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Weird octave discrepancies in Studio One, vsts, paino roll, tuner and spectrum

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asked Mar 16, 2019 in Studio One 4 by elvirjade (330 points)
So recently I bought a midi keyboard and it came with S1 Artist 4 key. All cool and working. Before that I played only acoustic guitar and piano and wasn't into electronic/recording part of the music, so this question or parts of it may be stupid.

OS - Windows 10 with latest updates, DAW - Studio One Artist 4.1.3.50787 (latest), CPU - Intel i5 8250U, MIDI keyboard - Acorn Masterkey 49.

Some note frequencies in a440 equal temperament which we use nowadays (unless S1 developers are into some other pitch standarts). A3 - 220 Hz, A4 - 440, A5 - 880 Hz. I used my own ears as reference, my real piano and my phone tuner. Phone tuner can make mistakes on extreme higher/lower notes, that's why I have my ears.

Plugged in keyboard. Did factory reset. No octave shifts (keyboard can shift octaves but there is indicator for that). There are marking on the keyboard labeled from C1 to C5.

Then I open MIDI-OX (little program for testing midi inputs). I press A2. MIDI-OX says I pressed A3. Weird. I check all other notes, all of them are +1 octave. Notes coming from program itself, if I connect it to WIndows' midi synth are the same as MIDI-OX says. So I press A2, but A3 is shown, and it plays A3.

Then I open Synthesia (program for opening midi files and practising piano). Once again, same story as MIDI-OX. Notice, NO SHIFTS in octaves on keyboard. So, labels on keyboard itself must be  wrong?

Then I open Studio One. No settings changed. Clean program. I press A2 (according to labels). A2 shows on piano roll (??), A2 shows in MIDI monitor (in S1), even frigging S1 tuner effect says its A2. But I clearly hear an A3. I check all the notes, I try playing them on piano, then listening to notes online, I try my phone tuner, I even try playing me acoustic guitar, thats A3 ! I start losing my mind slowly, trying to decide who is right and who is wrong.

 I open Spectrum on my piano track (btw piano instruments are Presence with different setups and Kontakt, all with same results) and notice something strange. It indeed says I play A2, but (!) if you mouse over an A2 note, it is 220Hz here for some reason (220Hz is A3). All notes in Spectrum are +1 octave and I have no idea why.

Now I wonder what if I play my electric guitar. I connect it to S1. Tuner once again is wrong, it displays all notes an octave lower. I play an open E2 string, it displays E1. Same thing with other notes. Spectrum - same story. It displays the frequency itself correctly, I play G string on fret 2 (A3), it shows frequencies of A3, mouse over, it shows nah bro, 220 Hz is A2 here, didnt u know.

TL:DR Acorn MIDI keyboard sends all inputs an octave higher, according to everything else, but not S1. S1 itself says all is right, shows all the right keys and stuff, but plays them an octave higher in all instruments and VSTs. Spectrum and Tuner have their own pitch standards.

So I am kinda lost here. Plz send help.

1 Answer

+1 vote
answered Mar 18, 2019 by elvirjade (330 points)
 
Best answer

So I finally got the answer. Acorn keyboard and Studio One uses German metrics, their middle C is C3, not C4.

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