Practice the Melody only resumes on key release, counts errors on press

Trouble with Synthesia, your keyboard, or adapter? Think you found a bug?
When describing problems, always mention your OS and game version (shown at the bottom of the title screen).

If your keyboard has USB or MIDI ports, there is a tremendously high chance (>99%) it will work with Synthesia. See what you'll need on the keyboards page.
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bgn_muz
Posts: 2

Post by bgn_muz »

Hi,

Since some time the "Practice the Melody" mode changed its behavior for midi keyboard.
The melody is only continued when the key is released, not pressed.
When pressing the key, the melody keeps paused, and the Errors counter increments.
I have Alesis QX49 MIDI keyboard controller connectied via USB to iPad mini.
App version 10.7.5567, but problem also occured in previous version.
When using on-screen ipad keyboard, the behavior is normal, i.e. melody continues on each screen touch.
It used to be fine intially for several weeks with exactly the same settings (keyboard, cable, etc.).
Only it changed recently.
I thought there was a setting in the app that was accidentally changed, but tried to reset the settings without effect.
Also tried resseting the keyboard to factory settings.

--
Best Regards,
Lukas
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, do you have something looping back into itself? If each keypress were somehow generating two Note Ons, that would describe the behavior.

What does your setup look like on the Settings screen? In the Music Input and Music Output lists, which devices do you have enable and what does it say for each on the right-hand side?
bgn_muz
Posts: 2

Post by bgn_muz »

Hi,

Thank you for your quick reply.

I'm attaching the screenshots of the input/output devices and the settings for the QX49.
Also I made a short movie of this behavior, please find it under this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4V5QDtfaic
Interestingly if the notes are tight one after another so they overlap on the display, then pressing the key actually passes two subsequent notes.
Is that matching the "each keypress were somehow generating two Note Ons" you refer to?
Do you think it may be related to keyboard itself, perhaps there is a related setting there I could have accidentally switched?

Also I'm connected using a single Lightning-to-USB-B cable, without any hubs or adapters.
And the keyboard is powered from iPad.

--
Best Regards,
Lukas
Attachments
input qx49.jpg
input qx49.jpg (6.91 MiB) Viewed 1943 times
input output devices.jpg
input output devices.jpg (6.88 MiB) Viewed 1943 times
Bavi_H
Posts: 116

Post by Bavi_H »

My Yamaha PSR-225 keyboard has a "Dual" mode. When the Dual mode is on, playing a single key will make two instrument sounds, for example, a piano and a violin. It also sends the same note on two different MIDI channels on its MIDI OUT port. When I played Synthesia with my keyboard's Dual mode turned on, I get the same problem you are having.

I looked in the Alesis QX49 QuickStart Guide (from the Alesis QX49 page Downloads section), and I can see the Alesis QX49 has three "Zones". If you have multiple Zones enabled and set up for overlapping key ranges, that could be causing your keyboard to send the same note on two different MIDI channels each time you press a key and cause the problem you see in Synthesia.

The QuickStart Guide is very brief, but I think you can disable or enable each zone by pressing ZONE GRP then LOOP(ZONE 1), REWIND(ZONE 2), or FFWD(ZONE 3).
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

That sounds very promising! And I don't recall ever hearing the exact explanation about Dual mode, either. (It was still a vague "sometimes a keyboard sends more than one note for some reason".)

Now I'll have one more thing to quickly check in a keyboard manual before replying to email. Thanks for both explanations!
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