getting distortion....JUST with midi??

antispatula

antispatula

Active member
Its the weirdest thing. In the past few days I've noticed that when I try to record with midi, I get distortion. I could be using any sound library or synth. I can be using a soft synth inside my host program or as a standalone. Audio doesn't distort. I'll check my signal path, and everything will be below 0 on the VU's, and I know my headphones aren't the problem. I have not been able to isolate the distortion to any specific thing. Any suggestions?

ps. I'm thinking perhaps its NOT clipping, because I'll play back a midi file, and it will distort, then without touching anything, I'll play it back again and it will distort in different places.
 
Hi.Any timing issues, slow downs ? Anything to indicate CPU overload or buffer underun ?

Tried reinstalling the drivers on your midi device ?


I get distortion with reaper and my USB when I have the latency set real low and I load up another app or get online. It resets funnily enough by just going into prefs and reselecting the same USB device, nothing more.
 
ok so I figured out that if I render the track at a slow rate to a WAV, the distortion is gone, it's when I am playing the piece or playing back the midi piece that it gets all snappy and poppy. Does that help?
 
antispatula said:
ok so I figured out that if I render the track at a slow rate to a WAV, the distortion is gone, it's when I am playing the piece or playing back the midi piece that it gets all snappy and poppy. Does that help?
Click to expand...

That's not what I'd call distortion in the normal sense. What you describe here sounds like something can't pass data fast enough. Either there's a buffer set too small or some other software is interrupting the flow of data by accessing the resources used by your MIDI stuff.
 
yeah, it certainly isn't distortion as in digital clipping, it isn't an issue of an overly-hot signal. RAM isn't an issue, I have 8GB, and a quad-core processor. I've experimented with buffer size, even at the largest sizes, it makes no difference. Weird huh?? Anyone have any other suggestions?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top