Steinway and Yamaha Piano off by +/- 18 cents!

I recorded some MIDI for these pianos and then bounced in place without bypassing the effects. Then I looked at the audio file in Flex Pitch. Almost all of the notes are sharp by as much as 18 cents. But a few notes were -18 cents flat!

 

What is going on?

What effects were on it? Also, no piano is perfectly in "tune". Even sampled instruments. Piano strings carry a lot of overtones and harmonics and that may effect what flex pitch is reading. On top of that, flex pitch is far from perfect! Try doing the same passage with a plan sine wave and no effects.

What effects were on it?

 

For both pianos I was just using the effects that load with the patch.

 

 

Also, no piano is perfectly in "tune". Even sampled instruments. Piano strings carry a lot of overtones and harmonics and that may effect what flex pitch is reading.

 

I took out the effects and the Yamaha gave me a C3 a whopping -36cents off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both pianos were mostly sharp by low teens with some flats by about the same.

 

Try doing the same passage with a plan sine wave and no effects.

 

I loaded up the EXS24 default sine wave. I removed all channel pressure from the region. I set all the velocities equal. And I still got notes that were on average sharp about 12 cents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? I always thought the pianos sounded weird, Now it seems like the whole EXS24 is screwed up. Could I somehow have changed some global setting?

 

Can somebody please see what Flex pitch gives you for a EXS24 sine wave? Try the notes in the octave below middle C.

Did you check your pitchbend?

Any stretch adjustment involved? (Although I am not sure ther such feature in EXS24)

No, there is no pitchbend data. No stretch.

Which MIDI controller (keyboard) are you using?

EMU 49.

You're on to something Atlas. It does seem to be controller related! But what is doing it? I went to the Event List and cleaned out the Channel Pressure events. Only notes remain.

Pianos are not tuned exactly to equal temperament. They can be tuned as much as -35 cents on the lowest note and +35 cents on the highest (they would sound out of tune if they weren't): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning

 

That doesn't explain the sine wave being out though.

I think Atlas is right that somehow the controller is at fault. But which CC is doing it?

Is there aftertouch vibrato going on?

The controller has aftertouch. And as far as I know, that becomes channel pressure. But I cleaned out those events from the MIDI region, leaving only notes. Do notes have extra information about their pitch??

The controller has aftertouch. And as far as I know, that becomes channel pressure. But I cleaned out those events from the MIDI region, leaving only notes. Do notes have extra information about their pitch??

 

Shouldn't do, no.

 

What about EXS automation? Anything been written there? Have you tried turning the read/write mode to "off"?

The channel strip says Read in black. Not in green.

There are a lot of things that can be automated. Quite possibly I screwed up something. I have been using this as a template forever. I always thought it sounded off even without recording. Just playing. I just created an empty instrument track. I put on the EXS. It plays sine waves. I played a few notes. In the event list I see Note, Rel Vel, and C-Press events. When I remove the C-Press events, all the notes are still sharp after bouncing in place and looking with Flex Pitch.

Have you tried unplugging your controller and manually drawing notes in the piano roll?

 

Just as a control experiment...

Yeah, I've tried a lot of things. Done a bunch of different experiments.

 

1) If I draw in sine wave notes they are pretty good. -1 to 2 cents sharp.

 

2) I turned down all the CC nobs on my controller. Most of them are assigned in the 70' s or 80' s. I couldn't hear any real difference in the pianos. But something I did did seem to get rid of all the really big deviations that were in the teens. (18 cents kinda things.)

 

3) But when I play in notes to the sine wave EXS, I am still getting a lot of 7 cents type deviations. Mostly sharps. I have no idea why this happens as there is nothing but notes in the event list.

 

4) I am trying to understand some of the more obscure automation settings. Such as EXS24: Pitch Bend Up. It was at 2. And EXS24: Pitch Bend down was at linked. Not sure if any of that matters. It seems somehow some of these are getting set automatically when I use my controller. Pitch bend up keeps returning to 2. And somehow Pitcher via Vel gets set. And it also maybe seems like if you have two notes overlapping, then that causes some shift. One of the big mysteries is why is the overall drift sharp. There are some flats, but 95% are sharps!

 

I'm 30 or so experiments in But I think it is some automation thingie. I just don't know what gets the ball rolling. New Instrument track. Default EXS24. Somehow it seems when I play a note on the controller that somehow sets automation things off. I somehow think it is not in the track, nor really in the controller, but somehow in the track once the controller has been used.

What about instruments other than EXS?

Omnisphere seems to work much better. Just the kind of small variations one would expect and no overall upward drift. For some reason, the EXS24 and the track automation misbehaves with my controller.

I opened up a new project from scratch. Added an instrument track. Added the EXS24 sine wave default. Why is Pitcher set to -12, Pitch Bend set to 2, and Pitcher via Vel set to Porta? I think that those are the things making everything sharp.

I opened up a new project from scratch. Added an instrument track. Added the EXS24 sine wave default. Why is Pitcher set to -12, Pitch Bend set to 2, and Pitcher via Vel set to Porta? I think that those are the things making everything sharp.

 

Yeah, if the glide time is longer than the note length, you'll get weirdly rising or falling pitch.

 

Weird that it defaults to that!

Edited September 7, 2014 by Rev. Juda$ Sleaze

Well, my workaround is just to avoid the EXS24 for a while till I get things sorted out. I'll be laying on the beach for a couple of weeks. So it might be a while before I get back to this thread. Thanks Rev.

No problem, enjoy the beach!

Have you tried with another Logic plugin, like the ES-2 or ES-1?

Have you tried with a different MIDI controller?

Have you tried with the Bypass all controllers?

UPDATE SEP 27:

 

Have you tried with another Logic plugin, like the ES-2 or ES-1?

Have you tried with a different MIDI controller?

Have you tried with the Bypass all controllers?

 

I just got back from vacation and got back to the project that got me involved in this business.

 

Here's the latest:

 

1) Create a simple MIDI region in the piano roll with just a few notes. Don't use the controller. (I used C3, D3, E3 (Roland standard!))

 

2) Add an instrument.

 

3) Bounce in place.

 

4) Use Flex Pitch to see how off the notes are.

 

Results:

 

a) Omnisphere default patch: just off by 1 or 2 cents and no sharp bias, ie what we would expect;

 

b) EXS24 Soprano Sax: just off by 1 or 2 cents and no sharp bias;

 

c) EXS24 default sine wave: all notes sharp by around 9 cents or more;

 

d) Sampletank3 FREE default piano: all notes sharp by around 9 cents! THIS SURPRISED ME

 

Have any of you guys tried to replicate this? My "rig" is pretty reliable and like shiny new. I have taken the controller out of the equation completely. My tentative conclusion is that a lot of samples/samplers have a sharp bias for some reason. I just don't understand how I can be the only person to have noticed this since there are plenty of guys who can hear when notes are sharp better than I.

 

UPDATE SEP 27:

Here's the latest:

 

1) Create a simple MIDI region in the piano roll with just a few notes. Don't use the controller. (I used C3, D3, E3 (Roland standard!))

 

2) Add an instrument.

 

3) Bounce in place.

 

4) Use Flex Pitch to see how off the notes are.

 

 

My default settings for EXS24

 

Using Melodyne on the audio file, I did both bounce project and exported the bounce in place audio file and got the same results in Melodyne.

 

C3

 

D3

 

E3

 

Melodyne for some odd reason has the numbers up one octave but notice all the ct are 0. I did see flex pitch had C3=4, D3=3 and E3=2 regarding cents.

UPDATE SEP 27:

 

Have you tried with another Logic plugin, like the ES-2 or ES-1?

Have you tried with a different MIDI controller?

Have you tried with the Bypass all controllers?

...

Have any of you guys tried to replicate this? My "rig" is pretty reliable and like shiny new. I have taken the controller out of the equation completely. My tentative conclusion is that a lot of samples/samplers have a sharp bias for some reason. I just don't understand how I can be the only person to have noticed this since there are plenty of guys who can hear when notes are sharp better than I.

 

Are you still running OS X 10.9.2? If so why not update to 10.9.5?

Have you tried resetting your pref files?

Thanks Atlas!

 

OK, maybe we can make some headway with this.

 

I updated my OS. Not sure if that makes any difference.

 

N.B., the Roland standard has middle C at C4. Yamaha has middle C at C3. You can change them in the Logic preferences>Display>General. The Roland standard is the more widely used, indeed almost universally so by non-MIDI people. And it is the one I use. Pretty sure you are using the Yamaha standard. So we will be off by one in our discussion.

 

My EXS24 default settings are exactly the same as yours. Thank god!

 

I did C, D, and E starting from the C one octave above middle C, at middle C, and one octave below. I don't have melodyne. I got very similar results as you for Roland C5, D5, E5 (+1 cent, 0 cents, 0 cents) and the octave at middle C, ie Roland C4 (+3 cents, +3 cents, +2 cents). But where everything went bad is one octave below middle C. There, all three notes were sharp by more than 10 cents. If you can verify that you get the same results, then we will maybe have something interesting to tell the Logic Pro world!

But where everything went bad is one octave below middle C. There, all three notes were sharp by more than 10 cents. If you can verify that you get the same results, then we will maybe have something interesting to tell the Logic Pro world!

 

C2

D2

E2

 

Notice all cents are at zero in Melodyne.

For Flex Pitch the cents are as follows

C2=15, D2=11, E2=9

 

So there's nothing wrong with EXS24, as in dropping pitch in anyway.

The issue is Flex Pitch determining cents.

And if I may, it just doesn't make cents

I accept that the Flex Pitch doesn't work correctly.

 

But I also think that the Logic pianos are off. They never sounded right to me. Can one of you Melodyne guys see what Melodyne thinks of the Logic pianos?