at any resolution selected.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by a resolution of 960 ppq. I looked in the preferences and such but the only place I could find "Resolution" was on the quantize tab, where I could only select musical values.
I've posted a video of how I replicate the error on you tube. I'm going to send it to customer support tomorrow. I contacted them about it and they told me that I needed to call them. I have a day job so it's going to be tough getting to them at the same time I'm in my studio though.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7rVwg5HfI
 
Thanks for the help!

I learned how to use, and played with the cal script for about an hour but it threw a syntax error...god I spend way too much money on gear to hit creativity killing issues like this.. Mixcraft is looking good about now...lol... nah just joking. I'm going to try my controller in Studio One right now and see if is working there.

Like i said, just select the entire clip after recording and set a duration of 60-120 in the Event Inspector module of the Control Bar, and be done with it. I guarantee you it's the drum controller sending Note On/Offs to close together. You didn't mention which Simmons model, but I guess it's not their SD-1000 because a quick check of the manual for that module shows it has adjustable duration.

bandso
I learned how to use, and played with the cal script for about an hour but it threw a syntax error...god I spend way too much money on gear to hit creativity killing issues like this.. Mixcraft is looking good about now...lol... nah just joking. I'm going to try my controller in Studio One right now and see if is working there.

Ooops - terribly sorry. Didn't check to see if it worked. Assumed it did as it seemed people reported using it.
Totally understand if you don't want to see a CAL script again. They are kind of neat though and have their uses.
 
If you're NOT totally burned on CAL, below is an alternate CAL script you can copy and paste to a .cal in your CAL-folder.
This little one is fresh out of the owen but I have tested it on my system.
As minDur (short for minimun duration accepted) is 5 it searches for notes with duration less than 5 and sets those to duration 5.
You can change the number after minDur  to any value you prefer of course and keep it as your script for the particular purpose of fixing 0 durations.
I would also bind it to a shortcut key (Alt + A for example) under Edit > Preferences > Shortcut keys (all CAL's are there so you can bind them to keys).
Then you just have to press Alt + A after recording to execute script below - might save back some of the time I wasted for you.
 
;; Start of CAL
(do
    (int minDur 5)

    (forEachEvent
     (if (== Event.Kind NOTE)
      (if (< Note.Dur minDur)
        (= Note.Dur minDur)
      )
     )
    )
)
NIL


 
 
 

I have mixed emotions about this post.
 
The good part:
I reported the "bug" to cakewalk through the website and was later told to call customer support, so I called them. I spoke with their customer service rep for about 10 min, having a philosophical conversation about whether any newly recorded midi note that comes into their system should ever have a duration of zero (I say no, he said it depends, ...huh?? why would a newly recorded midi note ever have a duration of zero...)
 
I was indeed given a work around that more or less works. Record your midi take, then select all of the notes before they are quantized (even the ones that were recorded with zero duration) and stretch the length of one of the notes with an above zero duration with the smart tool on the PRV. This adds the same duration to all of the selected notes and brings the notes with the zero duration up to a level of 1 or above. The quantize function will then find these notes and adjust them accordingly. It's not pretty, but it works. Many thanks for that.
 
The bad part:
I was told that this issue is all in my controller and that cake doesn't even consider this a bug to be addressed. However considering I can use the same controller fine in Studio One and Mixcraft, I do indeed think this is something the developers should address in the future. My service number on this issue has been closed and is DOA...
 
I must apologize for the above crack I made about MixCraft. I downloaded the demo to check my controller against it and I've got to say I was impressed. To me it's ugly and looks like a toy, but once I got into in to it I discovered that it is a damn fine and stable DAW that is really built for speedy workflow and quick music creation. My controller also worked flawless with it.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do, however the newly recorded notes initially are listed with a zero duration in the PRV so the quantize function does not work on them. That is the bug I'm running up against.
 
Please see my very short video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7rVwg5HfI you will notice that I am doing exactly what you describe.