Solved Key names one octave lower than expected

[ChrisStürmer]

Hi there, this might be a newbie question but after juggling around with google for a while, i find no direct answer.

When i hit a note on my keyboard, Studio One shows me that it is a "C3". But after all my investigations this key should produce a "C4" (Hex 3C) with 261Hz. So it appears to me that 261Hz is named "C3" in Studio One. Also the MIDI-Monitor shows me 90 3C 4E (Note On, Value x3C, Velocity x4E) and displays "Note On C3 78".

Is this observation correct ? Do I do something wrong ? Is there any reason for this ?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers
Chris

 

[SwitchBack]

The observation is correct and it is confusing. No idea why it is named as it is in Studio One. My solution (after experimenting with transposing track and event) is to transpose the instrument plugin to get the right octave. YMMV.

 

[ChrisStürmer]

@SwitchBack : thank you for that confirmation.

What do you mean by "to transpose the instrument plugin" ? Do you transpose the via Track Inspector->Transpose ?

 

[SwitchBack]

No, I open the instrument plugin's settings window and transpose the input down by one octave. It will depend on the instrument but e.g. Presence has a knob for it called 'Transpose'. That way I can keep the sheet music as written, ignore the naming (C3/C4) and get it to play as intended.

 

[EgM]

There are two standards for middle C, C3 by Yamaha and C4 by Roland. Different DAWs use different definitions and some offer options.

 

[ChrisStürmer]

What you have experienced is normal in Studio One. Studio One is developed by a team of Presonus employees based in Germany, Middle C in Germany/Austria is C3. The rest of the world uses C4 as middle C. That makes it seem off.

There is a good answer by Presonus. I didn't know that we (German/Austria) are special in that point as well. I thought it was only the confusion about h/b note name

 

[ChrisStürmer]

after further investigation this is not a deviation between German/Austrian vs. international notation. It looks like the MIDI guys screwed things up.

MIDI notes are represented by an integer value between 1 and 127. As a standard 88 keys keyboard starts with an A and they hat 127 values available, they started counting with the C below the A. And as computer guys always start counting at zero, they called it C0. Why they were using the value 12 for C0 ? I only can guess. Probably to have the MIDDLE C on an even value nearest to the MIDDLE of all available 127 values. So the middle C ended up with the value 60 (easy to remember).
If you then start counting from 12 and C0 to the middle C, you end up with the value 60 being the 4th octave above C0, what then becomes C4.

Obviously no one of the computer guys cared about the fact that the musical world/notation standard calls C3 the middle C