[sdiy] MIDI, note off or note on with zero velocity?

[Richard Wentk]

I don't think you can generalise from an obvious bug in a synth that's nearly thirty years old now.

Nor can you generalise from errors, because you'll get hanging notes from most note off errors, not just stacked ones.

Musically, it's pretty damn useful to have multiple voices playing an identical line on the same channel. E.g. it's an easy way to fake a unison mode on synths that don't have one.

Ending notes is certainly an option. But it's not a requirement of the MIDI spec and I would never consider duplicated note offs a professional solution.

Richard

On 13 Jan 2013, at 19:07, "Colin f" <colin at colinfraser.com> wrote:

> 
> On 13 January 2013 14:28, Richard Wentk <richard at wentk.com> wrote:
>> If your sequencer sends two notes pn the same pitch with the same channel
> - which can happen - sending two note offs will kill both.
> 
> I would avoid supporting stacking of duplicate notes on a receiver.
> The behaviour is not defined in the MIDI spec, and there instruments which
> don't like it.
> The Yamaha TX802, for example, will assign an additional voice for a
> duplicated note-on.
> The first note-off will gate-off the first assigned voice, but then it
> thinks that note is off, so further matching note-offs are ignored, leaving
> a hanging note.
> Any synth might receive a single bit error in a note number which could
> cause a wrong note to be played. If that note has also been sent correctly
> you'd have a situation where the synth thinks a note has been played twice,
> but it's never going to receive a second note off. Playing and releasing the
> hanging note on the master keyboard won't clear it, since the new note-on
> would be stacked.
> I'd say best practice is for a note-off to end that note on any voice on
> that channel/note combination.
> 
> Cheers,
> Colin f
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Synth-diy mailing list
> Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy