Has anyone heard from MOTU re: terrible MIDI?

[zandurian]

On my old dual 500 g4 I noticed (with audio on) that if the CPU performance went over about 25%, the MIDI would glitch. Even opening a window (causing a slight surge in CPU usage) would make the MIDI drop out. Bottom line - after talking with john and magic dave a lot it seems that, even though the performance monitor says there is plenty of power, OSX is running out of power. I had to greatly reduce the strain (of processing audio) from each project in order to stop the MIDI glitching - ie - scale down from 32 mono voices to 18 mono voices, buffer to 1024 from 512 and priority (or whatever that setting is called) from high to medium, and reducing some of the more power hungry effects (verb and auto-tune). On the "Medium" priority setting I can run the performance monitor up to about 50% wirh no MIDI problems.
I assumed that my system WOULD struggle with OSX and DP 4.52 - but what I hated about the process was that no metering in either DP or OSX indicated a problem. Anyway, I will purchase a sonnet duet dual 1.33 gig upgrade which should solve the CPU problem.

[Rush909]

I was having the MIDI problems described above with motif and Cs6x... but ever since I started using USB on the motif instead of MIDI all problems are gone... I have tried all the motu recommendations, nothing worked... for now I can use USB, but it has introduced it's own set of problems where the USB connection seems to be creating noise on my motif audio outputs...

back to topic... MIDI has always been shaky with DP... this is the just the icing on the cake... I also have logic with exact same setup... guess what... no MIDI problems...

r.

[rknaub]

Hi are any of you using USB hubs? Try removing the MIDI interface form the hub and go directly into the mac. See if this fixes the problem. I have seen funky timing and stability problems go away after removing the hub. ALso it seems that many of you are having these problems with Mach 5. I am currenlty not having any problems with M5 and MIDI. try removing any other USB devices as a test to see if the problem disapears.

I have no MIDI problems with 4.52 OSX10.3.8 and 2 MTPAV's

PS Rebuild permissions often. Weekly!

HTH

Randy Knaub

[jimmy330]

I was reading these posts thinking hmmm I don't have these problems... 4.5.2 OSX 10.34 then I read Stu's note about Mach 5 and I have to tell you I took Mach 5 out of my rig about 6 Mo ago. I use Kontact and have no MIDI problems.

[RROY]

If Mach 5 is the problem ,and it's staring to look like it is ,why isn't MOTU answering e-mails.My last 4,over the past 2-3 weeks have gone unanswered.The least they could do is own up to a problem and let us know they are working on it.I have Mach5 and use it in conjunction with external MIDI keys and all was fine in OS9 and DP 3.11. Removing Mach 5 is not really a suitable option. MOTU we need this fixed.

[Bruce]

Sorry to bust up the logic here but:

I know from talking with several composers about this, that the having the Mach 5 in the setup is not the root cause of the problems. Many of us have these problems and do not have the Mach 5 in our setup. What is known is that for some people, doing thing like changing the usb hub, or getting rid of VIs, etc has helped. But again- the underlying problem is not as simply as what is or isn't in your setup.

[instacue]

I did hear back from MOTU after troubleshooting-beta testing by removing all plugins, adding them back one at a time, restarting DP 4.52 each time, and letting them know that on my System at least, Mach Five was the culprit.

Now they want me to do further testing (see message below). So much work, and to what end??, but I will try all these things and get back to them when I get a free hour or so... I guess they think that MachFive per se is not the problem - they appear to think that System load is what bogs down the MIDI. I hope they find whatever it is and fix it in future updates so that all of us can run smoothly.

Personally, I'd gladly give up some bells and whistles in DP if I knew that by doing so everything would always run reliably.

Message from Nathan at MOTU:

"For the Stuck Note problem, I want you to try removing all plug ins now EXCEPT for Mach Five and see if the issues still occur. Run the project with only Mach Five loaded. Do the stuck notes occur? I doubt that there is a general incompatibility of Mach Five with DP 4.52, rather it could be system related. Also, keep the Activity Monitor open at all times with DP and keep an eye on the processor usage for the program and over system usage to see if anything looks out of wack. This is found in the Utilities folder. Look closely at the progress and function of the system while you work with DP to see if you notice anything out of the ordinary. Also, to really nail the problem, I would highly recommend considering the stripping down of your hardware setup (i.e temporarily removing all PCI cards, swapping out or removing RAM chips, repairing permissions, running Tech Tool on your hard drives, etc). See if these things affect the problem as it could be vital in solving the issues."

--DP 4.52, Mac G4 Dual 1.4 Gig, 2 Gig ram, Sys 10.2.8, Aurora Igniter LT pci card, 2408 optical in and out to Apogee AD-8000, Apogee DA16, 3 MTP AV USBs, MTP II, MidiExpress 128. 12 SampleCell cards on Nubus Mac, 2 GigaStudio PCs, Aardsync II word clock house sync, Mach V, Stylus RMX

[bradswan]

Your willingness to go through so many hoops for Motu is admirable, but it isn't our responsiblility nor do we have the time or break in our recording, composing schedules to trouble shoot this issue from the ground up.

Motu, there is a big problem with MIDI now. I have wiped my drive and started all over again. I have not installed Mach V, still having stuck, random notes, drop outs and bizarre notes from??????. Please respond.

G4 dual 1ghz,MTP-AV,DP 4.52,10.3.7,Stylus RMX,UAD-1,

[waxman]

I am getting stuck notes constantly. apple key 1 is becoming my most used algorythym...

I have 4.52 a G5 2.5 and 10.3.8

The Yamahas are the worst with the MOTIF ES and the PSR 3000 pedal notes. Also hihats in BFD stick although I think that is BFD...

I am a MOTU homer but they really seem to be slacking on this one...

waxman

[bsantoro]

I have loaded DP 4.52 onto my new Powerbook 17'' 1.67GHz along with MX4 at the same time. This is the first time I have noticed stuck notes; only when recording with my Yamaha Motif7 keyboard tracks.

I did not seem to have this problem before installing MX4 on my older PowerMac G4/733 tower. Could Mach 5 and MX4 be causing the same problem?

OS X 10.3.8, DP 4.52; the latest MIDI driver for my MIDI Xpress XT USB, and latest 828 Firewire drivers.

[gseibert]

One thing I recently wondered about; a few weeks ago I used ONYX application and tried using the 'Optimize' tab for the first time. i ran the 'optimize -force' option. After a restart, the whole system seemed noticeably faster, startup, applications,etc. When I researched this, it appears that it forces a relink of the various system modules. It occurred to me that if you upgrade OSX often (and it seems like there's a new version every 2 months or so), and continually upgrade your drivers (many of which work at the kernal level) to the latest, that some of the prelinking gets to be less than optimal. I know just enough Unix to confuse myself, so I thought that some of the local experts could chime in. Anyway, to keep this on topic, it occurred to me that somehting like this could explain the apparent randomness of these MIDI problems. Maybe someone having these problems could try the 'optimzie -force' option and report back if there was any improvement. It certainly didn't hurt anything on my system.

dual 1GHz MDD, OSX 2.8, MTP/av, DP 4.12

<small>[ March 06, 2005, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: Gregg Seibert ]</small>

[toodamnhip]

As the originator of this post I would like to submit a poll to all.

Who here thinks the problem is CPU spikes and strain?....

I am running the G5 2.5, but I sometimes use a hell of a lot of processor with VI's, especially when using guitar rig and putting my buffers down to 128.

Consider this ONE vote for processor load taking away computers attention dedicated to MIDI!....
Add a second vote from me that the Yamaha motif line sucks at multiple MIDI capability...I have a frined at Yamaha and I will be talking to him to check this out. I will keep you all posted...
but all in all..MOTIF is a pain in the butt...but damn if it doesn;t sound pretty darn good....lol

DAve

[zandurian]

Yeah, CPU strain or OSX's inability to keep other functions from borrowing power from the MIDI stream is definately my problem. In OS9 I could keep adding effects and tracks till the whole system would freeze and the only MIDI glitch which occured was a stoppage of play when the computer crashed! Also, I've noticed other posts stating that moving audio priority to "low" cleared up MIDI problems.

[bradswan]

I vote NO. I have the MIDI issue with low CPU draw. My keyboard is a Kawai MP 9000. Considering this issue began with 4.5, I am led to believe the problem lies there.

[RROY]

I've had stuck and dropped MIDI notes with an Alesis QS 7,Triton LE,and a Roland Handsonic.So far for me the common thread has been that it is all on projects I started on DP 3.11, and now these projects are in 4.52.They played fine in 3.11. Also, these projects have 15 to 24 tracks of audio with maybe 8 to 10 plug ins. If I disable all but 2 stereo outs in the PCI control panel, the MIDI will play fine.I add one more stereo out MIDI goes bad. Dual 1G G4,1.5 G ram,2408 mk3, MTP AV.DP4.52,OS 10.3.8.Still haven't heard anything from MOTU.