MIDI Cycle-Recording?

[Prime Mover]

Not sure I'm quite following you. Are you referring to the always-incorrect MIDI blocks you see in the track overview window? That's a slightly different area, I think. Obviously DP knows what MIDI data it contains and can do certain amount of rudimentary calculations on it (attempting to create phrase blocks). What I'm talking about is real-time MIDI processing of incoming signals above and beyond just writing them to RAM.

I also don't think DP makes any assumptions about sustain offs, as far as I can tell, the MIDI blocks are just a visual thing.

[monkey man]

Hey Prime-man.

I thought DP made intelligent guesses as to which sus-pedal info related to phrase notes so as to preserve playback integrity when these things (the phrase blocks) are dragged around the TO window. Perhaps I'm wrong and I dreamed it way back when, but I've been under this impression as long as I've used DP.

As far as your proposition that the real-time nature of what I'm proposing hinders the application of the feature is concerned, IMHO it'd be a whole lot easier than the analysis required to effectively implement phrase parsing. The reason being that there's really only one "decision" to be made in each instance, and it always occurs at the very end of a take. Further to this, if that option window I keep harking back to existed, DP effectively needn't "think" at all; it'd only have to reset / ignore data at that end point according to the selections made in said window.

To answer an earlier statement you made about defaults:
With a lot of MIDI outboard synths, cutoff, resonance and so on can be "offset". The default value is always 64, which allows the patch's original values to be produced. One raises or lowers this value to taste, and the last thing one would need would be DP's arbitrary resetting of the value to, say, "0". In this case, I'd deselect / specify to be left alone, the data in question. Inserting values at the start of tracks is all well and good, but only once one's arrived at an ideal setting, something I can easily envisage evolving over the period of a number of takes. The same applies to direct-value settings such as the GM-standard cutoff, res, attack and decay settings. If you're playing with them during takes, you may or may not want their resetting at 0 every time a new take is produced.

You want MIDI takes with a universal, default implementation, and I want 'em with a degree of customisability. Either way, we want!

Here's to wanting... from the Gods of MOTU.

[Todzilla]

Yeah, there is definitely more complexity to it than audio.

Maybe MOTU should consult a company called "Mark of the Unicorn" whose product "Performer" did this for MIDI back in the late 80s.

[monkey man]

You're kidding God... I mean, Todzilla. It begs the question - why not now?

I wonder if the feature was there in DP2.6/7, 'cause I always thought it was 'till several years ago when I needed it and couldn't figure out a way to do it.

Either way, it just makes sense to me that it is.

[Prime Mover]

truetruetruetruetrueFALSEtrue

All good points. And we're totally off the deep end of the "Speculation" pool, so really anything goes. I too didn't realize about the lack of loop record until recently. Then again, it's hard to really look back because our entire process of recording and mixing has changed drastically over the last 10 years. I don't remember which version of DP introduced Takes for example. I go back to DP3 on MacOS 9, in college, but I'll admit that at the time I was mostly using Pro Tools and Sonar. I didn't really start using DP heavily until DP4, and I can't remember whether Takes were introduced there, at 4.5 (which was a huge update, as far as I can tell, every bit as big as any of the integer upgrades) or DP5, where I actually purchased it for myself, instead of using it in the lab. I do remember that the distinction between DP3-4 was similar to DP7-8... fairly minor in new features, just a complete code rewrite.

I would be really interested to see a timeline of where major features came out, because I really can't remember very well. I don't think Pro Tools had takes by the time I left it (I think PT6)... that was something I discovered in DP4.5. Similarly, when did cycle recording come into being, for audio or MIDI? We may find that those things are more recent than we remember, we just feel like we've been using them forever because they're so second nature now.

I mean, damn, when I first started mixing/recording (Cakewalk 9/Sonar/Pro Tools 5) I had to do everything on one sequence, MIDI was a beast to deal with, Virtual Instruments were in their infancy (I bought into Kontakt 2 when it just came out, I remember Kontakt 1 from school), there were no track folders, I don't believe Bundles could be renamed (or maybe I didn't know that yet).

Then again, I was a complete novice, still taking classes in production, which were often based around principals of analog recording (even though I only used a tape machine once), and it's very possible that many current features were already there by that time, I just didn't know how to use them yet, or even know they were there!

Kinda crazy. I'm curious if people remember.

EDIT: Okay, I'm way off base. It appears that Takes were old hat even by the time DP3 rolled around, maybe it goes back to the old Performer days, I don't go back that far. And looks like Pro Tools had a similar system, though they called it "Playlists" (maybe they still do), which makes no sense. I guess I never used that feature because the name didn't mean anything to me. Weird... not like MOTU has a trademark on "Takes". Lol, at least up through PT7, recording over an existing piece of audio would destructively over-write it unless you put it into a special "non destructive" mode. What a different world. Please tell me that isn't still that case!

[usbovine]

Called tech support and the friendly rep was surprised to not find an available solution for this. Hopefully this will be included on a future update.

[monkey man]

Good sign, that. Well done, mate.

[Todzilla]

The obvious irony here is that MOTU has always been ahead of everyone else with MIDI. Still is, in my opinion, but decades ago they had this solved.

[Phil O]

...Hey Prime-man...

Hey, MM. I surprised you didn't refer to him as your Prime-mate.

Sorry PM, just couldn't leave that one alone.

Anyway, back on topic. I don't see how MIDI being different from audio would effect which track to switch to while recording. That's what's really going on here, right? It's all about timing and routing. I think when MOTU implemented the whole comp tool thing they worked on audio first and haven't incorporated MIDI yet - that simple. Or am I missing something?

Phil

[tommymandel]

What about creating one MIDI track, assigning it how you want it, then Project/ option-add multiple similar tracks, right under the first one. Go into record/overdub on the 1st track. When you reach the end and want to do a different pass, hit the down arrow - you will now be recording on the 2nd track. If you don't want to hear the 1st one, turn the blue play arrows off on the tracks. This works for me. With a VI selected and the MIDI track set to play=off, I still hear the MIDI I'm recording. This probably has to do with MIDI PatchThru=ON and set to Auto-channelize. I think this would be an acceptable solution to your question, but since none of the more knowledgeable gurus here have suggested that, perhaps I'm not understanding the issue properly.