# MIDI cue playback software?



## Jay Ashworth (Feb 25, 2014)

I'm SMing Richard Harris' Stepping Out for our Blackbox, and there are q number (a dozen? maybe more? Not done with the plot yet) music playback cues which are the rehearsal pianist playing "live" in a rehearsal hall.

Because it's so difficult to deal with instrument note decay when such things are recorded -- there are several cues, for instance, when I *don't know* when I'll be cutting them off, because it depends on audience reaction -- I would prefer to be able to put the MIDI files into a sound-panel like sequencer playback program, so I can tap/click/keypress the appropriate cue to start it, and then stop it whenever seems appropriate, but without cutting off the remaining ring-out of the last notes. If I could find something that had built in trail-off-and-stop (or even train-wreck) features, that'd be great too.

Presently that keyboard will be a Yamaha PSR-292, but if the piano patch on that isn't tractable enough, I may find a better piano synth and feed it instead (this may be my best solution regardless, for logistical reasons).

But the basic question is: is there any MIDI playback software that's optimised for this sort of interactive cueing?

Prefer Linux and don't mind compiling, but I'll have both laptops in the booth, so Win7 is ok too.


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## dbaxter (Feb 25, 2014)

Take a look at the thread Sound f/x - Cue Playback Software | ControlBooth There are several cue playback software packages mentioned for Windows, in addition to mine. It seems like what you want is to be playing a cue and then trigger a quick fade on command. That's a fairly simple thing.


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 25, 2014)

Nope; I don't want a fade; that will fade off the end of the reverb trail of the individual notes and sound horrible. I want to *stop the notes going into the synth*, and let the audio fall where it may.

That, I suspect, is not as simple. I'm sure I can do with with a standalone sequencer program, but not while stage managing the show as well.

I need something exactly like a soundpanel... I just want it to play MIDI, rather than audio.

I will check out the thread, though; thanks.


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 26, 2014)

But, after digging deeper on that thread, I see that 00AVD's MultiPlay will play MIDI; I need to look at it more, though, to see if it's flexible enough for what I need. His MIDI Buttons would be better, but probably would puke at loading a song-length sequence.


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 26, 2014)

In particular, I'm going to have one instance where someone's 'playing' boogie-woogie on the piano, when the 'real' pianist walks in; the funniest thing I could do there would be to grab the playing sequence, and yank it's tempo down from 133bpm to about 6, for 5 or 6 notes, and then stop it entirely.

In lieu of that, I could crash it to a new cue with a believable sounding 'keyboard train-wreck' in it, and then have that stop on its own. MultiPlay appears able to do the latter.

And indeed, it looks pretty spiffy overall, at least from its function list.


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## MarshallPope (Feb 26, 2014)

Would it be possible to render (Does that word work for audio?) the tracks fairly dead with no reverb/decay and then run them through an external effects processor to add that in? That way you could stop the music whenever you wanted without having to rely on the original files to let the notes ring out?


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 26, 2014)

You know, I might be able to, Marshall, but trying to hit the inter-note spacing at 133bpm wouldn't be easy... 

The envelope is pretty much an integral part of a piano patch, though, I think...


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## Joshualangman (Feb 26, 2014)

QLab will play MIDI files. You just need another piece of software or hardware to play them through. If you stop the cue in QLab, the last note will still decay naturally. Or if you take a very dry audio file and play it through QLab, you can add a reverb effect (not quite the same thing) and this will also play out after stopping the cue.


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 26, 2014)

I have OpenSUSE and WIn7; no Macs handy.


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 26, 2014)

(For the record; I blew the jargon; the Catherine Hickman is not a black-box; it's a proscenium theatre.)


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