Sound is immediately getting cut off in DAW with VSTs

Brute PolyBrute
#1

I have a strange issue which I can’t work out. Maybe someone with a similar set up can help me out… :pray:

I’m using the PB12 in Bitwig and am playing it via a note generating VST (Harmony Bloom or Stepic). Whenever I press ‘Stop’ in Bitwig the PB12 immediately stops audio. By that I mean, any notes with a long release time which should ring out don’t and instead get immediately cut. Even stranger, if I use a sound with a short decay time and lots of reverb that rings out over a few seconds, when I press stop the reverb rings out but very quickly dampens and cuts out - very little tail and not like how it is patched up to be.

Interestingly, if I use one of Bitwigs built in note generators (like the Arpeggiator) then everything works as you would expect. This makes me think it’s the VSTs causing the problem but if I swap the PB12 out and use another synth (Digitone) everything works as you would expect: when I stop playback, notes keep going until their release stage ends. So this makes me think it’s the PB12 that’s not working as expected.

I can’t work out if it’s a Bitwig problem, a VST problem or a Polybrute problem. What it means is I’m unable to change patterns/presets within these plug-ins because each time that I do, the previous notes are cut off and the pattern switch sounds abrupt.

So… anyone running Bitwig and a 3rd party VST (lie Harmony Bloom or Stepic… or any other) able to recreate this?

#2

Hi @domtak ,

I can’t check.

But - It sound like perhaps the midi messages midi CC#120 All Sounds Off is send, when you use the STOP.
Just a thing i suggest you can check out, and then change if possible.

#3

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded a Midi Monitor and both Stepic and Harmony Bloom send an ‘All Notes Off Channel 1’ command. Harmony Bloom actually sends 16 of those commands out when I stop playback and also when it changes preset. This must be it. I’ll reach out to the developer to find out more.

Thanks once again!!

#4

You are welcome @domtak.

An ALL NOTES OFF message should afaik in it self not stop sound tails. But i think it’s a good idea to ask the developer.

#5

I also tried this in Stepic and noticed that when I stop the DAW I get a single “All notes off Channel 1” message.

I’m wondering if Polybrute 12 doesn’t like this command and immediately cuts the note?

I’ll email Arturia also.

#6

OK - played some more. I created a button in Bitwig to control Midi CC 123 (All Notes Off). I then played a single note with a long release and pressed that button. The note was immediately silenced. I’m not sure if according to the Midi Spec the note should then stop immediately or enter its release phase. I’ll report to Arturia.

#7

Good idea.

#8

The MIDI spec could be said to be slightly ambiguous when it comes to “All Notes Off” and "All sound off ". From the MIDI 1.0 specification:

For “All Notes Off”, it says “oscillators will turn off”, but since the “All Sound Off” specifies that envelopes should be set to zero, the former message should perhaps have said “all voices will turn off” and then the envelopes would enter their release phase. However, that’s NOT what the shorthand spec says if we take it literally; “all oscillators will turn off” indicates that there should be immediate silence.

About “All Notes Off”, the detailed spec does say “turning off all voices turned on via MIDI.”. It does not say anything about whether envelopes should be set to zero or not.

OK, after a bit more research, I’ve come to the conclusion that a sequencer stopping should NOT send “All Notes Off”, it should use the correct procedure of sending “Note Off” for every (sounding) note. “All Notes Off” should be reserved for a “panic” function. E.g. Cubase does this correctly, and notes and fx will ring out.

An e-mail to Bitwig is in order.

#9

It’s quite hard to actually find a definitive statement about Midi CC 123. I tried looking on the Midi orgs website and couldn’t find anything definitive about whether CC123 should initiate all notes’ release phase. A lot of answers I find on the web suggest it should but there’s no one solid answer.

Either way, as you mention, it’s lazy of the developer to call All Notes Off as should I be playing along on the synth itself, then those notes would be cut off too - which isn’t what I would want.

I’ll email the developer of the sequencer I was running.

THX