[thomeval]

I’m working on adding drum fill sections to my very first custom, but I get errors like these when compiling in Magma.

ERROR: MIDI Compiler: (PART DRUMS): Gem at [19] should be simultaneous with end of drum fill at [19]

 

All of them are misaligned by 1-2 ticks, and no amount of quantizing seems to help. Worse still, the note properties show the last note as being in the right place (19:4:240). How do I get the drum fills and end note to align properly?

[Nyxyxylyth]

I’m working on adding drum fill sections to my very first custom, but I get errors like these when compiling in Magma.

ERROR: MIDI Compiler: (PART DRUMS): Gem at [19] should be simultaneous with end of drum fill at [19]

 

All of them are misaligned by 1-2 ticks, and no amount of quantizing seems to help. Worse still, the note properties show the last note as being in the right place (19:4:240). How do I get the drum fills and end note to align properly?

The most common cause of this is hitting an arrow key when you’ve got the MIDI track selected, moving it to the right or left by one puny tick. Try selecting the MIDI track in REAPER’s main window and nudge it to the left as far as you can with the left arrow. Alternately, you can right click on it, bring up the item properties window, and make sure the start time is 0:00.000.

[Farottone]

The most common cause of this is hitting an arrow key when you’ve got the MIDI track selected, moving it to the right or left by one puny tick. Try selecting the MIDI track in REAPER’s main window and nudge it to the left as far as you can with the left arrow. Alternately, you can right click on it, bring up the item properties window, and make sure the start time is 0:00.000.

 

Also, just for kicks, try quantizing for both position and note end, that helps when the fill markers are ever so slightly shorter than needed.

[thomeval]

The most common cause of this is hitting an arrow key when you’ve got the MIDI track selected, moving it to the right or left by one puny tick. Try selecting the MIDI track in REAPER’s main window and nudge it to the left as far as you can with the left arrow. Alternately, you can right click on it, bring up the item properties window, and make sure the start time is 0:00.000.

 

Thanks for the tip, but the MIDI track item is positioned correctly at 0:00.000. What’s the second most common cause?

 

Also, just for kicks, try quantizing for both position and note end, that helps when the fill markers are ever so slightly shorter than needed.

 

I think it was already set to this. I quantized it again to be sure, and the issue persists.

[ws54]

It’s your lucky day. I struggled with this exact problem today for a couple hours. The problem is in the tempo map. At some point in your song the time signatures are not lining up exactly at the start of your measures.

 

This is how I corrected it.

 

1 – Turn ON snap for the project

2 – Starting at the time signature just after the last fill that compiled correctly, grab each time signature and drag it so it snaps perfectly at the start of its measure. Do this for the rest of the song. (If there is an easier way, I don’t know it.)

3 – Now the fun. For EVERY instrument that you’ve charted already, open each in the midi editor, and press Ctrl-a to highlight ALL and then Quantize. Make sure you have the Grid set to the smallest increment that you’ve used on each instrument. Also you should Quantize using the Position and Note end setting.

4 – You must also do Vocals and Harmony if you have those charted. Unfortunately, Quantizing does not move the Lyric events along with the note tubes, so you will have to move all lyric events to line up with the new positions of the note tubes. Assuming you load the lyrics from a text file as you should, this is not too painful. (Note that it is possible that the note tubes will no longer line up with the vocals after quantizing and may need to be adjusted. I’m not sure yet. If this is the case then it may be better to NOT quantize the vocals.)

5 – Compile

[Farottone]

3 – Now the fun. For EVERY instrument that you’ve charted already, open each in the midi editor, and press Ctrl-a to highlight ALL and then Quantize. Make sure you have the Grid set to the smallest increment that you’ve used on each instrument.

 

This is inaccurate at best, destructive at worst. Triplets are gonna be destroyed or, if you align to a triplet grid, they will mess up straight notes. Also, what’s the point of quantizing if you’re gonna leave a 1/32th tolerance (assuming the smallest increment is a 1/32 note)? Quantizing triplet notes as straight should be as frightening as putting fingers in an outlet: you just don’t do it or YOU DIE! ” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_biggrin.gif”>

 

You can’t blanket-quantize unfortunately, you need to do that in sections and be very careful of faster or triplet notes, unless your song is very simple and you have no triplets, no fast notes, etc.

[thomeval]

It’s your lucky day. I struggled with this exact problem today for a couple hours. The problem is in the tempo map. At some point in your song the time signatures are not lining up exactly at the start of your measures.

 

…

 

YOU ROCK!!!

[ws54]

3 – Now the fun. For EVERY instrument that you’ve charted already, open each in the midi editor, and press Ctrl-a to highlight ALL and then Quantize. Make sure you have the Grid set to the smallest increment that you’ve used on each instrument.

 

This is inaccurate at best, destructive at worst. Triplets are gonna be destroyed or, if you align to a triplet grid, they will mess up straight notes. Also, what’s the point of quantizing if you’re gonna leave a 1/32th tolerance (assuming the smallest increment is a 1/32 note)?

 

So ok yes, if you have a somewhat unusual song where you change the grid mid-song then you must take that into account. But if you use the same grid throughout the song my suggestion works fine. So people should check that first.

 

You asked what’s the point of quantizing with a 1/32 tolerance… I may be misunderstanding your question. It depends on the way you chart I guess. (All of this assumes you use the same grid style throughout.) If you typically have the grid set to 1/16 and then in a few places you have notes aligned on the 32nd grid lines or have 32nd notes then what I typically do is change the grid to 1/32 in the places I need it and then back to 1/16 again. But quantizing to your smallest increment when everything is divisible by 16 causes no harm assuming your song was only off by a couple of ticks (as a result of moving the time signatures a couple of ticks) and you set to quantizing style correctly.

[Farottone]

So ok yes, if you have a somewhat unusual song where you change the grid mid-song then you must take that into account. But if you use the same grid throughout the song my suggestion works fine. So people should check that first.

 

Well it’s not really a matter of changing grid and not a matter of unusual songs, triplets are fairly common. Point is, you can’t blanket-quantize, it’s too dangerous, you need to do it in sections making sure everything is done properly.

[AddyMills]

So ok yes, if you have a somewhat unusual song where you change the grid mid-song then you must take that into account. But if you use the same grid throughout the song my suggestion works fine. So people should check that first.

 

Well it’s not really a matter of changing grid and not a matter of unusual songs, triplets are fairly common. Point is, you can’t blanket-quantize, it’s too dangerous, you need to do it in sections making sure everything is done properly.

 

I agree that blanket quantizing is dangerous. But there is a way to do it correctly if you have triplets and non-triplets in the same chart.

 

Basically, find out the fastest triplets and non triplets you have charted and then double the grid of the fastest notes, but make sure it’s set to triplets.

 

So for example, the fastest non triplet notes you charted are 16th’s and the fastest triplets are also 16th’s. In this case it’s perfectly safe to quantize it to 32nd triplets, since three 32nd triplets = one 16th note, and two 32nd triplets = one 16th triplet note.

 

Or if you have a case where the fastest non-trips are 32nd’s and the fastest trips are 16th’s, you would make the grid 64th triplets, three 64th triplets = one 32nd note. And four 64th triplets = one 16th triplet note.

[Farottone]

Or if you have a case where the fastest non-trips are 32nd’s and the fastest trips are 16th’s, you would make the grid 64th triplets, three 64th triplets = one 32nd note. And four 64th triplets = one 16th triplet note.

 

I’m gonna reiterate what I said before: quantizing to 1/64th triplets is as good as not quantizing. If a note is off by less than a 1/64th, you’re not gonna align it correctly anyway because you have diluted the grid so much. You probably spend more time just adding play markers: quantizing with the grid properly set probably takes 3 minutes, literally.

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