Hi Guys,
Time for Toaster’s stupid question time!
Can anyone explain why, when I switch from this song:
to this song
the MIDI notes are cut off?
If I do it in song states like this, it’s seamless…
Am I doing something wrong?
Toaster
I’m guessing the piano plugin inside that piano rack is being reinitialised for some reason. Does it have “Entire Bank” state behaviour set?
Hi Neil,
Thanks for the reply. No, Entire Bank behaviour is not set, I use some controls in The Grandeur to change the reverb send and hard/soft controls to change between the different piano sounds in the rack states but as you can see there’s nothing changing here between the songs at all. If I do exactly the same change but between song states, it’s seamless…
Toaster
So if you put a MIDI monitor on the input to your piano plugin inside the rack, do you see MIDI note-off messages when changing song?
Excuse my ignorance, but how do I do that?
Toaster
Sorry, worked it out…
No, there’s no MIDI activity at all on the Rack MIDI in when switching songs…
Are you sure it’s the MIDI notes that are cutting, rather than the audio?
No, not at all, but shouldn’t it be seamless regardless?
It should…but working out why it isn’t depends on if your plugin is receiving note-off, or all-note-off type messages from somewhere, receiving some spurious program change, or perhaps the plugin is behaving correctly but for some reason its output it being cut.
What state behaviour do you have set on the plugin, inside the rack? And does it have any “exported” state behaviour enabled?
Neil
Hi Neil,
I’ve tried the MIDI monitor on the Kontakt plug-in in the piano rack (and incidentally in the other rack too) and there’s no MIDI going to either of them when I change the song.
I do have some of the state behaviours checked because that’s how I change the piano sound in the rack states (reverb time and amount, tone colour etc (I’m using the grandeur) However, as you can see, I’m not changing the piano rack state between these songs… Also, I don’t have any exported state behaviour, mainly coz I’m not sure what that does… 
Thanks for the help so far, this behaviour is something I’ve noticed in all the set-lists I’ve put together, mainly using Kontakt but I’ve just used song state changes where it’s been an issue in shows etc but this is the first time I really need seamless changes between songs as the set list changes a lot and it’d be tricky to have to put new song states at the beginning of all the songs that need them and then rearrange everything all the time…
@brad any ideas?
Toaster
Actually, is it simply because when you change song, the route from your keyboard to the rack/plugin is disconnected, and so Cantabile ensures a note-off is sent to avoid a hung note? Were you holding notes when watching the MIDI monitor, to look for note-off messages?
As a test, in your rack, temporarily change your route so that the source is your MIDI hardware input, rather than Rack MIDI In.
The routes don’t change from this song to the next, it’s the same rack state, to the same rack and MIDI channel etc…
I’ve just looked at the MIDI monitor and it is sending MIDI note offs to the rack, even though nothing about the state changes, how do I stop it doing that?
Cheers again,
Toaster
But although the routes are the “same” from one song to the next, I suspect the old routes are destroyed and the new (identical) ones are created when changing songs, and in the process any held notes are being cut. So try my suggestion and see if it fixes it…
Ok, so I tried your suggestion and it’s better, it doesn’t cut off completely but it does do a weird glitch in volume…
If I have to do it with song states in order to get the change seamless, it’s fine but I’d rather not…
Once again, thanks for all the time you’re spending helping me, it’s most appreciated.
Toaster
Well the volume change is likely to be caused by some other detail - are you sure your rack gains are set the same in both songs, and the level of the audio route(s) coming out of your rack in both songs?
Ok, so we’ve established that when you change songs, the “identical” song-level routes from your hardware controller to your rack are torn down and re-created, cutting any held notes. Also that if you go directly from the hardware port inside your piano rack, you’re able to hold notes across song changes. As far as I can see, that’s the only way to hold notes across song transitions, which is a bit annoying - it means your racks have to be associated with a particular hardware port, rather than being completely general, and you lose the ability to have song-level transpose/split etc.
I wonder if @brad could chime in with his thoughts? It would be nice to have a cleaner way to achieve held notes across song transitions, without needing to access environment ports directly inside racks. For example, if a rack exists in both songs, in the same state, and if a route from the same environment port to the rack exists in both songs, could that route be maintained across the song transition (at least for as long as there are held notes) ?
Neil
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yes, that seems to be the case, there’s something going on between song transitions that doesn’t happen when you transition between song states.
FYI, the rack gains and everything about the states between songs is identical, the gain blip is just that, it drops away and then returns, it’s not a change to a new gain level and stay there…
as @Neil_Durant says, @brad, any thoughts?
Cheers as always, this forum and the support that you you get from Cantbile users and the guy who writes it, is fantastic!
Toaster
Regarding the blip, I suspect the blip is because the audio route from your rack to your hardware output is also being disconnected and re-established in the new song. Again, you can probably work around this by sending directly to the hardware audio port inside your piano rack, instead of going to Rack Stereo Out (or whatever your rack calls it).
Obviously this isn’t desirable for the same reasons as accessing the hardware MIDI port directly inside the rack, and it also means you can’t do any song-level processing or even level adjustment. 
Yeah. I think that I’ll have to work out the seamless bits with song states…
Thanks again for all your effort.
Toaster