Cakewalk 3.01 issue

[Ari]

I'm using Cakewalk 3.01 to edit MIDI files I extracted using the SCI Resource Viewer.

The problem is this: whenever I open a MIDI file, edit it, save, close and then reopen, when I look at the 'Event List' of a certain track, the program sometimes changes the order of events which are on the same measure.

For example, if I have 3 events on measure 1:2:004, and their original order is as follows:
Measure:Beat:Tick|Chn|Kind
         1:2:004      | 10 |PATCH
         1:2:004      | 10 |VOLUME CONTROLLER
         1:2:004      | 10 |NOTE

then the next time I open the file, I'll find that the order has changed and that now, the 3 events are ordered as follows:
Measure:Beat:Tick|Chn|Kind
         1:2:004      | 10 |PATCH
         1:2:004      | 10 |NOTE
         1:2:004      | 10 |VOLUME CONTROLLER

This has a tendency to change the way the MIDI file sounds.

Any ideas on how I can fix this without having to change the timing of these events manually?

[Cloudschatze]

I'm using Cakewalk 3.01 to edit MIDI files I extracted using the SCI Resource Viewer.

The problem is this: whenever I open a MIDI file, edit it, save, close and then reopen, when I look at the 'Event List' of a certain track, the program sometimes changes the order of events which are on the same measure.

For example, if I have 3 events on measure 1:2:004, and their original order is as follows:
Measure:Beat:Tick|Chn|Kind
         1:2:004      | 10 |PATCH
         1:2:004      | 10 |VOLUME CONTROLLER
         1:2:004      | 10 |NOTE

then the next time I open the file, I'll find that the order has changed and that now, the 3 events are ordered as follows:
Measure:Beat:Tick|Chn|Kind
         1:2:004      | 10 |PATCH
         1:2:004      | 10 |NOTE
         1:2:004      | 10 |VOLUME CONTROLLER

This has a tendency to change the way the MIDI file sounds.

Any ideas on how I can fix this without having to change the timing of these events manually?

You might want to up the resolution. Ideally, you don't want to see multiple events per tick.

[Ari]

Do you mean setting the 'Ticks per Quarter-note' higher?

[Cloudschatze]

Do you mean setting the 'Ticks per Quarter-note' higher?

Yeah. I think having multiple events per tick is common with lower resolutions. This doesn't explain why the event order is changing, however...

[Alistair]

I'd manually edit it to look like:
Measure:Beat:Tick|Chn|Kind
         1:2:004      | 10 |PATCH
         1:2:005      | 10 |VOLUME CONTROLLER
         1:2:006      | 10 |NOTE

In Digital Orchestrator, the editor I use, it'll reorder them if you cut and paste to a measure:b:t that already has a controller event. So I'll just differentiate the ticks.

- Alistair

[Ari]

I was trying to work around having to manually edited the events. Manually editing 10 tracks per theme is somewhat tiresome...

Anyway I think I found a solution. I was saving the file in MIDI format 0, when I should have been saving it in format 1. That seems to solve the problem.

[Alistair]

Really? Very interesting. I'll have to remember that.

[Tom]

...and remember, only save in MIDI format when you've completed all your editing.  Proprietary music formats retain much more information that is often not part of the MIDI file standard.

[Alistair]

Explain further..

I think I save all my tracks as SMF 1 in Digital Orchestrator.

- Alistair

[Tom]

SMF doesn't retain all the information (beyond MIDI and some META data) that you might use when creating music files.  Plus, after you write to a MIDI file, a lot of the program's options can't be further edited.  It depends what parts of the program you're using.  I use a lot of text (notepad features) and track transitions, in SpG and Orchestrator.  Most of the 'Main Screen' functions are lost when saved to MIDI format

[Ari]

So is there any way to retain the data? saving it in TXT format or something?

[Tom]

Not that I'm aware of.  I don't much about Cakewalk's .WRK files, but Voyetra's .SNG and .ORC files don't provide a means of saving all of your editing preferences so that you could continue the edits ... once saved to MIDI format. 

To quote Voyetra, "Saving in [the program's proprietary format] preserves all the settings in the Track/View window, such as Mute, Solo, Transpose, etc."   These settings are lost when saving to MIDI format.  The importance of that depends on how you work with MIDI.

[SysExJohn]

Just to add my 2d to the thread, the same is true of XGworks native files .xws. If you examine a standard MIDI file using something like "hexeditor" you can see a very clear difference in the file structure of a .mid file and that of others. So the rule seems to be use the native file structure whilst you're editing then when complete export to a midi file format.

SysExJohn.