Tuning seems to slip periodically on Special Editiion

[roger.rudenstein_2567]

I'm using Special Edition strings with Finale 2004.  Each time, at some point the tuning slips a semi-tone.  I'm running it in Ensemble on an iMac with 8 gig ram and Snow Leopard OSX operating system.

I suspect that VE is getting some Midi value that is doing this but it is definitely not planned on my part.  The cure is to bring Ensemble down and then up again...although in one case I had to reboot the Mac.

Anybody else experience this?

Thanks,

Roger Rudenstein, composer

[andi]

Hello Roger!

This is an unusual problem. You could check the following thing:
On witch position is the pitch slider of the detuned instrument? If it's not in the middle, Finale sends some Pitch Wheel commands that cause this effect. You could turn off the Pitch Wheel on the Vienna Instruments/Perform/Map Control Page by assigning "None" to Pitch.

Btw. I'm wondering how you can use Vienna Ensemble with Finale 2004. (I guess with the IAC bus.) But how do you change articulations?

Best regards,
Andi

[roger.rudenstein_2567]

Hi Andi,

    You asked me which position the pitch slider is in on the Perform/Map Control section.  In that section I do not see a Pitch Slider. Under "Perform Control" I do see a line for "Pitch" with a value on "None". I assume this means no controller is assigned to pitch.  The only  two performance categories that have controls assigned are Expression (CC11) and Volume (CC7). I didn't make any settings in this section for any of the instruments so these must be the default settings.

     I don't send any Pitchwheel midi messages from Finale that I am aware of.

      I'm runnning Finale on a PC and sending the Midi to the Mac where Vienna Ensemble is running. I use Channels to access the various instruments. I set CC1 as the Controller to change matrix cells, which is how I handle articulations.

       Do you have any other ideas as to why the pitch suddenly changes. In a four hour composing session this usually happens once.  I have the feeling it is something Finale is sending but I don't see what it could be.

Regards, Roger

[herb]

 A very wild guess, but anyway :

could it be that your playback samplerate is switching for unknown reasons from 44 to 48 kHz or vice versa?

This would cause a pitch effect of approximate an half tone.

best

Herb

[roger.rudenstein_2567]

Where do I find the playback sample rate for vsl?

[DG]

This has nothing to do with VSL, it's your soundcard that you need to check.

DG

[roger.rudenstein_2567]

Don't see how my sound card could change sample rates since I don't re-configure it daily.  In addition to vsl, which I'm running in ensemble stand alone, I'm running Truepianos and GPO Aria Player in Reaper and they don't change pitch.

[JET]

If you are using any of Finale's smart shapes to gliss between notes, that has caused various playback problems for users. If so, try deleting those on a separate file, then try your playback. On a side note, I'd think you'd be much happier with a current version of Finale. Even though old bugs get fixed and new bugs appear with each version, the Human playback feature has significantly evolved since the 2004 version.

[roger.rudenstein_2567]

 I'm not using gliss. I do use smart shapes for cresc. and decresc., slurs, etc. but not gliss   But even if I did, how would you explain the fact that after I bring VE down and then up again, the problem goes away and does not reoccur right away...maybe even not at all that day..yet I'm still working on the same exact piece, playing it over and over again.

Does anybody have any other ideas?

[andyjh]

Assuming you are using  VI, if PITCH mod source is set to NONE in the Perform Map Control, then VI should never react to pitch bend. So it is looking like it is not a pitch bend issue.

The sample rate changing is something I would not rule out, you may find that some plug in's tolerate an erratic change, whilst VI is trying to deal with the mismatch in a different way. You say "slip" out of tune, which I would take as going down a semitone, so what Sample Rate are you using?  48 to 44.1 would cause it, where as 44.1 to 48 would go up in pitch.