Voice-to-MIDI with the i2M = wrong and jumping notes.

[Pkleer]

I recently purchased the i2M musicport exclusively for its Voice-to-MIDI ability but, so far (and despite having tried every parameters possible using different microphones), I still cannot sing two bars without having notes coming out wrong or jumping rapidly from one semi-tone to another (higher or lower) or even rendering the wrong octave sung [either in Pitchbend mode or Chromatic].

Thinking that it was my singing that was intolerable –I even applied some pitch correction to my voice (using the TC Helicon Voice Tone Pedal Correct-XT) before plugging the outcome into the i2M and running through all the parameters again [including synchronizing the Pitchbend amplitude with the DAW, as instructed elsewhere on this forum] with, alas, the same result.

Could you please provide me with your best tips for a flawless performance (type of microphone to use, humming or singing louder, specific DAWs, or something else I'm not doing correctly).
Or maybe you can direct me also to an instructional video online showing specifically the prowess of the Voice-to-MIDI application of the i2M musicport so that I may compare performances because I'm starting to believe that my unit might be faulty.

Thanks.

[james]

This can happen because the voice isn't often as controllable as a guitar, so there is lots of extra (unintentional) pitched sounds going on: breaths, plosive sounds (p, b, etc).

What sort of things are you singing? You will get best results if you sing only well-pitched parts, such as vowel sounds ("ahhh", "oohh", etc), . When you sing "plosive" sounds, such as "b" and "p", the sound does not have a well-defined pitch, so the i2M works hard to find what to convert and you end up with lots of short notes that you didn't intent.

If you are singing vowels, can you send us a recording of your vocal? We can run it through an i2M and see what it does here to compare.

[Pkleer]

Here's my vocalizing test (as a .wav attachment).

Funny, I uploaded it through the posting service but I don't see it in the post preview.

I'm gonna leave it on my Dropbox as well then, as a sharing link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rg4n3jr71excm ... r.WAV?dl=0

[james]

Thanks. I have got the file and will have a look at it and get back to you.

We have limits on the size of attachments on the forum. I suspect that's why it didn't work.

[james]

I did some tests with your audio file. I simply played it back into an i2M then used the MIDI from the i2M to control a soft synth with a sax sound on it. The i2M was on the default "guitar" setting, and the synth had its pitch-bend range set to 2 to match the i2M.

I made this recording for you. The left track is your original vocal. The right is the saxophone. I've aligned them so you can hear both at the same time and see how closely they match.

"http://www.sonuus.com/downloads/forum/P ... (Midi).WAV"

The MIDI is following all of the pitch variations in your voice. The conversion seems very good to me. What do you think? How do your results compare?

[Pkleer]

I'm sorry but I can't access the file. All I reach is an 'error' page, like so:(http://www.sonuus.com/error.html)

[james]

Something went wrong when I posted the URL. I've edited my post to put quotes around the URL. Please copy this link into your browser to get the download.

[Pkleer]

Thanks for your effort in demonstrating the capability of the i2M Voice-to-Midi. Unfortunately, 'very good' won't cut it for the application I want to use it for (live performance).

I'll keep abreast of future upgrades.

[james]

What do you need to achieve. The i2M did a perfect conversion of the voice to MIDI. There were no mistakes in it.

One suggestion. If you set the i2M to chromatic mode and enable the "scale" function and select the musical scale of the song, when you sing, only the correct notes in that scale can be output. You loose pitch-bend capability, but it means you always get the correct notes, even if the singing is a little off pitch.