Ableton Forum

I don't know if this is a "feature" or bug or whatever, but I have noticed the following:

If you play any instrument (either recording a clip or otherwise), it sounds as if it has a zero release time regardless of whether it does or not - i.e. as soon as you take your finger off the key the sound cuts off (although effects such as reverb continue as they should).

When you play back the clip, however, the release sounds exactly as it should.

Imagine you're playing a synth pad with a long release, which should fade slowly as soon as you've released the note. You record a clip but instead of the notes releasing nicely, they stop dead at the "note off" point.

You replay the clip, and this time the notes slowly fade away with a long release.

The effect of this is that I can't be sure of what a synth part or melody sounds like until I've recorded a clip and then played it back.

Am I missing something very obvious here? Is there a workaround?

If you clever, experienced Ableton Live users can help out a one week Newbie, I'd be very grateful.

Many thanks

I've never noticed anything like that.

What are using as your master keyboard?

Some older Roland keyboards, like D-50, Alpha Junos, A80s etc, send the midi message 'all notes off' the moment you release all the keys on the keyboard. This confuses the heck out of many VSTi devices and will often cause notes to be cut-off immediately on letting go of the keyboard. I don't think Live records this midi message so any playback of a recorded clip is unaffected.

The only way to sort this out is either use a more modern keyboard or filter out the all notes off command in something like Midiox. I wish Live would filter this out as standard like Reason, Cubase and others.

all notes off is a really useful function, when used properly...

Machinate wrote:all notes off is a really useful function, when used properly...

Yes, it is.

But Roland's literal translation of the midi spec all those years ago can make for all sorts of problems with the newer VSTi devices.

Cubase has a tick box in their preferences section that allowed you to filter this out if you needed to. Very useful for us sad people still using 20 year gear.

Thanks for the help folks.

Yes, I'm using a 17(?) year old Roland D10. Thing is, I don't have this problem with FL 6, the sounds continue after releasing the keys just as they should... Which makes me think the problem lies within Live and not the keyboard (unless of course the keyboard midi issue is only uncovered by Live).

And I might have this wrong (I'm new to MIDI as well, having spent the last ten years entering musical notes via the mouse!) but when you release all the keys/a key isn't the "all notes off/note off" midi message meant to be sent?

I hate the thought of Live not being as ideal as I want it to be.

I don't know about the D-10, but the D-50 certainly sends 'all notes off'. It shouldn't though, its Roland incorrect interpretation of the midi spec, and there is little you can do about it. They changed it shortly after the D-50 was released I believe. Maybe you can turn it off in the midi config section of the D-10. I think the D-70 allows for this.

Various third party midi filters were sold to get around this problem, but they seem to have gone now.

It may be that Fruity's own instruments ignore 'all notes off'. You may want to try using the same VSTi in Live and Fruity to see if they are indeed different.

I use midiox to filter my D-50's output. This works fine.

Tony

Yeah they do act differently - in FL6 there is no abrupt cut-off.

I will definitely give Midiox a go as that seems to be the best solution.

Many thanks you for your help.