Piano roll note on-click preview bug

[Teesmo]

Hi, I'm currently using the Logic Pro trial (10.7.5), as I'm looking for a DAW that suits me best for orchestral music (been using Fl Studio to make EDM for 3 years).
After having finished my template, I was about to start using the piano roll but encountered a few issues (according to other Logic Pro users, it's not supposed to behave like it does). Here is a description of those 2 issues:

1) When using the pencil tool, and adding/clicking on existing notes to the piano roll, the "note preview" only lasts for a short duration (preview as in what you hear when dropping a new note in the piano roll or clicking on an existing one) although the note is long, using a long articulation and my click also being long. (happens too if I load a new project with the default electric piano loaded in)

2) If I edit CC1 (modulation/dynamics) in the piano roll, and play the midi region, it seems like the note preview I talked about above is locked to the lowest CC1 value in the automation (making it impossible to preview correctly), even if I play the midi region again and pause when CC1 is up at high values (the playback itself is fine though). The only way I can get the preview back to a "normal" CC1 value is to end the midi region with a high CC1 and let the playback pointer go past the midi region. What I've done:

- Add a few notes in the piano roll -> preview is normal

- Edit CC1 -> preview is normal

-Playback the midi region -> preview plays at the lowest CC1 value in my automation (for example 32 if it's the minimum of my CC1 automation graph)

-Playback the midi region and pause at a moment where CC1 = 127 (for example) -> preview still plays at the said minimum

-Playback the midi region and let the pointer go past the midi region -> preview plays at the last CC1 value in the midi region

 

Any idea of what is causing these issues? The green button at the top of the piano roll is on, and the red one is off. 

Thanks in advance

[des99]

40 minutes ago, Teesmo said:

1) When using the pencil tool, and adding/clicking on existing notes to the piano roll, the "note preview" only lasts for a short duration (preview as in what you hear when dropping a new note in the piano roll or clicking on an existing one) although the note is long, using a long articulation and my click also being long. (happens too if I load a new project with the default electric piano loaded in)

Yes, it's so you can hear the pitch. If the note lasted 12 bars, do you really want to hear it for that amount of time when you enter a note? 😉

42 minutes ago, Teesmo said:

2) If I edit CC1 (modulation/dynamics) in the piano roll, and play the midi region, it seems like the note preview I talked about above is locked to the lowest CC1 v

The note will play the note. The instrument will be at whatever modulation value you last sent a CC1 event to it. A modulation event, and a note event are two completely different things. All synths/MIDI instruments behave like this. The note preview is simply to help you add notes, it's not intended to accurately play the musical intent at any given point in time.

I'd really need to see a video to understand the behaviour your experiencing in playback, but the instrument should play with whatever the current modulation setting is (ie, the last CC1 event it received, even if that was ten bars ago), and when you play a note, that's what you'll hear - the current note, with whatever the instrument is currently set too based on the last CC1 event it received.

[Teesmo]

23 minutes ago, des99 said:

Yes, it's so you can hear the pitch. If the note lasted 12 bars, do you really want to hear it for that amount of time when you enter a note? 😉

Thank you for your answer:)

You're right, it's not that bad, good to know it's not a bug though.

28 minutes ago, des99 said:

I'd really need to see a video to understand the behaviour your experiencing in playback, but the instrument should play with whatever the current modulation setting is (ie, the last CC1 event it received, even if that was ten bars ago), and when you play a note, that's what you'll hear - the current note, with whatever the instrument is currently set too based on the last CC1 event it received.

I'm experiencing absolutely no issue at playback, only when previewing notes; in the picture I linked, even if I pause when CC1 is at 127, the preview will sound like 0. 
I did open Kontakt to directly look at the "dynamics" knob automated, and it seems like during playback it follows the CC1 automation correctly, but when I pause playback it directly goes back to the lowest CC value available in the automation (here 0) regardless of where/when I pause playback.
My question would then be; why is Kontakt receiving a min(CC1) message whenever I pause playback?

[des99]

Just now, Teesmo said:

I'm experiencing absolutely no issue at playback, only when previewing notes; in the picture I linked, even if I pause when CC1 is at 127, the preview will sound like 0. 

There, it looks like your playhead is at the beginning (and actually even before there are any automation events... Logic is therefore probably chasing the CC events to reset it to what it should be where the playhead is.

Just now, Teesmo said:

My question would then be; why is Kontakt receiving a min(CC1) message whenever I pause playback?

When you pause playback, Kontakt should retain the "current/last" value it received, that's what most instruments would do - unless Logic is somehow sending a CC1 event when you pause it (which I think is unlikely). And when you preview an event, Logic is only sending that note event. If this is not happening, it could be some combination of settings like chasing CC events - I'll check the behaviour with Kontakt here and see if I can see if anything is going on...

[Teesmo]

46 minutes ago, des99 said:

There, it looks like your playhead is at the beginning (and actually even before there are any automation events... Logic is therefore probably chasing the CC events to reset it to what it should be where the playhead is.

Sorry for the confusion, the CC1 automation should have started at the beginning of the region, and the playhead was not meaningful here. 

 

48 minutes ago, des99 said:

When you pause playback, Kontakt should retain the "current/last" value it received, that's what most instruments would do - unless Logic is somehow sending a CC1 event when you pause it (which I think is unlikely). And when you preview an event, Logic is only sending that note event. If this is not happening, it could be some combination of settings like chasing CC events - I'll check the behaviour with Kontakt here and see if I can see if anything is going on...

Here's a video of the issue, note preview isn't shown in the video but it directly relates to what you can see happening with the dynamics knobs whenever I pause the playback, also notice how the dynamics knob doesn't reset to 0 when I pause the playback when the playhead is outside the midi region. 

https://we.tl/t-N8mbaNycZk

[des99]

Hmm, yeah, that's weird - is it only on that Kontakt instrument you see this behaviour, or does it also happen with other Kontakt instruments?

In that particular instrument, does the dynamics respond to CC1 by default, or did you have to MIDI learn that knob manually?

[Teesmo]

16 minutes ago, des99 said:

Hmm, yeah, that's weird - is it only on that Kontakt instrument you see this behaviour, or does it also happen with other Kontakt instruments?

Happens on the other instruments from this Kontakt library, and even in a library hosted in Sine Player, I don't think the plugin/library is responsible for this.

Also, CC11 (Expression) works as expected, there's no preview issue with it: if I put the playhead at a point where CC11 is at 127, it will preview the notes I click at CC11 127. So the issue comes from CC1.

 

24 minutes ago, des99 said:

In that particular instrument, does the dynamics respond to CC1 by default, or did you have to MIDI learn that knob manually?

Dynamics respond to CC1 by default in both my Kontakt and Sine Player Libraries, I also checked their behavior in FL Studio and I don't have that issue with CC1. 

[des99]

Ok, so the fact it happens outside of Kontakt rules that out, and that it happens with different products suggests it's Logic - or possibly something in your project - doing this. That's good to know and rules some things out.

Unfortunately, I don't have the libraries you're using, but I'll check with some others.

If you go to File -> Project Settings -> MIDI -> Chase and untick "Control Changes", does this change the behaviour at all?

Also, another thing to try is to unplug your MIDI controller, just in case it's sending mod wheel (CC1) events when you click stop. (There are ways to verify the MIDI traffic to investigate that kind of thing.)

Another thing to try is Logic -> Control Surfaces -> Bypass All Control Surfaces, just to see if any control surface behaviour is causing this too.

[JakobP]

Also make sure you haven't checked cc1 for software instruments in "reset messages" in Logics midi settings... Reset Messages settings in Logic Pro

[des99]

21 minutes ago, JakobP said:

Also make sure you haven't checked cc1 for software instruments in "reset messages" in Logics midi settings..

Thanks, I should have also remembered to say that!

[Teesmo]

44 minutes ago, des99 said:

Ok, so the fact it happens outside of Kontakt rules that out, and that it happens with different products suggests it's Logic - or possibly something in your project - doing this. That's good to know and rules some things out.

Unfortunately, I don't have the libraries you're using, but I'll check with some others.

If you go to File -> Project Settings -> MIDI -> Chase and untick "Control Changes", does this change the behaviour at all?

Also, another thing to try is to unplug your MIDI controller, just in case it's sending mod wheel (CC1) events when you click stop. (There are ways to verify the MIDI traffic to investigate that kind of thing.)

Another thing to try is Logic -> Control Surfaces -> Bypass All Control Surfaces, just to see if any control surface behaviour is causing this too.

Unfortunately none of this works, I also don’t have my midi controller plugged in currently but I’ll check if the same happens with it tomorrow. 
how to show a list of midi events in Logic?

25 minutes ago, JakobP said:

Also make sure you haven't checked cc1 for software instruments in "reset messages" in Logics midi settings... Reset Messages settings in Logic Pro

I was just checking that, and everything is unticked 

[Teesmo]

Update:

-On a blank project, the issue doesn't occur until I draw or record CC1 events (that means even if I tweak the mod wheel (CC1) on my midi controller, as long as it's not recorded there will be no problem).

-When there are CC1 events though, midi controller or not the issue will occur. If I pause playback, CC1 goes to 0 and even if I put it back up with the mod wheel it will go back to 0 the next time I pause playback. 

-I did open the list editor, and it doesn't seem like there's a CC1 0 event here, or is there another way to monitor midi events?

[Teesmo]

Fix: Selecting "No Reset" in the track inspector solves the issue. 
 

Before that though, I did reset Logic Pro's settings to default and nothing changed, so why or how Logic Pro is sending CC1 reset messages will unfortunately remain a mystery. This may be linked to the trial, in which case I'll probably find out when purchasing it.