magicd wrote:Hey Shooshie!Shooshie wrote:we'll get a new version of DP, one of these days, in which Tap Tempo works as fluidly and accurately as it did in the 1990s.
Shooshie
I will wager that the primary difference between how tap tempo worked in the 1990s and how it works now comes down to one thing - digital audio.
When DP is running it's audio engine, the time base of the program is coming from the sample clock of whatever audio hardware is being used.
If you think about the job that has to be done if you are working with audio tracks, or really any digital audio function, real time control of tempo is no small job.
The original poster has contacted my with this question, so I did a bit of testing. I set up a simple file with a virtual instrument and a MIDI track. I tested DP 7.24 and DP8. Tap tempo worked in both versions with the same response. No question that real time tapping is sluggish in response (although it did basically work). It also wouldn't surprise me if response became more sluggish or completely inoperable with larger files.
Now turn off the audio engine. To test this I ran a virtual instrument in stand-alone mode and used the IAC bus to send MIDI from DP to the instrument. When DP is in MIDI only mode, it's not referencing to any audio clock. In MIDI only mode I got much "snappier" response.
Keep in mind that the tap tempo feature long predates digital audio in DP. It was designed to work with MIDI sequences. It's a different ballgame when audio is involved.
I'll bring this up with the engineers but I'm not sure what they'll be able to do about it, at last in the short term. Messing with the speed of digital audio is not a simple task.
Hope that helps!
Dave
That may well be the problem, Dave. And turning off the audio would make a good work-around, but it also creates a separate problem: VI's. Without digital audio, no virtual instruments, either. So, we create a separate playback orchestration in our MIDI rack (I KNEW it would be good for something, someday!), and then we can tap the tempo. Turn audio back on and switch back to our regular orchestration, and everything is fine. It's a bit of work, but it would be worth it to have Tap Tempo working fully again. [edit: just noticed that you used a stand-alone VI; that would work, too.]
I'm going to have to test that and see what comes up. I sure hope you're right! And I also hope the engineering guys can think of a fix that doesn't require turning off digital audio, thus allowing us to tap tempo with VI's active.
Good thinking, Dave! I'd sure like to see this fixed some day.
Shoosh