Move Midi Notes by Milliseconds

[DLC]

Hi. I want to be able to move midi notes by milliseconds and not by ticks. Is there an action that will do this? I don't want to move entire midi items, just the notes of some of the articulations that speak more slowly. Thanks.

[pcartwright]

This doesn't really answer your question, but the problem you face is that there isn't really a time variable in MIDI other than ticks (or pulse per quarter note). Even if you were able to adjust a note by a time interval smaller than a tick, the MIDI buffer would probably round to the closest tick anyway.

[ivansc]

Generally it is easiest to do this sort of editing by setting to a really high ppq and then moving the notes in question by ticks.
I generally run a 192 which gives you a pretty small increment/decrement per tick moved, but you can easily go double that if you want to get really REALLY picky.

[pcartwright]

Reaper's default PPQ is 960. So, by default, 1 tick at 60 BPM is approximately 1 ms.

[Outboarder]

Hi

Use this action (edit the J value in the code):

[DLC]

Thanks, Outboarder! That looks like it will work. I'll setup several scripts with different "j" values.

[pcartwright]

Originally Posted by Outboarder

Hi

Use this action (edit the J value in the code):

It's an interesting script, but it doesn't change the fact that MIDI operates on PPQ and not samples. Reaper will change the visual positioning, but on playback or render the actual MIDI note will be rounded to the closes PPQ.

Here's an example:

I lowered my MIDI resolution from 960 to 240 (just to illustrate the point). I then created a MIDI note, ran the "EXT - Move selected notes 10 sample to left" script above. I then rendered the MIDI to a new track and viewed them in the MIDI editor for comparison. As you can see, they don't line up.



Though moving a MIDI event several milliseconds looks alright, it will not actually play back as precisely as it appears.

I'm not dogging the script. I think it's a really cool concept, but you should be aware that MIDI does not function in milliseconds, frames, or anything like that. It operates in PPQ ticks. You can get close enough most of the time, just know that MIDI is not precise enough for millisecond adjustments unless you have certain tempos with certain PPQ resolutions.

[Outboarder]

You are right, it's not moving it by samples.
I don't know if it's possible to move notes finer than this.

[ivansc]

Hard to get your head around, but it isnt a case of "finer" so much as MIDI and audio samples use different parameters & it is going to be pretty hard to get them to coincide exctly where you want them to every time.
Two thoughts I had on this:
I know it is a pain, but the obvious way to resolve this is to render the audio output to a .wav fine and move that.
Second is: Do you REALLY need to get that perfectly aligned?
Look at something played in by hand in either audio or MIDI ad it is never ever going to be that tight.

Might be a case of listening with your eyes clouding your judgement a little?
It is music we are making, not precision engineering.
One of the things I regret deeply with the advent of digital is that the mindset is now "it must line up to the grid perfectly" and "the tempo must be constant".
Part of the beauty of music for me has always been the dynamism. In volume AND tempo variations.

[Outboarder]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Might be a case of listening with your eyes clouding your judgement a little?
It is music we are making, not precision engineering.
One of the things I regret deeply with the advent of digital is that the mindset is now "it must line up to the grid perfectly" and "the tempo must be constant".
Part of the beauty of music for me has always been the dynamism. In volume AND tempo variations.

100% agree with you, I usually avoid any quantization. on the other side i always humanize my midi, specially the arpeggio/sequenced parts.

[DLC]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Hard to get your head around, but it isnt a case of "finer" so much as MIDI and audio samples use different parameters & it is going to be pretty hard to get them to coincide exctly where you want them to every time.
Two thoughts I had on this:
I know it is a pain, but the obvious way to resolve this is to render the audio output to a .wav fine and move that.
Second is: Do you REALLY need to get that perfectly aligned?
Look at something played in by hand in either audio or MIDI ad it is never ever going to be that tight.

Might be a case of listening with your eyes clouding your judgement a little?
It is music we are making, not precision engineering.
One of the things I regret deeply with the advent of digital is that the mindset is now "it must line up to the grid perfectly" and "the tempo must be constant".
Part of the beauty of music for me has always been the dynamism. In volume AND tempo variations.

My goal is NOT to get everything perfectly aligned, it's to compensate for the inherent lag in certain instrument articulations. Legato strings for example, especially when used in an otherwise rhythmically tight track. I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm not listening with my eyes. The solution in Cubase was trivial- I had Logical Edit presets for various articulations in different orchestral libraries, assigned them to buttons on an iPad, and midi notes would move by the appropriate amount. This would eliminate to process of calculating PPQ to milliseconds at a given BPM. I'll give Outboarder's script a try soon.

I agree wholeheartedly with your other comments. Thanks for your replies.

[ivansc]

Back when I was doing a lot of MIDI backing tracks fopr other people I did a bunch of this, especially with legato strings and crescendo brass.
For my purposes it was enoug to tweak the articulations by ear.

This was why I made the comment about listening with your eyes. No offence intended & hopefully none taken.

[DLC]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Back when I was doing a lot of MIDI backing tracks fopr other people I did a bunch of this, especially with legato strings and crescendo brass.
For my purposes it was enoug to tweak the articulations by ear.

This was why I made the comment about listening with your eyes. No offence intended & hopefully none taken.

No offense taken whatsoever!

[Reckless Leon]

Howdy,
just in case someone is trying to find a way to nudge midi, I was able to do it in the main arranger window . I selected nudge contents by ms of the midi file and it shifted the material.
My problem was my drums were nailed the the click. The overall project bpm does vary starts at 107.9 and ends at 109.1 (gradually speeding up and slowing down along the way ) BUT "1" was always "1" and the drums still felt like a metronome in the background . I can now slightly shift kit pieces(each one has its own track) and loosen the sequencers grip . I tried the Humanize and was disappointed and I couldn't manage to get the scripts to work .
just in case someone is looking for a work around.