Recording MIDI drops the first note

[pat]

Hi, I'm new to DP. There's a lot that I like about it so far, but I'm also getting hung up on something really simple.

99% of the time when I record MIDI, it drops the first note. I have count-in and metronome enabled for recording. I strongly suspect I'm playing a few milliseconds before recording actually begins. On other DAWs I've used, they recognize that initial note and place it at the very start of recording. DP on the other hand drops it entirely, as if I'd never played it. My solutions are to a) consciously try to play a bit later than the initial downbeat b) if I played it a bit early and it dropped the note, go back and write it in manually.

I've looked through the manual and searched the forum and haven't found anyone else reporting this sort of thing.

Is there a setting that would get DP to place that first note at 1.1.000 (or wherever I started recording), even if I play the MIDI note just slightly ahead?

DP 11.02 on MacOS 10.15.7, using an m-audio hammer 88 USB keyboard

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Something is definitely weird though, because sometimes it will throw the first note into the future. Here's a video demonstrating the behavior. The second time I record in DP11, I intentionally play a bit early - and you can see that it creates a clip in the future. In the Reaper example, the "thunk" at the beginning is when I strike the keyboard early - and Reaper doesn't actually even play the note until recording begins. This weird behavior is definitely a thing to send to tech support. I'm just not sure if DP11 can even do the thing where it records the note even if it plays early. I haven't seen anyone else online report this, so either it can't do that and nobody cares, or it doesn't drop the first note on other people.

[bayswater]

I don’t know why this would be, but you’ll probably find that most DP users do one of two things:

1) start recording at 2/1/1
2) start the sequence at 0/1/1 (or -1/1/1, etc) and start recording at 1/1/1

Either way you have a bit of space at the start before any MIDI events which can be useful for other reasons.

I’ve never experienced the problem you describe, so while this might not technically be a solution, it might at least be a workaround.

[pat]

If I add a blank bar at the beginning:

1) how do I get the measure numbers to show as the normal 1 / 9 / 17 they would be if I didn't have a blank bar?

2) how do I handle the blank bar when using Sequences in a Song? I want Sequences to flow into one another, but they don't if I have a blank measure

[CharlzS]

Maybe try using the Wait button (finger pressing a key) in conjunction with the Countoff. It gives you a continuous countoff until you hit a note which will immediately be placed at 1.1.000 and continues from there. I get that burning the early notes with regular countoff my not be desirable.

[stubbsonic]

Many years ago, I just got into the habit of always giving myself a cushion bar or two at the front. I don't remember if I had the same issue you describe, I've just done it this way for as long as I can remember.

I hit record, then spin my chair over to the keyboard and start playing.

And when I do "punching" there are other things I do that require me to enter overdub mode. I've got a workflow that feels normal. Perhaps other DAWs would do this differently, but I'd rather be the boss of all this.

[FMiguelez]

If I add a blank bar at the beginning:

1) how do I get the measure numbers to show as the normal 1 / 9 / 17 they would be if I didn't have a blank bar?

2) how do I handle the blank bar when using Sequences in a Song? I want Sequences to flow into one another, but they don't if I have a blank measure

Hi, Pat.

For #1, you can have 100 bars before 1 and still show measure 1 as measure 1> Use the Set Chunk Start Time to accomplish this (Chunks window mini-menu or somewhere inside one of the drop boxes of the Transport).

As for #2, if you want smooth transitions from one sequence to the other, use the Chunks chaining feature (at the top of the window), or if it's not smooth enough, use the Song window. So once you have your sequences finished, you just grab them and place them in the Song window in the order you want them played, and this transition should be seamless (i.e., you tell DP to join the sequences at bar x to account for your initial extra measures).
You do this in the Chunks window by setting each sequence's start and end times accordingly.

[pat]

Maybe try using the Wait button (finger pressing a key) in conjunction with the Countoff. It gives you a continuous countoff until you hit a note which will immediately be placed at 1.1.000 and continues from there. I get that burning the early notes with regular countoff my not be desirable.

Yes!!! This is what I want. Wait is really cool, but I didn't think of enabling Countoff with it on. So I was struggling to get the tempo right using Wait.

Thank you so much!! This is awesome.

[Michael Canavan]

Maybe try using the Wait button (finger pressing a key) in conjunction with the Countoff. It gives you a continuous countoff until you hit a note which will immediately be placed at 1.1.000 and continues from there. I get that burning the early notes with regular countoff my not be desirable.

Yes!!! This is what I want. Wait is really cool, but I didn't think of enabling Countoff with it on. So I was struggling to get the tempo right using Wait.

Thank you so much!! This is awesome.

Awesome, I never thought to use both, learn something new every day!