Sound length & midi files

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Stormain
Posts: 2

Post by Stormain »

Hello,

Apologies for my unprofessional music vocabulary, I will try to describe my question in simple terms.

Some midi files I load into Synthesia produce a nice, long sound that can be heard even after I release the key on my instrument, while with some other midi files, the note sound completely stops after releasing the key. There seems to be no setting for this kind of thing anywhere in the program, so I am assuming this is hardcoded into the files themselves. Is there any way to manipulate this behavior? I'd like to have that "Reverb" on all the songs I play.

Thanks in advance.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

It sounds like you may be talking about the sustain pedal. On a real piano, that pedal can be held to keep the sound of each note ringing after the key has been released.

It's relatively common for a MIDI author to add a "start holding the pedal down" message right at the beginning of the song and never release it. It seems to be used as a kind of reverb effect, like you described.

It should be straightforward to do the same using any of the free music editors out there (on Windows: MusInk, MuseScore, Finale Notepad, Sekaiju, Aria Maestosa, etc.)
Stormain
Posts: 2

Post by Stormain »

Ah, thank you. This sounds exactly like what is going on.
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