Conference napalm::commusic_v1

1831.0. "You can't tuna fish..." by WEFXEM::COTE (The Unmitigated Gaul...) Wed Dec 28 1988 09:12

    It's all for sale! I hate MIDI! I want a kazoo....
                         
    
                              *    *    *
    
    
    ...ever been beat up by your technology? I was, BADLY, in a scenario
    worthy of "Life's Most Embarrasing Moments"....
    
    At last Thursday's gig I noticed my MKS-30's data light was on even
    when I wasn't playing, yet the mchine was silent. A little trouble
    shooting revealed that a nudge of the bend wheel on my Mirage
    (master controller) would kill it for a while. No biggie, I thought...
    
    Third set. The rest of the band finishes their tune and I'm supposed
    to open up "The Flame" by Cheap Trick. The guitarist is changing
    into his acoustic guitar but that's no problem, I often open this
    tune up alone on the MKS and he catches up...
    
    Sooooooo.... Edd starts comping along on the Asus2-Bsus4 bit. He
    sees Ray start to come in and immediately back off and grab his
    tuning keys. The bass player does likewise, hits a note and backs
    off like it bit him...
    
    "Where are they?" thinks Edd as the approach the chorus. They're
    all looking at each other, then looking at me, then at the tuner,
    then back at me. Ray's madly sliding a capo up and down the neck,
    the sound man has his jacket over his face and our singer is looking
    at me like I got 2 heads...
    
    "Edd, you're outta tune." says Ray. Great, I'm outta tune, they
    can't come in, and since I'm the only one playing I can't drop
    out!! The MKS is flat, horribly flat, and I can't do a thing
    about it!
    
    Argh.
    
    I can tell when scales are outta tune, but can't pick up on the
    difference between A440 or A449 without a reference. It seems my
    MKS had responded to part of a pitch bend message and never returned
    to ground 0. As luck would have it, it was about 1.5 semitones
    off. Since I opened the tune, I never picked up on the whole mess
    until I heard "everyone else" try to come in outta tune. Since the
    tune was already started, I was left with little choice but to slog
    it out backed by only the drums.
    
    Eventually (and so quickly they deserve an award) the band retunes 
    to my {ahem} "standard". Of course, this is just the point where I 
    remember the MKS had been responding to phantom pitch bends. "A-HA!!, 
    I can fix this!" I whack the wheel as soon as I have a hand free and 
    the MKS returns to the proper tuning. You know, the one the rest of 
    the band *was* at about a minute ago? Now I'm sharp, horribly sharp.
    I'm apparently growing a third head, the sound man is cowering in
    the men's room and I haven't got a prayer of getting in tune with
    the band.
    
    Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, "The Flame" went out
    and the few people in the club actually applauded!
    
    ...Friday morning found Edd frantically pouring over the manual
    in hope of disabling the pitch bend parameter on the MKS.
    
    Edd

RE < Note 1831.0 by WEFXEM::COTE "The Unmitigated Gaul..." >

	Doesn't the pitch bend have spring return?

	Dan

    >...spring return?
    
    Yeah, the wheel returns to center, but due to some mischief on the
    part of the MIDI-Gods the MKS never got the rest of the message...
    
    Edd

    I get this if (for example) I kill a sequence that has pitch bend
    commands in it.  In my case it's the S-10.  A quick hit on the pitch
    bend stick and it's fixed.  If you have a problem with this, put
    a pitch bend = 0 at the start of a sequence.  But, I've gotten so
    used to just hitting the stick that's it's not a problem.
    
    Steve

Funny, I  had  a  similar  problem at home last night - only it was with
     MIDI volume.   I started up a sequence and nothing came out.  All I
     could think was "oh  sh*t,  there  goes  my mixer." Then I realised
     that  the  previous sequence that I played  faded  out  using  MIDI
     volume.

/Mitch

    < Note 1831.4 by HPSRAD::NORCROSS "Open 7 Days a Week" >
>........Then I realised
>     that  the  previous sequence that I played  faded  out  using  MIDI
>     volume.

    I have several pieces that do that.  The first thing I tried was
    to insert a "controller #7=127" message in the first bar of those
    tracks.  That worked except if I went on to another piece.. those
    MIDI channels that had faded out in the previous piece were effectively
    disabled.  So NOW I insert the "#7=127" at the END of those tracks,
    and make sure that I let the piece play to the end.  This of course
    prevents inadvertent channel disabling..
    
    karl

    There's some real pratfalls related to MIDI volume.
    
    I once took my ESQ to a jam.  It wouldn't make a sound playing
    from the keyboard, but when I tried playing some sequences I had
    recorded, it worked fine.
    
    What happened was that before disconnecting it to take it to the jam,
    I had been using it with my RD-300 and at the time I unplugged it,
    the RD-300 had set the ESQ's MIDI volume to 0.
    
    Apparently, it "remembers" the MIDI volume when you power it off.
    A non-feature if you ask me.
    
    Anyway, nothing short of a MIDI volume message would fix it and I
    didn't have anything capable of generating a MIDI volume message
    at the jam cause I left my RD-300 at home.
    
    	db
    
    p.s. Yes, I figured out some workarounds for the jam but I didn't
         actually use them cause I wanted to play mostly guitar anyway
    	 and this gave me a good excuse not to play keyboards.