Lost Notes

[CopperPhil]

Hi,

I guess that what you call "v3" and "v5" correspond to the VMIDI3 and VMIDI5 virtual ports, right?

Do you mean Studio one to the Midi in of the al 88 (you said midi out) (one channel)

Actually not... When we are talking about MIDI In, it means physical MIDI In. If you send data from Logic to the AL-88 in order to be sent to an external synth, you are sending to an AL-88 MIDI Out. I know, it's quite confusing. And it is why we prefer to talk about "MIDI to CopperLan" and "CopperLan to MIDI" ports, because in can be MIDI In or MIDI Out depending on the nature of the port... the meaning of MIDI In/Out is not the same if the port is physical or virtual

The idea behind the test is to check if the AL-88 is losing the connection with Logic when at rest, and so shut down outgoing MIDI stream. So, please create a single channel connection from a virtual MIDI port used by Logic (ie VMIDI3) to the AL-88 MIDI Out, and then watch what is going out from the MIDI Out port using a USB MIDI adapter and MIDI-Ox. If you see some "all note off"/"all controller off", it means that the connection between AL-88 and the PC is not stable. It could be due to the Ethernet cable, the switch, or the AL-88 itself... In this case, please do the same test using a simple cable between the AL-88 and the PC (no switch). If the problem persists, the AL-88 is probably the cause.

On the other hand, if this test do not show any "all note off", here is another simple test that could be helpful to identify the cause:
- clear all CopperLan connections
- create a virtual MIDI cable between VMIDI3 and VMIDI1
- create another virtual MIDI cable between VMIDI5 and VMIDI2
- launch MIDI-Ox and monitor VMIDI1 and VMIDI2 input ports
- start your sequence and check the result.

You can copy-paste the result using right-click on the MIDI-Ox monitor window, so do not hesitate to post it here. MIDI-Ox displays time stamping information that could be interesting.

[PiersW]

Test one: use alternate usb midi out ......No lost notes 15 minutes playing
Test two: go back to al88 Copperlan setup ........immediately missed notes
Test three: change ethernet cable to brand new one ............... still missed notes
Test four:Take brand new Netgear switcher out of the equation by pluging AL88 directly into host computer with said new cat6 cable..........still missed notes

I still don't completely understand your other test for dropouts. Can I clarify as I see it. Remove all Copperlan routings. Send an instrument out on Studio One to midi v5 connect channel 1 of v5 to channel 1 of al88 channel 5 route al88 midi 5 to a computer via a usb midi interface monitor that input. Wait to see if there is any data? for how long? Should the studio one track be armed which would mean the keyboard was routed to it or not? Please let me know.

Meanwhile I shall change the midi lead and turn any software off I can think off and test again. Thank you

[PiersW]

Sorry I missed that last post I'll do those tests.

[PiersW]

Right I think I've made some progress with the last test.
Firstly I did the one channel test to another computer via its midi port I hit a key on the keyboard to check I was getting data through and then waited 15 minutes. Nothing! no note offs nothing. I took a screen shot but its blank just a note on and note off.
Next I did your second test and was stunned to see tons of aftertouch. almost continuus except the few notes I put in by hand.I had noticed it when I first recorded it and tried to remove it but I think I just reduced its data size to zero. To be honest tracing the midi notes in all that would have been pretty hard and I didn't monitor to check whether i was getting the errors on channel 5, but as I always do when track 3 playsI expect I was. I assume asin the test two days ago that copperlan would show all the notes as it had done then but there is no aftertouch on v5 track because I had filtered it. I therefore suspect that the problem is caused by the sftertouch messages overloading the al88 . This would explain the fact that when I turn track 3 off track 5 plays normally. Is my assessment correct? Does this mean I can't use aftertouch with this system? Or are there more tests I should do. Two days on this and counting and I've had it up to here, but I still don't know whether this as it should be, its not after all polyaftertouch....

[PiersW]

I also wonder whether I need to reduce the channel connection amount to the channels i'm using rather than all of them for each port. I have 8 synths connected to the first ten ports and about 6 editors connected to a further group of ports which are then merged to the synths, (this is so I can open any editor without closing the daw.) But thats a lot of empty midi channels not doing anything, would this be overloading anything.

I know about this naming system you describe as I read about it yesterday re midi Yoke but to a layman it is completely counterintuitive and I was very confused trying to set up midi ox yesterday so much so that I downloaded the French one you saw.Using 'midi out to describe the virtual ethernet in of the alyseum is confusing which is why I queried it. loads of people on forums completely bamboozled like me. I think people think of virtual midi ports like you draw them on your interface with an in arrow and an out arrow, but you explained it pretty well. Anyway thanks for your help.
Please tell me if there are more tests I should do .

[PiersW]

I include some data that might get us to whats happening. I simultaneously monitered v3 anv5 via v1 and v2 and monitored it like yesterday. I recorded the synth audio output next to a its corresponding midi track. I made a screen capture. You can see the aftertouch info and the newly recorded track with a missing note. ( I am not making it up !) I couldn't copy the data from midiox for some reason as a data file, however I did manage this on the simultaneous midiox monitor of the al88 midi 5 output which I include. At the point that the note which you can see from the screen capture is lost a series of note off system resets for each midi channel is shown. You will know better than I what this means I hope it gets us to the route of the problem.

[PiersW]

Here is the data file of this from midi ox

[CopperPhil]

Hi,

This is very interesting. The aftertouch flow is definitely not normal! Take a look, they ALL have the same value: channel aftertouch on channel 1, value 1, sent continuously. A normal aftertouch stream never contains successive identical commands, and no aftertouch should be sent if all notes are released. aftertouch is sent between the first touch and the last release

This is the key of your issue. You have to understand why Studio One is sending this. It's normal to see a channel aftertouch flow, and it won't overload the AL-88, but it's not normal to see such series of exactly similar commands. For me, this is a clear indication that something is going wrong in Studio One. And it could overload the AL-88 if it is sending more aftertouch / second than a physical MIDI port can manage.

From where is coming the MIDI-Ox monitoring on your screenshot? the AL-88 output or v1 or v2? Just to know if this is seen through the AL-88 or not. At this time, it is more interesting to watch the MIDI stream going out from Studio One, so monitoring v1 and v2. Things would be going right as soon you see both v1 and v2 MIDI stream without this channel aftertouch overload.

[PiersW]

I tried to explain that I tried to delete the aftertouch within the track manually and I think that's why its all value 0. I did that in the event editor in the screen shot so that explains the strangeness of the consistent values. However I will record normal aftertouch on the same track playing in a similar way to see if it has the same effect without fiddling with it

the screen shot is the monitoring of of mi ox channels 3 and 5 via 1 and 2 as you suggested. I rigged up a different lap top to monitor the output of al 88 which was the data I sent

fortunately I have done exactly the test you may require. three data streams. of the same playing which included midi errors.midi ox of v3 via copperlan + ethernet on a separate pc on the network. v5 via from a second incidence of midi ox on that computer. and the monitoring of the al88 out. AS you will see this shows all notes correctly and no notes offs on the v5 monitoring via the ethernet but the al output is showing all that extra note off stuff. you can also see the aftertouch data in its entirety as transmitted to v3 via copperlan and the ethernet.

not entirely sure the al88 is absolved but it may be if I can record a full track of aftertouch and not have midi loss problems. I was having all sorts of problems with the FS1r track due to wrong buffer size and the cutting off of notes by Al88 autosensing so thats why I got rid of the aftertouch manually, hoping it would help. I have no reason to think it wasn't normal before that. studio one is so much easier than cubase or soundscape my two previous daws but it does lack midi functionality for things like easily removing aftertouch.

[PiersW]

Here is the data file from the monitored al 88