Help, I can't get MIDI out to work!

H

HollowMan1975

New member
In Sonar or even in something really simple like PowerTab, I can't get either of my keyboards to receive and play MIDI messages. Sending MIDI messages from the synth has always worked fine for years with this system. Before today I really never had a need for sending MIDI to the synth, as I used soft synths in Sonar. My synth was used primarily as a controller keyboard. But now I'm trying to send MIDI data out from Sonar to the keyboard, and I can't hear a thing.

I'm not really a newbie, and I've played around with pretty much every setting I can find. On both my Yamaha P200 and my Korg Triton, I've turned off all the MIDI receive filters (and also tried them in reverse, just in case), so it shouldn't be filtering anything. The little indicator in the taskbar shows that both programs are sending data (little light on the right side of the icon blinks when the program tries to play a note).

I have an Audiophile 2496 and updated the drivers to 5.10.00.0048. I flipped both the MIDI cables around to see if it was a faulty cable. I criss-crossed them to see if somehow I'd reversed the cables (when I did that, nothing worked at all of course). My MPU-401 port works fine as it controls my J-Station perfecty.

The only thing I can think of is the IRQ port my AP2496 gets assigned by Windows 2000. It gets IRQ11, as does everything else for some reason. My BIOS lets me hardwire certain PCI slots to certain IRQ settings, but doing that doesn't make any difference, as soon as Windows boots up it's still in IRQ 11. Thats the only thing I can think of thats not 'right' with the situation. The motherboard is an MSI 645 Ultra.

Anyone have any ideas? This is taken the majority of the day and is driving me nuts!
 
This might be an ACPI problem (Often ACPI causes such IRQ Conflicts). You can try this. Open the Device Manager and click the + next to "Computer". It'll probably say "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" (Or something very similar). You want this to say standard PC, so update the driver>Install from a list or specific location>Don't Search, I will choose the driver to install>And select standard PC. You'll now be able to assign IRQ's freely within windows (From the property page for each item in the Device Manager). You can get the list of what devices use what from "System Information": GoTo: Start Menu>Accesories>System Tools. Then you click on the Hardware Resources Explorer, and can view an IRQ list, Conflicts, Etc. You might have to reinstall some driver's after changing to standard PC. The only downside to this will be you have to manually shut of the computer after you power down (The old "It is now safe to turn off your computer" screen). But you can also change that back in your registry if you wan't (I won't discuss that here, I don't want to be responsible for anyone crashing there PC's). Hope this is of some help.
 
If your 2496 recieved an IRQ that is used by your Graphics, be sure the 2496 is not installed in the top PCI slot. Most often PCI slot 1 and the AGP port share resources. Check your MoBo manual too, as some combinations of slots share resources to (i.e. on mine PCI slot 2, and 5 share resources by default).
 
Well, I tried switching from ACPI to standard PC but it didn't affect the MIDI one bit. I even plugged my two keyboards directly into each other, using one as a controller and the other as a sound module and vice versa and it worked fine, so I know for SURE that the MIDI IN settings for each board are set properly.

I've left a customer support request with M-Audio. Hopefully they get back to me soon, otherwise it's back to the store with this card.
 
Interesting, I just noticed that if I run one of my songs in Sonar and make sure one of the MIDI tracks is shooting out to 1-Delta AP MIDI instead of the Edirol DXi, and I hold a note on my synth, when I play the song and the first MIDI note supposedly gets sent out (it's a long note, so the MIDI off doesn't come for about 10 seconds), about 1/2 second into the song, the note I was physically holding on the keyboard stops sounding. It's almost like the MIDI note ON message sent by the computer is being interpreted by my keyboard as a MIDI note OFF, but after a half second delay.

I tried programming in a patch change message to see if I could get my keyboard to change programs but no luck.
 
Hopefully M-Audio can shed some light. You might try uninstalling, and reinstalling the driver too, and possibly even try an older driver (There may be a conflict with you MPU-401).
 
Atterion said:
Hopefully M-Audio can shed some light. You might try uninstalling, and reinstalling the driver too, and possibly even try an older driver (There may be a conflict with you MPU-401).
Click to expand...

I tried that this morning: uninstalling the AP2496. Same deal. I also tried running everything directly through the MPU-401, but had the same problem! This to me proves that both ports are affected by whatever is causing the problem. Maybe I'll have to try physically removing the M-Audio card from the PCI slot tonight to see if that fixes it. I tried dumbing down to the ver27 driver (from ver48 and ver36 previously) but it didn't change anything.

What really bugs me though is that my J-Station works just fine with both MIDI IN and MIDI OUT messages, but those same cables plugged into my Korg or Yamaha don't work at all (yet everything is on Ch1 on no trans/rec filters are on either board). It's almost as if when I installed the J-Edit software, it reconfigured all possible present and future MIDI communications to only understand "J-Station" MIDI language and not the standard MIDI communications protocol. If only I had tried this a year ago when I installed the J-Station, then maybe I'd known if it was the culprit or not.

If I have to I'll even unistall the J-Station software and see what happens.
 
Well, as it stands, the M-Audio technical help concluded that since my MPU-401 doesn't send MIDI OUT data to my keyboards either, it can't possibly be a problem with the Delta card.

I have to agree with the guy, I kinda thought it was a conflict at one point, but since I completely uninstalled everything and it still didn't work, thats what I'm left with.

Someday, when I figure this thing out, I'll post the answer. Until then, I'm simulating my Triton sounds with the Triangle DXi in Sonar. (actually, for alot of things, I like it better than hardware)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top