EDITTING EVENTS ON CAKEWALK

[shyamwestwind]

Dear jazzcat
There are occassions when I find one particular instrument .... say the tambourine, too loud and I would like to bring down the volume or maybe the velocity iof that particular instrument. I have had a VERY time consuming and laborious time going to the note where this instrument is , on the event list view on cakewak and reducing the velocity wherever it appears .
Oh, please tell me theres an easier way of doing this

[JohnG]

Hi Shyam,

JazzCat asked me a few days ago to explain how it is possible to change the "pan" position of a drum from its current setting within a drum kit in GM2. You' may be pleased to know that it is also possible to change the level (i.e. volume) of each individual drum instrument too and I'll make sure I add that information to the article which is almost finished.

That is if your MIDI module or software or whatever is GM2. IF it's GS or XG then the procedure is different but I know about that too so I could try to write something for you. Please let me know.

Best regards,
JohnG.

[shyamwestwind]

Hi JohnG
I have my PSR 3000B which uses XG , so I guess I'll need to study on these lines, but as I'm working with Cakewalk 9, can you tell me how to raise or lower volumes of an individual drum track .
Your knowledge is amazing and I think I'll need to take a print out of your book of knowledge and sit back on my easy chair and try and understand everything.
Do help me out with this particular subject as its really bugging working on the volumes/velocity note by note.

[JohnG]

Hi Shyam,

No worries my friend, I'll try to knock something simple up for you today so it's available tomorrow morning. Please note the word TRY. I'll explain how to adjust the volume controls in Cakewalk for each individual track and how to insert the commands to edit just a single drum instrument in XG.

Hope that will be enough (for the time being).
Best regards,
JohnG.

[JazzCat]

Oh John, this isn't a complicated one here at all! Nothing like panning an individual drum sound. LOL!

First Shyam, keep in mind that VOLUME and VELOCITY are two entirely different animals.

Volume affects everything on the channel.

Velocity affects each individual note. Velocity is how hard, or soft a note is struck. In other words, barely touch the key on your keyboard and that is a low velocity. Strike it very hard and that produces a high velocity.

I can tell you how I lower velocities of one drum sound that is too loud in my sequencing program. (Voyetra Record Producer Deluxe)That may give you a head start in what John will tell you.

Open the drum track in the piano roll window.
Highlight every instance of the tambourine, ( in my program you do that by clicking on the corresponding piano key on the left of the screen)

Then, find wherever it is in your program's menu that will allow you to either scale or offset velocities, and scale them down or offset them down to lower them.

Do not 'set' them. Setting velocities makes them all exactly the same!
Example: 3 notes. With each of the procedures listed below I am going to start with these values.

First note has a velocity of 100. Second has a velocity of 90. Third has a velocity of 20.
If you set them to 65 all 3 notes will now be 65 and you will have lost the human feel to the music.

Scaling lowers ( or raises) each velocity by a percentage of what it currently is.
I am going to scale them down by 10%.
First note is now 90. Second is now 89. Third is now 18.

Offsetting lowers (or raises) by a set number. I am going to offset each note by 10.
First note is now 90. Second is now 80. Third is now 10.

Clear as mud? <smile>

[JohnG]

Hi there JazzCat,

Yes, once again spot on BUT what I was going to address is how you change the overall volume of a drum or other rhythm instrument permanently not just note by note (read next para). Of course the dynamics of any instrument might (should) change as you play ppp through fff and crescendo, decrescendo too as you so beautifully describe. A drummer does this naturally as he/she emphasises the beat and/or off beat. So, as usual no quarrel here at all. And to get a human feel it can mean note by note editing. Laborious but necessary sometimes.

But, if your MIDI device allows, you can change the volume of each rhythm instrument relative to the others as well as pan and even reverb and chorus feed. AND (even more if your MIDI module allows it) timbre, attack, release, decay, brightness, vibrato(?) rate, time and delay, and even fine and coarse tuning. That's PER drum note (or should I say sound?)!!!! The MIDI spec allows for it and GM2 devices could (not should or will) respond to those messages. Most in my experience just do the 1st four. (vol. pan. rev. cho.)

But XG devices can usually respond to ALL of those things, they just don't use the GM2 method but a series of NRPNs etc. And it was that that I was going to describe.

Isn't it just SOOOOOO exciting?
Yawn!
JohnG
Founder of J(C)AS.

Added later: When I say permanently I mean until the device is switched off or the controllers reset.

[Tubbs]

Shyam my friend, try this link for good tips on using cakewalk, it may be of help to you also.

www.soundsgoodpro.com/cakewalktips.htm

[JazzCat]

John said:
Yes, once again spot on BUT what I was going to address is how you change the overall volume of a drum or other rhythm instrument permanently not just note by note


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I'm certainly interested in learning the methods you describe John, but for Shyam I was trying to offer the proverbial K.I.S.S. principle solution.

I'm not talking adjusting note by note. Shyam has already been doing that, the slow and painful way. I'm talking about doing them all in one edit. Bita-bing, bita-bam, done. He's got to learn to crawl before he learns to walk, and learn to walk before he learns to run.

I'm suggesting a method of editing a whole 'row' of drum notes to play 'quieter' or 'louder' in close to a one-step process to raise or lower all the 'tambourine' notes, using velocity. And, yes, it is 'permanent' for the file in question ( once you hit 'save').

Shyam, like many people here, is acquiring files from many different sources, from people creating files in multitudes of different ways, listening thru rubbishloads of different modules so each file's mix will present new challenges.

I stuck to the simplest method of accomplishing the goal wanted. Shyam understands velocities so, I stuck to that.

So Shyam, were you able to figure out how to do what I suggested?

[shyamwestwind]

Thanks jazzcat, I experimented with an instrument on the drum track and brought down the velocity by percentage and I got what I needed. The earlier method which I used, note by note, from the event list was really bugging.
I need to practise on what I've learnt, but I got something to experiment with, so it''l be easier ............ THANK YOU

[JohnG]

Hi Shyam and the famous Jazzcat,

Of course I understood that Shyam was using files from different sources written for a whole host of different sound modules to the one he uses. Then editing them for his own use.

And, of course JazzCat you're quite right. Using these excellent Cakewalk tools for raising and lowering overall track or individual drum velocities are spot on and, more importantly, easier to find in the software package.

Actually JazzCat my method was going to be even simpler than yours. Shyam's original question was about changing the volume of just one instrument. So, if I could send just one command allbeit a SysEx command for GM2 (or for XG and GS maybe a couple of NRPNs) that changed the level of "say the tambourine" for the whole of the MIDI file then I wouldn't have to alter the velocities. IMHO that would be much simpler. But that's me!

But I know it's horses-for-courses. Of course, if you don't know the SysEx way then you have to use what you do know, and the ones explained in the documentation. (I went scurrying for my Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 manual earlier. (How sad is that?)) Please don't take that as a slight in any way, I know my knowledge of MIDI is, how shall I say it "unusual?" It's due to my background as a protocol specialist in the IT and telecoms industries where I was expected to know exactly how something worked and to find solutions to sometimes complex problems. Finding timing faults on PC mother boards (80386, 80486) when I worked for ICL was another sad thing I had to do. Habits of a lifetime I'm afraid.

Good thing you're around JazzCat to lend some sanity to this board or I'd be leading them all up the garden path.

All the best to you both,
JohnG.

[JazzCat]

Well sysex certainly eludes me and I've been told a million times, it isn't universal. Which is one of the beefs I have about it's use, especially by a baby beginner. You gotta know what patr of it tells your equipment to 'listen' to the message and all that good stuff. It's a bit too advanced, even for me, right now. I still need more basic understanding of it. Yeah I know a whole new world will open up to me when I finally 'get it' but, I won't forget where I was back when I was completely green and staring at this daunting and frightening program called a sequencer, with someone trying to explain the differences in volume and velocity and tracks and channels to me. Those are difficult concepts to a beginner. and I thought I'd never get it! If that is, well, just imagine how horrifying sysex would have been to lil ol' me back then. If someone would have hit me with that in the beginning I would have turned tail and ran screaming into the woods LOL!

I have no manuals to refer too. But I have YOU, John! <GRIN> Well I do have what Ketron laughingly calls a manual for the sound module I have. It has a bunch of sysex commands listed in it but I have yet to figure out how to make use of them so, I still stick to the K.I.S.S principle.

Hey Shyam, whatever you do, make sure you copy down the things that John says. copy his info somewhere safe because there will come a day, in the not too distant future, when you will refer back to it and be able to put to very good use, what he's talking about! I sure am and I'm supposed to be a techie here on the board! ha ha ha ha!!!!

The Mighty and Powerful JazzCat hath spoken. No applause, no applause... just throw rose petals and money LOL!

[JazzCat]

Oh and BTW, I can't get around in Cakewalk at all. Never could.

[JohnG]

Hey JazzCat,

You do a mighty fine job with the things you do know, Jazzcat, and that's a heck of a lot. Don't put yourself down, you're no slouch and you know it. You're a performer and a MIDI sequencer (programmer) and that's not a common mixture. Usually people have the one talent OR the other. I certainly wish I'd spent more time playing and less techying. And you have charm, humour and politeness to boot. (Founder member of the JazzCat appreciation society.)

Who are you trying to kid about Cakewalk, JazzCat? Pull the other leg it's got bells on it!

Consider basket-fulls of rose petals thrown.
Money? Hey, I haven't got too much of that to chuck about!

And you have me JazzCat?
Well, yes I guess you do! Simper, simper!
Oh, yes, the manual. (Be still my beating heart!)

But Sys-Ex stuff, although it does turn grown-up programmers white with fear, is actually not that desperately difficult. Or perhaps it's just that I'm so used to Octal and Hex and binary and all that stuff that I just don't see it that way any more! I started with binary and octal would you believe in 1966!!!!! Maybe I am really loopy like people have been telling me for many years. Pauses to wipe away the dribble that's formed on the chin and gives a big toothless grin!

Awww! JazzCat you say the sweetest things!
All the best,
JohnG.

[shyamwestwind]

Gosh the two of you have got my mind all boggled and I havent had a wink of sleep trying to make sense of all that you guys wrote! I AM GOING TO LEARNm just a little patience p l e a s e !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JohnG]

Hey Shyam,

No worries. I'll not post any more for a couple of weeks, okay?
For you, my friend, I have all the time in the world and plenty of patience.
But please hurry I've got another 20 articles lined up!
Only joking, just 2.
Just think, by the end of the year you'll be teaching all your friends how to sequence.

But seriously Shyam take your time. It took me time, I started doing this stuff more than ten years ago and I had a head start with working on computer techy stuff before that. My advice would be just try to do one simple thing at a time. Like getting those drum levels how you want them. If you're strongly motivated to get the hang of something then you'll crack it however hard you may think it is. You will. And when you have the talented JazzCat to help ... well who could ask for more?

If you get stuck just ask away.
Best regards,
JohnG.

P.S. Oh and sleepless nights don't help the learning process. Get some sleep.
No MIDI file is worth losing sleep over.

[JazzCat]

John said:
Oh and sleepless nights don't help the learning process. Get some sleep.

------
Oh don't I wish!!

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John said:
Who are you trying to kid about Cakewalk, JazzCat? Pull the other leg it's got bells on it!
----
I swear, I'm not pulling your leg. I'm stuck in Voyetra RPD and I put up with the things it lacks in favor of possible other features because when I open a prg, I want to be able to get something accomplished rather than waste time fighting with relearning a new program.
I don't understand a lot of Cakewalk's terminology so even if I'm looking right at the feature I need, I don't recognize it!

Had I known Cakewalk I would have given Shyam step-by-step instructions on how to do what he wanted.

=============
John said:
And you have charm, humour and politeness to boot.

Ha ha ha ha ha! You don't know me very well, do ya!! LOL!!

[JohnG]

Well enough, I think, to have made that comment, albeit from a distance.

Sorry to hear you had a bad night.
Yeh, insomnia tell me about it! Fortunately, at the moment, it's pretty good.
For me it's dependant upon having sufficient time to wind down before head hits pillow.
I imagine for you too. If your head is buzzing forget sleep. Eh?

Yeah, I know what you mean about familiarity with a prog it's why I stick mostly to XGworks for basic set-up but sometimes move to Cakewalk for a few specifics that it does well. I'd never dream of editing detailed MIDI commands in list view in anything other than XGworks for instance.

What I'll do is fire up Cakewalk and look at how you enter XG commands for him. But I got distracted with summat else.

Hey ho!
Time to do some work.
All the best,
JohnG.