Stuck MIDI notes...arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

With 2GB RAM, you have to be sort of frugal as to how much you are running in DP at once-- 2GB just barely cuts it...

That is surprising, frankly. I would have thought that 2GB is more than enough for a fairly vigorous DP project with a couple of VI's. I recently bumped up to 4GB on my G5, but was not seeing any significant issues with 2.5 GB.

[HCMarkus]

I have absolutely no issues with DP and MIDI stuck notes. I have a Roland keyboard MIDI'd via my MOTU 828mkII, and a Motif ES MIDI'd via its built-in USB port, driven by Yamah's USB-MIDI driver. Both work perfectly, and I use 'em a lot. I do encounter (very occasional) stuck notes with the VI Ivory, usually when I stop the transport on a pedal down event, but this is so rare as to be a non-issue.

I second Frodo's recommendation: Start from scratch. Clean install your system, DP and your plugs. I know it is a real pain, but think of it like alignment of your 24-track 2" tape deck, or rewiring your studio. If the stuck notes problem was endemic, this forum would be overheated beyond belief. It's been very peaceful around here as of late, because 5.11 works really well.

I will now issue my standard "partition your system drive and clone" advice... {deleted - see almost every posting I have ever made at UN}

Good luck!

[Frodo]

With 2GB RAM, you have to be sort of frugal as to how much you are running in DP at once-- 2GB just barely cuts it...

That is surprising, frankly. I would have thought that 2GB is more than enough for a fairly vigorous DP project with a couple of VI's. I recently bumped up to 4GB on my G5, but was not seeing any significant issues with 2.5 GB.

Therein lies the trick-- if you are not seeing any issues, it wouldn't be so easy to pinpoint where additional RAM would be of any benefit.

Like buying gas for your car; if you had 3/8ths of a tank and added another 2/8ths for the heck of it, you wouldn't notice a difference except perhaps over time.

A while back, it occured to me when I first got my G5 that I would be able to do all sorts of great things-- to run more stuff, etc. Having more than 2GB of RAM seemed obsence, so I stayed with 2GB and never made the connection with my performance issues as I purchased and installed more and more plugins.

My recent tests involved running them with 2GB, and then adding RAM gradually to see if there would be any improvements-- and there were-- and the improvements were not subtle. This was an audio and fx project, but I went further to test out VIs, then tested VIs with fx, etc. More RAM consistently resulted in better CPU performance on my system.

I still hear the "2GB is more than enough" story, but so much of it hinges on how much people are running at once. Since Virtual Memory does its calculations based on how much available RAM is installed, it follows that (to a certain point) more RAM widens the data bottleneck.

I would never recommend 8GB of RAM unless someone really had a very specific use for that much-- and I've all but gone mute on the practicalities of using 16GB in the new machines. But, if we're talking about 2GB, we're still speaking in G4 terms, and as software gets updated all of this really should be weighed against how much RAM we have or don't have.

Basically, DP can see 4GB so it made sense that to get the most out of it to give it the real estate it asks for.

Again-- one must be certain of when DP is asking for that extra real estate. No need in filling that gas tank if you don't have to.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

That all makes sense, Frodo. And if I didn't think (way back in my brain) that the 4GB would have done any good, I wouldn't have spent the $250 it cost to up the RAM. Maybe I just don't push DP as hard as some other users?

Funny thing, after I read your earlier post, just for the heck of it, I checked my machine and it was reporting 2GB of RAM. I certainly could not have made an error installing it, so I shut down and opened the case. Sure enough, on side of one chip was not correctly seated! OMG!!! Now I am back to 4GB

Go reconfigure! I'd been running on 2GB for about 2 weeks now. My bad!!!

[chrispick]

That all makes sense, Frodo. And if I didn't think (way back in my brain) that the 4GB would have done any good, I wouldn't have spent the $250 it cost to up the RAM. Maybe I just don't push DP as hard as some other users?

Funny thing, after I read your earlier post, just for the heck of it, I checked my machine and it was reporting 2GB of RAM. I certainly could not have made an error installing it, so I shut down and opened the case. Sure enough, on side of one chip was not correctly seated! OMG!!! Now I am back to 4GB

Go reconfigure! I'd been running on 2GB for about 2 weeks now. My bad!!!

But fixed! And with the help of our super helpful Hobbit friend!

Nice.

Love it when Unicornation plays out as it was intended: as a user-help user venue rather than a bitch forum (although, yeah, bitching in some forms is perfectly viable).

[Frodo]

That all makes sense, Frodo. And if I didn't think (way back in my brain) that the 4GB would have done any good, I wouldn't have spent the $250 it cost to up the RAM. Maybe I just don't push DP as hard as some other users?

Funny thing, after I read your earlier post, just for the heck of it, I checked my machine and it was reporting 2GB of RAM. I certainly could not have made an error installing it, so I shut down and opened the case. Sure enough, on side of one chip was not correctly seated! OMG!!! Now I am back to 4GB

Go reconfigure! I'd been running on 2GB for about 2 weeks now. My bad!!!

LOL-- same thing happened to me when running my tests over the past couple of days. Somehow, I thought I had 8GB on board, but at least one or two sticks weren't properly seated. (I really hate dinking with the motherboard.) I don't know how long I've been running 6GB thinking I had 8.

So, MLC-- do you notice your machine running <drum roll> SNAPPIER now?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

But fixed! And with the help of our super helpful Hobbit friend!

Amazing, he was able to fix my problem before I even knew it was there. It's the ring, I tell you! He is ubiquitous!

[Frodo]

Hey-- using that ring takes its toll---

http://img-nex.theonering.net/images/sc ... 8_orig.jpg

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Hey-- using that ring takes its toll---

Don't you mean using that ring makes a troll?

[Frodo]

Hey-- using that ring takes its toll---

Don't you mean using that ring makes a troll?

That, too!

Call it a Frodian slip...

[monkey man]

That's my line, bud, but I'll take a commission.

Besides, I'm going through a kilo of lipstick a month.

[Fnoxib]

I'm using a MOTU MTP/AV interface and my trusty Yamaha P200 as my performance controller - the exact same hardware that was working absolutely fabulously on my G4 with DP 2 and 3 under OS 9.2. I've not had satisfactory results with OSX yet, wiith DP4.5 through 5.11 on my dual G5. This is what gets me: the MIDI hardware is unchanged! I've updated all my drivers, patches, etc... no good.

I have also re-created my MIDI configuration in audio-MIDI setup. No change.

I do wonder if the MIDI active sense output from my P200 is making waves, but that seems (a) unreasonable and (b) further unreasonable since the MTP/AV filters that stuff before it gets to the USB line to the Mac.

I would not anticipate that 2GB is underpowered for my situation - we're talking MIDI patch-thru monitoring only - even in the case of NO PLAYBACK at all from DP -- I'm just sitting there at my kb, noodling away, the computer is essentially idle, and I get stuck notes.

Here's something interesting that might be revealing to you harder-core folks: when I change outboard MIDI instrument patches from within DP, often I get random notes sounding on the target hardware.

Today I was wondering if there was something about my P200 that was upsetting to the MTP/AV but only when in use with OS X. As a professional embedded software developer myself, this seemed a longshot, but not totally impossible.

I might be inclined to clean up my system, but honestly, it's not dirty... I've been diligent to keep random crap away from this machine. I have two 200+ GB SATA drives with plenty of contiguous free space... and again, my stuck notes come when I'm just monitoring my keyboard -- no virtual instruments, no plug ins, no audio streaming, nada! This seems to me to NOT be a loading problem, but rather something intrinsic to my (seemingly simple!?) particular constellation of hardware and software.

Thank you all for your constructive remarks... it's odd for me to be on this side of a technical discussion. In so many other areas, I am the uber geek. Here, I'm not a lot more than a moderately savvy end-user

[Frodo]

I might be inclined to clean up my system, but honestly, it's not dirty... I've been diligent to keep random crap away from this machine. I have two 200+ GB SATA drives with plenty of contiguous free space... and again, my stuck notes come when I'm just monitoring my keyboard -- no virtual instruments, no plug ins, no audio streaming, nada! This seems to me to NOT be a loading problem, but rather something intrinsic to my (seemingly simple!?) particular constellation of hardware and software.

Thank you all for your constructive remarks... it's odd for me to be on this side of a technical discussion. In so many other areas, I am the uber geek. Here, I'm not a lot more than a moderately savvy end-user

Hey Fnoxib:

Understood.

It's amazing, tho, how easily new installs can go awry without anything particular being done by the user. Clearly, there's no apparent reason why your setup shouldn't work-- and with so many other users having much better success with 5.11, it is less likely (it seems) that the issue would be a universal bug rather than a corrupt file or a misdirected file association of some sort.

Tweezing it out is the challenge, even on the cleanest of systems. DP5.x was no simple work-a-day upgrade--- it was quite new, and the way it speaks to the hardware was quite new. Something might be sending some rogue cue to your MIDI keyboard or interface that was not translated properly from your older settings.

It seems worth it to trace the problem-- Let's say that your MIDI keyboard has an OMNI ON setting-- some Yamaha keyboards (like mine) default to OMNI ON when turned on. This can send double data in and out of DP-- even if you are just playing your keyboard and not recording. If you can disable this feature, set it to OMNI OFF. On some keyboards it's sometimes called LOCAL ON/OFF. Turn Local to OFF and route all of your MIDI through DP.

Doing a hard rest of your MIDI interface can also help. Turn off the device first, hold down the panic button, then turn the unit back on with the panic but held in.

Has the MIDI output on the keyboard somehow reset itself to MIDI Thru? Sometimes data can be echoed on the MIDI Thru port and cause the same problems. Set or disable all MIDI Thru ports, and only use OUT and IN to/from your MIDI keyboard and MIDI interface.

Is your MIDI keyboard capable of sending MIDI beat clock or MMC? Disable this on your keyboard and/or filter these features out in DP's filter menu... at least until needed.

Trash DP Preferences!! This can clear up a ton of issue in one fell swoop.

Remove all remnants of DP 5.10 and earlier.

MIDI drivers-- fyi-- I'm using 1.3.1, seems okay, but I recall having to reinstall it at one point. And I dare say that I did more than one install of DP 5.11 as well.

I've gotten caught in the mindset before of "there's nothing wrong with my system, yet it's not working right". But I've had more success when believing that "there's something wrong that *shouldn't* be wrong", even where I've just run a disk utility or have reinstalled some part of the software. I simply try again because I'm not ready to buy and install a new DAW... and if that were even necessary I would consider setting up a new User account just to avoid any conflicts between old data and new apps.

just some thoughts of undying hope.

[Fnoxib]

>It seems worth it to trace the problem--

--indeed.

>Turn Local to OFF and route all of your MIDI through DP.

My kb has been in local off mode for 10 years MIDI thru is not connected from my input kb. I do have one of my MTP/AV output buses chained in/thru/in/thru/in/trhu for some single-channel devices, but none of those are active MIDI sources - they are all slaves.

>Doing a hard rest of your MIDI interface can also help. Turn off the device first, hold down the panic button, then turn the unit back on with the panic but held in.

Done this many times over the course of trying to fix this problem.

> Is your MIDI keyboard capable of sending MIDI beat clock or MMC?

Nope. And the one device that would send beat clock (Lexicon MPX1 effects) has that feature set to OFF.

> Trash DP Preferences!! This can clear up a ton of issue in one fell swoop.

Is there a better way to do this than simply clicking DEFAULT on my prefs pages?

> Remove all remnants of DP 5.10 and earlier.

I've trashed my Performer 4.6 folder. Is there more to hunt down?

> MIDI drivers-- fyi-- I'm using 1.3.1, seems okay, but I recall having to reinstall it at one point. And I dare say that I did more than one install of DP 5.11 as well.

How do I determine the MIDI driver versions as installed? Clockworks says 1.5.1 for itself, but that's all I can find. I did install the latest USB MIDI (1.3.5) I and FireWire Audio packages (1.4.2) from MOTU just days ago.

> But I've had more success when believing that "there's something wrong that *shouldn't* be wrong"

True enough.

I did notice with interest that my (seemingly unrelated...) support applications for my MOTU 828 (the old kind, no MIDI) firewire audio (cuemix & firewire console) do not launch the way I think they should. Namely, I expect to see a window with widgets to go about setting things -- instead, I get only a menu bar for cuemix and nothing for FW console. I've never used these apps before -- so I'm not sure if I'm even expecting the right things, but it definitely casts doubt on the whole software side of the setup, even though the hardware has been working fine through DP.

Any advice for *really* un-installing this stuff so I can try again clean? I know how to chase down fragments of applications in Windows, but, alas, I'm not a power user of OS X.

[Frodo]

> Trash DP Preferences!! This can clear up a ton of issue in one fell swoop.<

Is there a better way to do this than simply clicking DEFAULT on my prefs pages?

No, no-- you don't want to click DEFAULT in the preferences menu-- you want quit DP and to go to:

User Library> Preferences> Digital Performer> *Preferences*

Drag that preferences file into the trash, empty the trash, shut down the computer, reboot computer, and restart DP.

(Don't use Restart to restart the computer-- shut down completely and reboot cold)

> Remove all remnants of DP 5.10 and earlier.<

I've trashed my Performer 4.6 folder. Is there more to hunt down?

You might have remnants of 5.0, 5.01 and 5.10-- read on...

> MIDI drivers-- fyi-- I'm using 1.3.1, seems okay, but I recall having to reinstall it at one point. And I dare say that I did more than one install of DP 5.11 as well.<

How do I determine the MIDI driver version? Clockworks says 1.5.1 for itself, but that's all I can find. I did install the latest USB MIDI and FireWire Audio packages from MOTU just days ago.

Macintosh HD > Library > Audio > MIDI Drivers > MOTU >
*MOTU MIDI Driver Plugin*

Single click this file to highlight it, then use the key command APPLE + I to GET INFO. This can also be accessed from the File Menu from the Desktop (not within DP). It will tell you what version you have.

The latest MIDI interface software I'm seeing on MOTU's support page is version 1.3.5. I'm using 1.3.1 and am keeping it until it doesn't work any more.

I did notice with interest that my (seemingly unrelated...) support applications for my MOTU 828 (the old kind, no MIDI) firewire audio (cuemix & firewire console) do not launch the way I think they should. Namely, I expect to see a window with widgets to go about setting things -- instead, I get only a menu bar for cuemix and nothing for FW console. I've never used these apps before -- so I'm not sure if I'm even expecting the right things, but it definitely casts doubt on the whole softare side of the setup, even though the hardware has been working fine through DP.

I also noticed that the latest drivers for your 828 is version 1.4.2. You might want to go to motu.com and download this. I'm not sure about Clockworks...

Any advice for *really* un-installing this stuff so I can try again clean? I know how to chase down fragments of applications in Windows, but, alas, I'm not a power user of OS X.

Here's what I would do for a HARDCORE uninstall....

1. Find the DP application icon in the Applications folder (or wherever you've stored it).

2. Control Click on the icon and choose SHOW PACKAGE CONTENTS

3. Trash the package contents and empty trash.

4. Go to your DP application folder and delete everything there. DO NOT DELETE YOUR PROJECTS OR AUDIO FILES.

5. Put in the DP install disc and choose uninstall. (I don't remember if this would be in a sticky menu that includes Custom Install and Easy install, or whether this would be done from one of the installer's menus at the top of your monitor.)

7. Repeat for each version of DP you still have on your computer.

8. Repair permissions.

9. Reinstall DP 5.0, and then upgrade to DP 5.11.

10. Repair permissions.

******

Whew.