Gate length is ignored if micro-move is on

[sean-3086]

Bug Description

This is a multi-bug report, but they’re connected.

I am sending to MIDI OUT.

0. If both gate length and micro-move are set as an FX on a note, then gate length is ignored. Thus you cannot have a slightly delayed and very short note. At all. This is definitely a bug.

1. Furthermore, if you record notes from MIDI IN (I am doing so to send to MIDI OUT), note length is not recorded as gate length at all. Instead, the note is always quantized to OFF on the next slot. This is bad for multiple reasons. First, it ignores gate length, so you can’t record short notes. Second, the OFF unnecessarily takes up an entire slot, often forcing spillage. That’s bad. Instead you could have just quantized the MIDI note to q100 gate length at the previous note, thus killing it before the next note was reached (saving an OFF).

2. If you enter notes via MIDI, to send to MIDI OUT, the notes do NOT get an OFF at all! So when they are played, if there is not a follow-on note, they go on forever. I understand this is the expectation for the sample player instruments, but it’s terrible for MIDI. Furthermore, entering an OFF is surprisingly difficult. I would suggest the following: if a NOTE OFF is received in a cell that was not the cell that produced the most recent NOTE ON, then an OFF is entered. Thus you could play a note (NOTE ON), hold down the key, scroll down to where you want the note to end, and let go of the key to enter the OFF.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enter a single note from MIDI.
2. Set both the gate length and the micro-move.
3. Play the song.
4. Note that the gate length is ignored, and the note continues to play.

Occurrence / Frequency

Always

Found in Firmware

• Version: 1.9.1
• Build: 1138

Attachments

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[miropoly]

Hi @sean-3086 , thanks for the detailed report!

True—Gate Length and Micromove shouldn’t be used together. They are “conceptually” different: Gate shortens the note within the step, and by definition (see FX Description), it’s not intended to be used across multiple steps. So using both together leads to conflicts and is not supported. To achieve note of any length you can use Micromove on start and end of the note.

Secondly, OFF is by design used to end notes, and it does apply to MIDI OUT. OFF steps can also include Micromove, so they are not necessarily quantized. I will remove “…breaking quantized note length recording” from the title as this is achieved with Micromove. Please double-check all Config > Recording options, as they may influence this behavior.

Also, for future reports, please avoid combining multiple bugs in one topic—it makes tracking and resolution much harder. See How to report bugs for guidelines.

Thanks for your understanding—let me know if anything is unclear. I’ll go ahead and close this topic for now.

[sean-3086]

I have to strongly disagree with your assessments here, and ask that these be reconsidered as bugs. The Tracker’s handling of short and quantized MIDI notes is poor.

Gate shortens the note within the step, and by definition (see FX Description), it’s not intended to be used across multiple steps. So using both together leads to conflicts and is not supported. To achieve note of any length you can use Micromove on start and end of the note.

This is not true AFAIK. Let’s say I want to enter a staccato MIDI note which starts 0.1 after the step boundary, and lasts for 0.1 of a step. So it should end at 0.2 of the same step boundary. To the best of my knowledge, the only way I can notionally enter this would be to enter the note with a micromove of 0.1 and a gate of 0.1. But on the Tracker the gate is ignored and is pushed to the end of the step if micromove is also included.

In short: there is no way to enter short, slightly delayed notes on the Tracker as far as I know. This can only be described as a bug, and a pretty serious one at that.

Blockquote OFF is by design used to end notes, and it does apply to MIDI OUT.

There are three ways to end a MIDI note on the tracker. (1) Start a new note on the same track. (2) Enter an OFF on the same track. (3) Set the gate length of the note.

I cannot use #1 or #2 for a staccato note. I have to use #3. But to the best of my knowledge, if I want to enter a staccato note in real time, it gets quantized to the step length, even if gate length is included as an FX on the step.

In short: there is no way to enter a note shorter than the step length in real time.

Additionally, #2 is terribly wasteful. Even if I am entering MIDI notes and wish to quantize notes to the step length, I still have to waste a step with OFF, even if the gate length is available as an FX on the step! That wastes half the step memory at the limit. Instead, if it’s a quantized single step note, you could just set its gate length to 100, which would eliminate the need for the wasteful OFF.