Pro Tools 8 midi editor

Hi !

I just watched demos about pro tools 8, because I’m searching for a great midi editor for huge orchestral soundbanks, and then, a very large number of midi tracks and notes in each track (because of complex articulations) : about 128 midi tracks (8 ports) which goes out to 4 LinuxSampler PCs (2 midi ports each, to render it in audio going out to a hardware mixing console).
Then, obviously rosegarden is ridiculous for this… and, I realized there’s unfortunately no huge midi editor in the free world :frowning:

Here is a demo of the Pro Tools 8 midi editor :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-nzy0QWRMY (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6-zDgUir34 (part 2)

It looks really great for many tracks and articulations, because of one great idea :

=> the track list on left side !

Each midi track is listed at the left of the editor, and you can check 2 boxes: [show] [mute] (even check them by clicking, holding it and moving the mouse, then drop it : really handy ! )
Then, you can always stay in the midi editor window instead of closing every 5s to open another track…
(there’s also another great thing: adjusting the velocity of the note just by pressing a key while selected, and moving the mouse up or down. Then, every velocities of selected notes follows !)
All theses details become really serious specifications when working on a big professional project, because you can spend so many hours to edit each note for soundbanks articulations…

I think Ardour could be the most amazing editor if we could :

  • do this
  • also editing smooth round curves just under the matrix (for volume, pan and velocity of each midi channel)
    I’m talking about a “LightWave” kind of curves editing (I remember it was amazing to edit the position of each object. Look at this at 2:50 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2C6vJWGsZk )
    Imagine a volume or velocity curve like this, which looks like a line, that you can deform to make it straight or round, but which is in reality a sequence of progressive midi values (between 0 and 127) - And sure, if you want to control precisely the value at a moment, just add a point to the curve :slight_smile:

With these 2 functions, you can use ardour as a huge midi editor, for huge midi projects.

Thanks a lot in advance and by the way, many thanks to be free :smiley:

The technical overview videos are up at the website:

http://www.openoctave.org/

Open Octave

http://www.openoctave.org/

The project intends to create a MIDI editor very much like what you’re asking for. It’s a redesign of Rosegarden as a MIDI-only editor, and the people involved are composers for orchestras and other large ensembles. Check it out. And it knows JACK and MTC, so sync’ing to Ardour is a no-brainer.

HTH,

dp

A note about The Open Octave Project:

We already have a rdg2midnam converter. And Ardour3 takes midnam files for bank and program changes. So we are already positioned to include Ardour3 in the pipeline. I am actually quite looking forward to testing it all out!

Dave, i’ll just add here that i’ve had the privilege of testing early stage Ardour 3, and enjoyed more than one thoroughly professional and intelligent discussion with Paul, about the midi tools being built into Ardour3, from a professional use perspective.
He “gets” it, and has been determined, and “searching” in his questions, and debate, about the most efficient way forward for the widest possible base of users who want midi in Ardour.

So as well as our continued work in the OpenOctave Project, and our intent to create and refine a dedicated working environment based soley around serious musical work, including film and orchestral, we’re…“professionally” enthusiastic about the framework Paul and the team are building in A3. It really is something to watch take shape, and we’ll continue to contribute where or however we can to see A3 workflow mature further.

Alex.

more or less everything you mention is already implemented. there are two (three?) different modes of presenting control data, either continuous or “point” modes. you can also switch note mode on the fly between percussive (fixed note length) and sustained (where notes vary in their duration). velocity and pitch can be edited by keyboard or mouse, you can change note lengths with the keyboard or mouse, you can select notes with the keyboard or mouse. you don’t leave the editor window to do any of this - just hit “m” to enter “MIDI edit mode” (or click on the “note” button in the mouse tool bar). happy? see http://ardour.org/midi_editing_draft for a few more details (subject to change).