[Ardour-Users] Wokflow Was: more input sought on other MIDI sequencer behaviour

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 2011-06-23 at 09:57 +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
> Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> writes:
> 
> > another similar question has arisen which i think can best be settled
> > by comparison with existing sequencers. the question is: what happens
> > when you split an existing region in the middle of a note. at present
> > i can see 3 possibilities:
> >
> >    1) the earlier region sends a note off at its right (later)
> > boundary, the later region never sends any note commands related to
> > the split note
> >    2) the earlier region sends a note off at its right (later)
> > boundary, the later region sends a note on at its left (earlier)
> > boundary
> >    3) neither region sends any extra note on or note off commands
> >
> > there may be others.
> 
> I am aware that you asked for "how do others do it" and not "how do you
> wish to have things done".
> 
> My personal take is that
> 
> a) cutting a region in two and pasting it back together should yield
> identical results
> b) pasting 4 bars of music one right after the other should yield the
> same result as having them written consecutively
> c) note-on requires note-off
> 
> Given all that, the behavior I want for editing usually is to split
> regions according to their note-on events, and to have the note-off
> events stay with their note-on events unmodified, even if it means that
> they will happen _after_ the end of the region.
> 
> Which means that when joining regions "without overlap", note-off events
> of the left region might have to get sorted _behind_ note-on events of
> the right region.
> 
> In a somewhat similar problem space, the music typesetter Lilypond has
> to deal with acciaccatura and appoggiatura, short upbeat phrases before
> the beat time, but written _after_ the bar supposedly indicating the
> beat time, and before the beat itself.  If you paste bars starting with
> such phrases together with other material, those phrases have to be
> extended into the time of the preceding material.
> 
> In a similar vein, when creating a drum loop, you can usually paste Midi
> material end to end, but you can't paste the corresponding audio segment
> end to end since the last notes of the loop sound out into the next bar
> and can't be cut off.
> 
> So for a lot of manipulations, I would consider it an almost necessary
> convenience to have the concept of having events/sound extending past
> the nominal start/end of the region.
> 
> If you have that, you can just keep note-on/note-off together unmolested
> when splitting regions, based on the time of the note-on event.  Being
> able to manually sort even complete notes to the other side of a region
> split (corresponding with an acciaccatura/appoggiatura) would be a boon.
> 
> But the principal point would be that the region start/end for the
> purpose of aligning and splitting need not enclose all events/sound
> associated with the region.
> 
> I don't know how other sequencers do it.  And frankly, I don't care.


Full ACK!

MIDI events aren't audio recordings. I also don't care for sequencers I
don't use and wish to get the best workflow for my needs, if possible by
the default settings. I'm not working professional in different studios,
just do home recording.

OTOH I know this situation: People who do jobs, working in different
studios, wish to have the most common workflow, even if it might not be
optimal.

I changed the thread, because I won't spoil the original request.

For my needs it would be good if Qtractor and Ardour3, regarding to this
issue, would have the same default behaviour, since both will be the
sequencers I'll use in the future.