Notes appear an octave too high

Trouble with Synthesia, your keyboard, or adapter? Think you found a bug?
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Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

Now there's a ghost in my system, all notes are shown an octave too high. What can be wrong? This does not happen with another MIDI software I have, Notation Composer.
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Is the range of your keyboard set in the Settings... Music Input... ?
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

It was set to 88 keys. This has been very strange, at one time the notes were shifted up an octave - that is to say, the keys that become grey on the Synthesia keybed, reflecting which notes you are pressing - at the next time the song just progressed, even though it was set to the waiting mode. At still other times, the song stopped when I played even the right notes, contrary to what's supposed to happen, of course the song should progress when hitting the right keys and stop otherwise.

I wondered if the cable was the problem, or the USB ports in my laptop, it is after all six years old, approximately. So I plugged in my MIDI to USB adapter, then everything worked fine. I switched back to "pure" USB cable, and then everything was back to normal.

Apart from a very synthetic echo sometimes when pressing notes, not always, which is strange. Still I had the Microsoft GS synth off and only the piano as input and output. Had to have it as output as well, because I want Synthesia to play the right hand track while I'm practising the bass track and vice versa. The echo is there, both when using the MIDI-USB adapter and the USB cable alone.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Just to double-check, are you using Synthesia 9 while this problem is happening? In older versions, there was a known issue where even a full 88-key keyboard might have its input shifted (even though that doesn't make any sense).

Otherwise, the "very synthetic echo" sounds like something you might be able to fix by turning your keyboard's "Local" setting to "Off".
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

Thank you Nicholas. I was using version listed as 9.0.2482 (I think) then I downloaded the latest development version, which identifies itself as 9.0.2478. Just copied the dev over the existing Synthesia.exe, isn't that the way to do it by the way?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Yeah, you can actually run the dev versions from anywhere you like (you don't have to overwrite the official version). If the input shifting is still happening with either 9 or the dev version, that might be a new bug. Hrm.

Otherwise, did setting "Local" to "Off" solve the synthetic echo problem?
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

Yes, Local Off solved the echo problem. However the volume is much lower that way, which I can't afford to let happen as the internal sound engine of the PX-5S isn't that powerful. I play through headphones, the PX-5S has no internal speakers.

And Merry Christmas to you and other fellow Synthesia users.
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

Just wanted to let you know, that it seems I solved the problem by unchecking MIDI.AllowProgramChange in the configurator.
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

Update to the problem (for the worse, unfortunately.)

Synthesia has not entirely stopped messing with my piano. It looks like the same voice is on, as the one I had set the piano to and is the default setting, ConcertGrandPiano. However for some reasons Synthesia decided to layer the piano with strings and there seems to be no way stopping it from happening.

Now it must be mentioned that the Casio PX-5S works with socalled zones, one for each sound. The user can layer up to four voices or sounds (from now on I will use these terms interchangeably) using any of the zones for one voice each. The strange thing is, that the piano reports that only zone 1, which represents the grand piano sound, is on, while all the other three are shown as off in the piano's menu display.

Strings are on zone 2 and in Synthesia's settings, the voice is still Acoustic Grand Piano. This means Synthesia is playing strings, in spite of the string voice being reported as off on the piano and there are no messages in Syntesia about strings being played. I didn't even know Synthesia was capable of layering sounds.

I've tried everything I can think of. In the MIDI Data menu, I've set Instrument Change Messages to Filtered-out, as well as Sys-Ex messages and Bank Select Messages. On the Casio music forums, I was advised to turn on something called RX filter on the piano, which is supposed to filter out program and control changes. It didn't change a thing, whether RX filter was on or off.

This is quite annoying and until a way has been found to stop Synthesia from meddling with the settings of my piano, the program is pretty much useless to me. Which is sad, because it's a good software in many ways, based on a good idea.

I don't know if I'm the only Synthesia user (in the world) who has the Casio PX-5S. However this particular stage piano might become very popular and has maybe already done so. The PX-350 is quite popular also among Synthesia users I believe, and because the PX-5S is essentially the same piano with a few added features, I'm wondering if the same problems could arise on the PX-350 as well, so this might be worth looking into.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Worst-case scenario, any of these problems can be solved through brute-force. You can use MIDI-OX to filter any/all messages with a fantastic amount of flexibility. (If you so choose, ONLY note on/off messages could be allowed through, etc.)

Follow the first 5 steps there, then do the following:

6. In MIDI-OX, go to Options, "MIDI Filter..."
7. Check the "Filter out Data as well as Display" box.
8. Experiment with checking the various boxes, click OK, and try things out in Synthesia (no need to close or restart anything, the changes should apply as soon as you click OK).

The best part about this solution is that it doesn't have anything to do with the device on either end. Synthesia and your keyboard can both be set to completely default settings and MIDI-OX takes care of all the heavy lifting of only letting through exactly what you want.
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

Thank you Nicholas, not sure if I'll try it out though, and just go back to the good old paper sheets! It seems my new piano is more unpredictable in MIDI connections, than the old one, the Yamaha P85, not just with Synthesia, also with Notation Composer as mentioned earlier. Maybe by trying to make the PX-5S more flexible, they made it more vulnerable to the outside world.

Tell me, does MIDI-Ox work with other programs as well?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Pianotehead wrote:Tell me, does MIDI-Ox work with other programs as well?
Yep, it's a simple pass-through that should work with anything. The reason a virtual driver like LoopBe1 is involved is to let one piece of software send MIDI events to a "fake" device that another piece of software can pick up. It looks something like this:

Your keyboard's output ------> Any piece of software including Synthesia ----[LoopBe1]---> MIDI-OX -------> Your keyboard's input
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

MIDI-OX denies Synthesia access to my piano. So far I've found out that Bank Select MSB and Bank Select LSB are the events that are the culprits. I forced Composer to always choose (ctrl0, ctrl32) = (64,0) = (MSB,LSB). Can I do something similar in Synthesia, force it to always set the most and least significant bit to 64 and 0, respectively? That seems to prevent the strings from being played.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Pianotehead wrote:MIDI-OX denies Synthesia access to my piano.
Don't open your keyboard for input in MIDI-OX. Instead, only open the LoopBe1 port for input in MIDI-OX and let Synthesia deliver everything from your keyboard.
Pianotehead wrote:Can I do something similar in Synthesia, force it to always set the most and least significant bit to 64 and 0, respectively?
If you check the Advanced section under Settings (not in the Config tool) there is a "Bank Select Messages" setting there. But the default is "Filtered-out" so bank select messages contained in songs already shouldn't be getting passed along. Had you changed that setting previously?
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

I set up the LoopBe + MIDI-OX and filtered out Bank Select MSB and LSB. Seems to do the job, thanks. The similar option in Synthesia stopped it from changing to GM Piano 1, but the program kept layering strings over the piano voice. Ran the new setup (according to your instructions in another thread) and all looks fine now, thanks.

Maybe I should view this MIDI in MusicXML and see if it's different in any way. It's a handmade MIDI, from Composer. I didn't think of trying the Gmajor MIDIs, maybe I'll do that in the next piano session.
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

A new problem, Synthesia won't play anything. I can play myself, but when choosing Watch And Listen Only - no sound. Same when playing one track, setting the other to Played by Synthesia. Don't know what happened, I've reviewed the settings over and over again.

Edit

This might be of interest. I logged the activity and all you see is what was logged after starting Synthesia.
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SynthLog2013_1230.txt
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Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

EDIT. Think I've found a workaround, by setting all zones to GrPnoConcert, thereby forcing channels 1-4 to choose Grand Piano. Removed the Cakewalk file, not sure of the copyright. The guys at the PX-5S Facebook group say the file is only meant for Cakewalk.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I've been meaning to get back to this topic for a couple days now, sorry.

It sounds like you solved something. Was there anything else still broken? Do things work again with Watch and Listen Only?
Pianotehead
Posts: 325

Post by Pianotehead »

No problem, just hope you have been enjoying the holidays with friends and family and don't feel bad for not being on these forums everyday. Yes, the Watch and listen only option works and there is nothing else wrong. Case closed!
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