Post by JohnG on Sept 2, 2009 10:58:52 GMT
Editing Fade-outs in MIDI files.
Thanks Gerry and Barry for providing the two files I'm going to work on. They provide examples of the two most common ways of implementing a fade out in a MIDI file. So this tutorial should cover perhaps 95% of what you'll find in a file with a fade, and show you perhaps the simplest way of getting rid of it/them.
Before I begin I ought to say that it is your responsibility to make sure that you take a back up of your files before you begin, in case you make a mistake. I have thoroughly tested this on a working, licensed copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 version 9.03, and it works fine. I take no responsibility if it doesn't work with you. And E.& O.E.
Let's begin by taking a look at the endings of the two files in question, I've scrolled across to the end in both cases, and you can clearly see something being reduced in each track, by the triangular shaped bits that I've circled.
Here's Gerry's file:
And here's Barry's:
It looks like the MIDI events, whatever they are, are closer together in Gerry's file than in Barry's.
No matter, the procedure is the same.
The first thing we need to discover is just what it is in a MIDI file that causes the track to fade out. The answer is it is usually, not always, one of two "controllers" that is entered multiple times, each time slightly further along the track, each one with a smaller value, all the way down to zero.
The two controllers that are used are known as "channel volume" (what a surprise!) and "expression". They are given the MIDI controller numbers CC#7 and CC#11 respectively. You'll see why we need to know that in a minute.
So, let's take a look at a track in a little more detail. Here's how we do that.
Right click the mouse inside the track itself, I've started with track 1, and a menu should pop up that looks like the picture below. Then select Piano Roll view.
You might get something that looks like the image below. Whether you do or not will depend upon whether you have used the facility before, and altered the standard settings.
The one we are looking at shows the notes and their duration in track 1, and underneath shows the "velocity" of the notes, i.e. how hard they were played in, e.g. piano, forte or whatever.
If you don't see the sub window, below the notes then you'll need to drag it up, using left-click and hold, from just above the horizontal scroll bar in this window. Drag it up far enough, I suggest, so that you can clearly see both the maximum (127) and minimum (0) values.
Very, very rarely a fade out is done by altering the velocity values and, in effect, playing more and more quietly, but as it happens so rarely, IMO, I'm not going to describe it here. Maybe some other time.
What we need to check is whether CC#7 or CC#11 is used in this file to do the fade out, so let's look.
Up near the top of the Piano roll window is a little box that currently tells us we are looking at the note velocities in the bottom pane of the window. We need to change that so that we can look at "controllers". Click the down arrow to the right of "Velocity" like this (see below) and select "Control".
We then need to select which controller we want to see and we do that by using the box to the right of the one we have just used, like this, see below, and select "7-Volume". The only trouble is that in this file there is no volume data. See the blank pane underneath the notes.
But if we change the controller to "Expression" then we get the following display: Now we can see the diminishing vertical bars and understand perhaps that they are series of MIDI instructions that turn down the volume.
In order to get rid of these "fade instructions" one way of deleting them is to just rub them out. Up at the top of the window is a little icon for an eraser and we need to click on that so that it is selected, see here:
Then we must position the special eraser arrow to the left of the triangle (the tall end), near the bottom, click and hold, and run it horizontally across until it is at the other end ofthe triangle (the zero end). You should see this kind of effect as you run the eraser across.
Release the mouse button and ... bingo! Where did they go?
Now save the file with a new name so that you don't override the old one.
Close the piano view window.
Go to the next track and repeat the procedure, and do this until all tracks have the "Expression" values edited out at the end.
However, when I took a look at Barry's file I saw that the fades had been inserted by using CC#7 "Channel Volume". It makes no difference the procedure is identical, we just rub out the "7-Volume" controller events.
That's the first and probably the simplest way to do it. I'll post another tutorial which shows another way shortly.
Let me know how you get on please.
JohnG.
Thanks Gerry and Barry for providing the two files I'm going to work on. They provide examples of the two most common ways of implementing a fade out in a MIDI file. So this tutorial should cover perhaps 95% of what you'll find in a file with a fade, and show you perhaps the simplest way of getting rid of it/them.
Before I begin I ought to say that it is your responsibility to make sure that you take a back up of your files before you begin, in case you make a mistake. I have thoroughly tested this on a working, licensed copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 version 9.03, and it works fine. I take no responsibility if it doesn't work with you. And E.& O.E.
Let's begin by taking a look at the endings of the two files in question, I've scrolled across to the end in both cases, and you can clearly see something being reduced in each track, by the triangular shaped bits that I've circled.
Here's Gerry's file:
And here's Barry's:
It looks like the MIDI events, whatever they are, are closer together in Gerry's file than in Barry's.
No matter, the procedure is the same.
The first thing we need to discover is just what it is in a MIDI file that causes the track to fade out. The answer is it is usually, not always, one of two "controllers" that is entered multiple times, each time slightly further along the track, each one with a smaller value, all the way down to zero.
The two controllers that are used are known as "channel volume" (what a surprise!) and "expression". They are given the MIDI controller numbers CC#7 and CC#11 respectively. You'll see why we need to know that in a minute.
So, let's take a look at a track in a little more detail. Here's how we do that.
Right click the mouse inside the track itself, I've started with track 1, and a menu should pop up that looks like the picture below. Then select Piano Roll view.
You might get something that looks like the image below. Whether you do or not will depend upon whether you have used the facility before, and altered the standard settings.
The one we are looking at shows the notes and their duration in track 1, and underneath shows the "velocity" of the notes, i.e. how hard they were played in, e.g. piano, forte or whatever.
If you don't see the sub window, below the notes then you'll need to drag it up, using left-click and hold, from just above the horizontal scroll bar in this window. Drag it up far enough, I suggest, so that you can clearly see both the maximum (127) and minimum (0) values.
Very, very rarely a fade out is done by altering the velocity values and, in effect, playing more and more quietly, but as it happens so rarely, IMO, I'm not going to describe it here. Maybe some other time.
What we need to check is whether CC#7 or CC#11 is used in this file to do the fade out, so let's look.
Up near the top of the Piano roll window is a little box that currently tells us we are looking at the note velocities in the bottom pane of the window. We need to change that so that we can look at "controllers". Click the down arrow to the right of "Velocity" like this (see below) and select "Control".
We then need to select which controller we want to see and we do that by using the box to the right of the one we have just used, like this, see below, and select "7-Volume". The only trouble is that in this file there is no volume data. See the blank pane underneath the notes.
But if we change the controller to "Expression" then we get the following display: Now we can see the diminishing vertical bars and understand perhaps that they are series of MIDI instructions that turn down the volume.
In order to get rid of these "fade instructions" one way of deleting them is to just rub them out. Up at the top of the window is a little icon for an eraser and we need to click on that so that it is selected, see here:
Then we must position the special eraser arrow to the left of the triangle (the tall end), near the bottom, click and hold, and run it horizontally across until it is at the other end ofthe triangle (the zero end). You should see this kind of effect as you run the eraser across.
Release the mouse button and ... bingo! Where did they go?
Now save the file with a new name so that you don't override the old one.
Close the piano view window.
Go to the next track and repeat the procedure, and do this until all tracks have the "Expression" values edited out at the end.
However, when I took a look at Barry's file I saw that the fades had been inserted by using CC#7 "Channel Volume". It makes no difference the procedure is identical, we just rub out the "7-Volume" controller events.
That's the first and probably the simplest way to do it. I'll post another tutorial which shows another way shortly.
Let me know how you get on please.
JohnG.
...........one question plz is there a way of doing a batch of tracks together...... I see in your demo you had track 1 highlighted .... lets say there are 12 tracks being used and all have a fade could I then highlight all channells and do the same thing ?
now not sure if your finished this tutorial yet.....but is there a way as I asked earlier of restoring the fade as some fades tend to go on for a full chorus a sort of reverse proceedure if you follow as in a fade in perhaps? Thanx appreciate all this info .....regards
