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My midi Double Bass Section Legato is out of tune by - 22 ct. Why is this happening and how do I fix this ?

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The instrument is the 'Double bass Section Legato' in the Orchestral Strings which can be found on the website of Ableton

https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/orchestral-strings/#?genres=orchestral

Bob Broadley
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Chris Django
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    Is this a DAW instrument? If so which DAW? – Bob Broadley Jul 17 '21 at 20:07
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    Are any other notes of this instrument out of tune? Are any of your other MIDI instruments out of tune? – Bob Broadley Jul 17 '21 at 20:09
  • Double Bass Section Legato from the Orchestral string pack – Chris Django Jul 18 '21 at 16:54
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    *What* Orchestral string pack? There are dozens of them. – musicamante Jul 18 '21 at 16:55
  • Other notes are also out of tune but by different smaller fixed amounts. – Chris Django Jul 18 '21 at 16:55
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    @ChrisDjango, the reason we need to know exactly what instrument library this is from, is because different kinds of libraries have different characters. Some of the more expensive libraries I have, ironically have more out of tune notes, as they are recorded more like a "real" section. Whereas, the default sounds in, for instance Logic Pro, are more likely to be in tune as they are more "synthetic" sounding and less "real". – Bob Broadley Jul 18 '21 at 16:57
  • The Orchestral strings pack on the website of ableton https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/orchestral-strings/#?genres=orchestral – Chris Django Jul 18 '21 at 16:58
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    Right, we're getting closer to being able to help you now! None of this info was in the original question! Hopefully someone who knows this library well, will be able to tell you if they have also noticed it is out of tune, or if it is likely to be a problem with your setup. Let's wait and see... – Bob Broadley Jul 18 '21 at 16:59
  • @ChrisDjango for future reference, try to be more detailed in your questions: imagine being somebody asking you something you know anything about. That said, after a simple research, I found some complaints: https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=226686 (no response) https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=146733 and https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=143736 (not sure if it refers to the same pack). Anyway, in general, consider that classical instruments almost never have a "perfect" pitch (when playing live, tuning changes and good performers adapt depending on the intervals). – musicamante Jul 18 '21 at 17:11

2 Answers2

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That interval is a bit less than a cent wider than a syntonic comma. I suspect that the instrument is set to "just intonation" or to some temperament. Also check the controller to make sure it's not sending any pitch modification in the midi message.

phoog
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From the comments provided by @musicamante, it sounds like you don't have a problem with your setup, but that the strings library you are using has some out of tune notes. This is also suggested by your comment that some other notes are out of tune, but by different amounts. (If all notes were equally out of tune, this would suggest some kind of global problem, such as erroneous pitch-bend messages, or some kind of global fine-tune setting being off...)

I don't use Ableton, so don't know if you could tune individual notes in a sample library, in the way you can in Kontakt, for instance. But to be honest, this would probably be a massive pain in the rear end anyway.

The simplest solution, particularly for a "single-line" instrument like bass is to change the pitch of any out of tune notes. There are two main ways you could do this:

  • bounce the audio, then chop up it up to isolate any out of tune notes, then fine tune these notes.
  • use a pitch correction plugin: as far as I can tell from searching on Google, Ableton doesn't have a native plugin for auto-tuning, but you can either buy one or download a free one. This would be the only solution if you are using Ableton to play live.

If there are only a few very out of tune notes that you want to change, you could even put these all on one track and just fine tune this track, and leave the other notes on another track using the same instrument.

Bob Broadley
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