Midi is making a fool of me, help me with this weird timing problem, PLEASE!

  • Thread starter Thread starter tubedude
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tubedude

tubedude

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Ok,
I am having a problem with Sonars midi timing and DR-008...
I go through and put in a kick pattern, and on playback the kick pattern is fine and on time. Then I'll go back and put in snare pattern with it, and the kick is still fine, but the snare plays back with terrible bad unpredictible latentcy, like more than 1/2 second. If I watch it in piano roll view, the kick will fire right on cue as the now time passes over it, but when it passes over the snare, it'll be 1/2 second or more before the snare makes any sound. If I watch the DR-008 screen, the pad on it doesnt light up until I hear it, so I'm sure its the sequencer somehow not firing the note correctly.
Also, I tried moving the snare track to a track of its own, and it still fires with the same bad latency. Also, if I stop the project and restart it, it will always fire the 1st snare from wherever I start it on time, but not the rest of them.
Can you give me any idea whats wrong so I can get working again?
Thanks!
 
are your drums set up to run from midi channel 10? that seems to be the normal channel for drums. maybe check you clock setting s also. see which one is the master......sorry i can't be much help....i don't do much midi stuff.
jason
 
I'll check those two things out, thanks...

I really would like to get some work done tonight, this sucks bad.

Anyone else have any ideas?
 
I had a similar problem with the DR-008 playing all funky. I went into my audio settings and turned the latency down to about 30 ms and for some reason, it's played fine ever since. Don't know what the relationship would be there, but it works for me. Where do you have yours set?

ed
 
I checked, mine is set at 8.7msec, which is as low as it will slide.
Why is it that everyone else can get 1.5, but mine wont even give me the option?
I'll move it up a bit and see if it works/helps.
 
I've never worried about it much. Latency, that is. I've only turned on input monitoring a couple times since I got Sonar about a year and a half ago. It's just not that crucial for me, doing everything one instrument at a time.

Maybe the minimum available latency setting has to do with what soundcard you have? I just have your everyday SB Live, and my lowest latency setting is 10, so I can't even get down to the 8.7 that you're at. I dunno. Anyway, I'll goof around with my DR-008 and try to come up with something else while you're fiddling with it. Talk to ya later.

ed
 
are you putting the snare in the same track with the kick drum?

try using a CAL script to split the snare drum into its own track even if it doesn't have its own channel.

you don't even need the CAL script just clone the track and then use cut by filter to remove the kick drum from the cloned track.

there's also a midi timing parameter for sonar, but i can't remember what it is. if i remember i'll post back.

ps. to my knowledge audio latency has nothing to do with midi playback.
 
I FIGURED IT OUT!

There is a setting in the global tab called midi, I went there and it had a buffering setting... it was defaulted at 500, so I got brave and set it up to 750... it helped a LITTLE, tightened things up some... so I went to 900... almost cleared it up entirely... 1000 and all is well, its great.
Just finished a TON of work in about 2 hours time.
Thanks for all that helped...
 
Man, midi rocks... I'm old school audio so the midi stuff can be a little complex for me, but I have definatly got a firm grip on most of it now, although I'm sure I'll eat my words shortly....

By the way, I re-profiled my soundcard, and now my latency slider goes down to 2.7... big improvement...

Thanks again for all that helped and tried to help... much appreciated... maybe I should stick to what I know best... :)

By the way, DR-008 with Drumkit from Hell is a gift from the Gods themselves... how cool... my main problem now is getting high hats to sound totally natural, but I'm real real close... I'll get it...
 
Another problem encountered and fixed...

I set up a part that had a pretty fast and busy drum roll in it, and it wouldnt play again, it would just play all the notes at once at the end of the run, and it nearly blew my monitors out.. I set it up to 1500, nothing, 2000, nothing, then went to 3000... still nothing but a huge boom at the end of the run...
4000 and it played my roll correctly. Weird.

Would someone else please take a look at that tab (if you use midi) and tell me what yours is set to? Its under Global --> midi --> buffers.
 
Yo, tubedude... Most of the times I use external synth & Soundfonts. Rare that I use DXi thingee. It's all good, rather my taste goes my setup better. All your post here is usefull info whenever I get into DXi (Yess... DR-008 is GREAT !!!). Kinda tell me for avoiding these problem whenever I use it. Thank's d00d... :) I bookmarked this page for sure...

;)
Jaymz


ps. My MIDI playback buffers is fine at 500ms (default). ;)
 
Hey tubedude. I looked at my buffer settings. I have 64 buffers, and the playback is set to 500 ms. I have never had any problems, and I run Sonar on a PIII 600 mhz. I used the DR-008 a lot when I first got Sonar, and like I told you already, I had to decrease my latency to get it to play back in time. I never messed with those buffer settings, though. It kinda makes sense when you consider that each midi note is basically calling up a wave file. So, if you have a faster roll, where lots of waves are being summoned in rapid succession, the larger buffer size may be necessary. I actually got away from using the DR-008 altogether after I settled on what I think are good drum sounds. I made a soundfont for my drums, and I haven't needed the DR-008 ever since. I also included 3 or 4 bass sounds, and a real good piano in the soundfont, edited my patch names list to show my custom sounds, and I now can get away with no soft-synths at all. Seems like it took me forever, but it's all good now! Anyway, that's just how I do it. Good luck, my man!!

ed
 
I am hooked on the DR-008, personally... very good program, very useful, and combined with Drumkit From Hell its pretty phenomenal... I record all my drums myself, and then go back in piano roll and tighten things up if they are too far out of whack. Quantizing seems to freak it out too bad, no matter what setting I use.
I just messed with my 1st actual soft synth today, and its pretty damn cool. New possiblilites I didnt even know I had.

I do love the DR-008 with DFH though. Very much so. Gift from heaven.
 
Addendum:

The real problem solved...

Cakewalk emailed me back from where I emailed them Friday, and they said that I needed to install the plug-in patch. Since I had already done that, I couldnt see why. Then, I realized that I installed the DR-008 AFTER the plug-in patch, so I re-installed it.
I set my buffers back down to 500, and it works fine. Problem solved.
Even after I went up to 4000ms on the buffers, a song would not mix down, so I doubled it, and it still didnt work. Works fine now.

Keep this one for the records....
 
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