FTP - How to get rid of "artifact" sounds in FTP

Started by PeterPan8, June 25, 2017, 07:36:36 AM

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PeterPan8

Some days I'm not too bad, but most days I seem to create more of those artifact sounds while playing. You know, those blips, pops and screech pesky sounds that come unexpectedly in the middle of a nice quiet song.

I don't play with a pick, mostly with my fingernails. I noticed that those sounds are triggered if I hit a string with the nail and slip a millisecond later on the flesh of the (same) finger. The weird thing is that this seems to happen mostly with "one" instrument VST, like piano or violin.  I tried everything from cutting all fingernails to playing very softly to lowering the threshold of instruments in FTP. I didn't find the trick.

Anyone wants to share any tips about this and how to avoid those pesky artifact sounds?

Elantric

#1
Get your guitar to a luthier and have the frets leveled and polished and guitar setup and bridge Strobe intonated for your preferred string type / gauge.

Use a non serated edge pick / plectrum
http://www.stewmac.com/How-To/DVD/Dan_Erlewines_Repair_Series/Dan_Erlewines_Maintenance_and_Setup_for_Electric_Guitars_and_Basses.html






PeterPan8

I simply can't play with a pick! Have you ever tried to play something like this with a pick? Maybe some of you could, but not me!



About having the frets leveled and polished. My guitar is only about 3 months old, so the frets look pretty new to me.  Though I was wondering about the the height of the strings to the fretboard (I think it's called the "action"). I read somewhere that when using something like FTP you should not lower your strings too much or it could be harder to play, and create some of those artifacts. Is that true?

Could the action be lowered without affecting the play^

shawnb

No matter what you do, these technologies will not be perfect... 

I don't play with my nails, but since clean smooth picks generally offer an improvement, maybe there is a corresponding effect on nail maintenance?  Is there a pattern - does it work better the days you file & dress your nails?

Turns out there are a bunch of articles out there on this - one example:
http://hubguitar.com/articles/nail-care-for-guitar-players

This will be more pronounced in a guitar-to-midi environment...  What provides "character" to a guitar performance will likely confuse the pitch-to-midi conversion. 

So I'd start with nail maintenance, and consider even clear nail polish to dress. 

Just a thought... 
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Elantric

#4
QuoteAbout having the frets leveled and polished. My guitar is only about 3 months old, so the frets look pretty new to me.  Though I was wondering about the the height of the strings to the fretboard (I think it's called the "action"). I read somewhere that when using something like FTP you should not lower your strings too much or it could be harder to play, and create some of those artifacts. Is that true?

Could the action be lowered without affecting the play^

Very few "new" guitars arrive in the great condition my "gently used" Fishman Tripleplay Strat arrived in - the prior owner had the frets leveled and polished by a luthier in San Diego ($175 labor) , and it makes huge difference in eliminating Guitar to MIDI tracking anomalies 



Every Guitar to MIDI system manual typically mentions this:

QuoteBe aware that string buzz due to a warped neck or worn frets, or faulty octave adjustment, can cause problems such as wrong notes being produced.

And String dampers are important too
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=1397.25







Andras Szalay ( the FTP developer)  has a detailed Guitar to MIDI tutorial
http://www.panda-audio.com/midiguitar.php


QuoteMIDI Guitar FAQ

I spent most of the last thirty years designing guitar synthesizers. I developed several generations of devices from the Shadow GTM-6 / SH-075 through the Blue Chip Music / Terratec Axon until the Fishman Triple Play today. Over this period I answered thousands of questions from users who had some difficulties to understand certain features or behavior of their devices. Now, as I have here a web page of my company, Panda-Audio, I want to take the opportunity to summarize this information in the form of an FAQ. I hope I can help users of guitar synthesizers a better understanding of their devices with this information. While these answers are based on my designs, I believe most of the information here is true for Roland or other devices too. I will update this page time to time with questions whatever I recall from my memories, or whatever new questions arise.

Andras Szalay

Q: Why do most guitar synthesizers have an option to send the six strings on six separate MIDI channels? E.g. you can play polyphonically on a keyboard without restriction on only one MIDI channel.

A: When a note is started in MIDI the pitch of the note is determined by the note number of the Note On message. This pitch can be changed afterwards only with Pitch Bend messages. When you play polyphonically on a keyboard and you use the pitch bend wheel, it will bend all notes what you play by the same amount. In opposite, on a guitar it is absolutely natural that the pitch of individual strings can change individually, independently of the other strings. Since in MIDI the Pitch Bend message is common for all notes on a MIDI channel, individual pitch control of the notes for individual strings can be solved only if each string has its own separate MIDI channel. As a painful compromise it is possible to use pitch bend on one MIDI channel as long as the guitarist plays only a monophonic melody, and turn off pitch bend when he changes to polyphony. However, this can lead to contradictions that cannot be resolved in certain situations, e.g. when the pitch of a note is changed, and this note is sustained while another note is suddenly started. In this case, at the start of the second note the first one will have to return to its starting pitch, or it must be shut off early.

Q: OK, I do not bend the strings, so I could not care less. Then can I use my guitar synthesizer on one channel without compromises, yes?

A: No. A very important part of expressive guitar playing is legato. Guitarists very often do not pick every note of a melody, but notes get different accent if they are picked, or if they are played with hammer-on or pull-off. A guitar synthesizer can emulate this also with Pitch Bend. Although a special Legato Mode is part of the MIDI specification, most synthesizers did not implement it, so the safe way is to use Pitch Bend instead. Then we are at the same point as in the question before.

Q: OK, I do not use hammer-on and pull-off, I pick every note. Then I really do not need Pitch Bend, so I can use one channel only, right?

A: No. There are at least two important arguments why Pitch Bend should be used even if you pick every note.

Coordination of left and right hand.
If you play an ascending scale on a string, theoretically you should press the string to the fret with your left had finger (I mean this for right handed guitarists) exactly at the same time as you pick it with the right hand. Of course, this is only theory. In practice this can never be coordinated perfectly. If you are too early with your left hand, then you get a hammer-on to the new note first, and then a little bit later the note is picked. Even worse if your left hand is too late, then there is a chance that you get a damped note, because your finger already touches the string, but does not press it to the fret yet. To avoid the second situation which is much more annoying, guitarists play a little bit ahead with the left hand compared to the right. The question is how much, and how stable is this difference. When I analyzed John McLaughlin's test recording, it was amazing to see that pitch changes (left hand) were always just 5-10 msec ahead of the pickings (right hand). By average guitarists this can be 10 times more. Now, when the guitar synthesizer is sensing a hammer-on (which is not intentional in this case), and Pitch Bend is enabled, then it follows the pitch in a natural way, and then when the new note is picked additionally, it starts a new note at that pitch. In opposite, if Pitch Bend is disabled, then during the hammer-on phase the guitar synthesizer does not know that soon a new pick is following, so it starts a new note with a low velocity value. But very soon the new picking is coming (with a higher velocity value), and this results in an annoying double trigger.
Unintended pitch change of the sound.
When you pick a string, at the very beginning the pitch is always more or less higher than the intended pitch. I mean "intended pitch" here the pitch of the string as it is sustained for several seconds. This is where you tune the string to your reference. There are several physical reasons why the pitch at the very beginning is higher than the sustained value, sometimes by more than a semitone.
One of the reasons is well known in classical physics: the pitch of a string vibration has a steady frequency only if the amplitude of the vibration is negligible to the length of the string. If it is not negligible, then the vibration causes an increased average tension in the string, and higher tension means higher pitch. This effect depends on two factors:
the tension of the string: thin strings have lower tension for the same pitch, so can be played with much higher amplitude, thus the pitch deviation is higher as well.
the harder you pick, the higher is the deviation.
There is another reason for unintended high pitch in the attack. The short picking pulse that started from your pick is propagating towards the point where you fretted the string. However, if the pulse is large (you picked hard), and the string deviation is large (light gauge string), and the string height is low, then the pulse slightly hits the fret that is one higher than the one that you fretted, simply because the string is so close to this fret. This results a reflection from this fret that appears in the first vibration cycle as a one semitone higher note. This happens only in the very first cycle of the vibration, since the amplitude of the pulse gets very much smaller even by the second reflection.
It is of course natural, if you do not get this problem with a Roland, since it does not recognize pitch from the first cycle anyway. Also, it is good to know that if you turn the pick sensitivity to finger picking, it will skip recognition in the first cycle, so this problem will probably not happen. With this knowledge, here are some tips how to eliminate this problem:
First and most important: Even with a piano sound it is not necessary to play in Trigger mode. If you use Quantize to semitones then you get just as well quantized pitch like in trigger mode, but these glitches at the very beginning of the note will not be audible, if the synth has a good and fast response. Of course, this works really well only in MONO mode, on six MIDI channels.
Use medium or hard gauge strings, no light or extra light.
Adjust the string height to be as high as you can tolerate.
Play softly, do not pick hard.
Play with the tip of the plectrum, not with the flat part
Finger Picking Mode, if the slightly slower response does not hurt.
Q: When I use Trigger Mode and I play a hammer-on, then I understand that I get a new note, but why is it slightly delayed?

A: See the first part of the previous answer about left-right hand coordination. In order to avoid a very annoying double trigger, when the system recognizes a hammer-on while in Trigger Mode, it will intentionally delay the new note, waiting a little bit if a new picking is coming or not. It will trigger a new note based on the hammer-on only if the picking does not come in the expected timeFrame.

And playing technique plays a huge role

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZdFCuiJcc8pqxRwKoBFaRQ


PeterPan8

#5
Thanks Elantric for the link. Maybe part of my answer (about lowering the action) lies in the following quote taken from that same link:

QuoteAdjust the string height to be as high as you can tolerate.

From what I can understand this could mean that less artifacts will be heard if the strings are higher above the fretboard. Is that so? And also to play with medium to hard gauge strings. I'll have to try that.

Elantric mentioned on the GK-13 forum about playing with a special kind of strings.
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=1606.msg85558#msg85558

Does that apply with FTP? If not, what kind of strings are you using while playing with FTP?

PS: Would a "string damper" helps to avoid those artifact or ghost notes?

PPS: And can someone explain what Audiotrax said here:
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=1606.msg26706#msg26706
QuoteI started out with 9's, sometimes switching the high E for an 8.  They played really fast, but proved to be way too floppy sloppy with my Roland GI-10 and VG-88.  Went to 10's then finally took the leap to the Flatwound 12's last week.  Basically, I was stunned.  I am now in love with my favorite Strat all over again.

I'm kind of new to electric guitars, and exploring all avenues to get rid of ghost notes in my FTP playing.

plethoraguy

Not to malign your playing skills but I found that I really had to clean up my technique once I started using the TP.   It can be very rewarding to precision but fairly punishing to sloppiness.
Something to consider...


Sweetbird

I think modifying playing technique as suggested by plethoraguy will help deal with the artifact noises, which are very annoying.  I have been searching for a way to set the various TP settings to minizme these noises but there's nothing that seems to deal with them directly. If anybody has discovered optimal settings, let me know!


Smash

You have set the FTP to fingerstyle and not pleck haven't you?

The best I've had from FTP playing fingerstyle on an Acoustic is to crank the dynamics sensitivity all the way to the right and touch sensitivity (or nearly) - this tends to attenuate the low output string noise etc that cause the blips and blops. You have to dig in more to get some notes to sound but even on bronze acoustic strings it's playable.

What is frustrating is having to ping pong between the PC and iTrack dock to see what affect minor changes have on playability and yes, this another dig at Fishman (Deafman?) to sort their lives out and give us an iOS app - hell I'll even pay to download!


FishmanSQA

Quote from: Smash on September 25, 2017, 07:09:07 AM
You have set the FTP to fingerstyle and not pleck haven't you?

The best I've had from FTP playing fingerstyle on an Acoustic is to crank the dynamics sensitivity all the way to the right and touch sensitivity (or nearly) - this tends to attenuate the low output string noise etc that cause the blips and blops. You have to dig in more to get some notes to sound but even on bronze acoustic strings it's playable.

What is frustrating is having to ping pong between the PC and iTrack dock to see what affect minor changes have on playability and yes, this another dig at Fishman (Deafman?) to sort their lives out and give us an iOS app - hell I'll even pay to download!


We aren't deaf, I've forwarded along all suggestions and requests to the people in charge.
Best,
Sara

Sweetbird

I do use the Fingerpicking setting and will try setting Dynamics and Touch all the way to the right. I'm currently using a Variax JTV-69 so little different set up from your Acoustic.

Appreciate the suggestions. I do love the TP and would love to find a way to play cleanly sans the artifacts.


plethoraguy

#11
I've had my ftp for more than a year but I've never actually recorded anything with it until this weekend (mostly use it live to fatten my sound) but I'm kinda stoked at this rhodes piano w neck pickup sound I've got going.     

http://soundcloud.com/john-thomas-199/shes-so-solo

I am posting this as an answer to two recent threads...     clean playing means less artifacts, and how does the fender fishman strat sound.    Other than the drums this is all fender triple play.   1  roades piano track (midi from triple play), 1 track of neck pickup combined with a warmer  roades, and finally the solo with the same neck + roades setup but slightly different mix. 

Smash

#12
Quote from: FishmanSQA on September 25, 2017, 07:36:53 AM

We aren't deaf, I've forwarded along all suggestions and requests to the people in charge.
Best,
Sara

Appreciate your reply - I know I was being provocative (sorry) but I must've missed where you previously said it had been passed up as suggestion - apologies. I promise I won't mention it again now we know it's gone forward :-X  :)

FishmanSQA

No worries...Just wanted to be sure you knew that we hear you. :)

Best,
Sara

PeterPan8

Well, after a few months of trying to find the "Holy Grail" of FTP playing, I think I'm coming closer to the sound I'm looking for.

I did just about everything Elantric suggested: reshaped my (new) Godin guitar with a luthier, and changed my strings to flatwound ones.

All this made for a HUGE difference in my playing. All my TP settings are for the style I play: fingerpicking, jazzy-classical-new age stuff using 3 or 4 different instruments at the same time. Being trained as a classical guitarist for the past 40 years, I still have to improve my finger style playing with TriplePlay, but with all the adjustments I made above, it's a very good start.

But the biggest surprise (for me) was to switch to flatwound strings (medium gauge). That really made my day!  Imagine, I can now play Aranjuez Guitar concerto with guitar/piano, cello and choir as if I was sitting in the concert hall!  I usually play with my headphones on, and the sound is so realistic that sometimes I'm almost moved to tears!

My real problem is to keep my fingernails top shape, and making sure that I don't break any nails about a month before I play in public.

plethoraguy

Awesome, PP8!   Way to embrace FTP!  I hope to hear some recordings... 

lightwins

#16
There is a simple method if you use raspbery pi and fluidsynth as a sound  module. This is simple setup and costs about 60 dollars.
fluidsynth has midi mapping feature. And because spurious notes are most of the time harmonics of main tone one may filter them out using midi mapping file parameter.
Just as example that tells to restrict notes on 2rd string so it plays midi notes from 59 to 76

router_begin note
router_par1 59 76 1 0
router_chan 1 1 1 0
router_end

Standard notes per string are below:
E3/64 - B2/59 - G2/55 - D2/50 - A1/45 - E1/40

I made a comparison and felt a difference. Got alot fewer glitches
FTP should be in Mono mode


Smash

Agree with above - I use Midiflow on iPad to filter any notes below low D and above top E at 12th fret. I also use a bungee at the nut to clean things up butcareful cos you can kill sustain that way if its sitting too far onto strings.

're nails breaking I actually go to a nail bar and have acrylics put on my right hand. Taises a fee eyebrows but theyre unbreakable and brilliant for fingerstyle