Mws timing.

[hexfix93]

So we did a test with saw. we drew in 16ths all on the same note, played it back out at 140 bpm to many hardware devices, recorded it.

what we found was up to 13 or 4 ms of jitter, on both the usb midex 8, and the pci rme dsp9652.

The test system was a p3 dual 1ghz processor system. windows xp.

I thought this was suppose to be rock solid timing midi? not according to our tests...

is there some kind of trick to get this thing tight with no jitter?

[SoundSuite]

Granted, I dabble in MIDI by comparison to others, but I've never seen/heard any variance in the sync to the audio tracks in SS while using MWS.

Read thru and apply Bob's suggested tweaks HERE (http://www.sawstudio.com/downloads/windows_xp_pro_tweaks.zip) to make sure your system is perfoming correctly.

Also, what did you record to and how were the units sync'd?
If you set SS to master and sync via SMPTE to your recorder it is alot tighter than using MTC (or making SS chase using either).

Lots of variables, please detail your setup as thourough as possible and someone here should be able to help you nail your drift.

[hexfix93]

no sync, no clock or anything, just mws pumping out midi in realtime to my hardware synths. we recorded it in, then counted samples between the transients and lined it up to the grid and it was off varying by an average of 13ms.

i'll try it again on another machine tonight.

[Craig Allen]

Could the hardware synths be the source of the jitter? I don't really have a lot of experience with external MIDI synths, but it just seems like a possibility.

[Arco]

The "rock solid" timing referred to in the MWS literature is (I believe) the sync between audio and MIDI within SAW which can drift in some DAWs. Here's a quote from the literature:


The design challenge with audio and MIDI synchronization
usually centers around the task of finding a way to run two
separate engines simultaneously locked together. The Midi
WorkShop approaches this challenge from a new perspective -
run only ONE timing engine, eliminating the need to synchronize
separate engines.
The Midi WorkShop code is directly interfaced into a specially
created high-priority timing thread, that is part of the core
audio engine of the SAWStudio environment. All MIDI timing
is derived from this thread, guaranteeing an absolute lock to
the sound card clock. MIDI timing is calculated and stored
in sample position references rather than typical MIDI tick
resolution delta times, resulting in unmatched accuracy and
timing performance.

What happens after the MIDI leaves SAW might have more to do with your Midi interface, latencey of sound card, cable lengths, etc...just guessing though.

I don't use hardware synths anymore but I notice a small amount of latencey when I record a VSTi from my second computer. I assume it's the time it takes the sound to make it from computer 2 to computer 1--very tiny, i just slide all the regions after recording.

Bob L will have more to say I'm sure...

[Westwind]

Believe it or not, the most likely area for your drift is the MIDI hardware itself. The length of the MIDI cable that carries the signal to the hardware. Ex: Using a MIDI cable of 20ft or more and you can actually begin to 'hear' delays in the MIDI with the human ear in real time!
I discovered this years ago when building my studio. My thought was to include a MIDI cable with my XLRs and headphone returns in my wall boxes. But after testing with long MIDI cables, I decided not to do it. So it's not surprising that you’re able to measure a 4-13ms loss with a short cable on a computer. Tempo is also a factor; since delay caused by physical equipment is constant, there would be more of a delay in songs with faster tempos. I think the question is: Is this a practical problem for you, or simply one that can be measured, like the speed of sound between the stick hitting a snare and the time it takes to travel to the overhead mike, through the cable, and onto tape.
I suggest trying the experiment with softsynths, but recording them live. I do this everyday, along with the occasional hardware synth, and I have never heard, nor seen when zooming to the highest level, any delay that meant anything.

[Naturally Digital]

no sync, no clock or anything, just mws pumping out midi in realtime to my hardware synths. we recorded it in, then counted samples between the transients and lined it up to the grid and it was off varying by an average of 13ms.Hexfix, before offering advice I would need to know more details about the test you're performing.

You're playing midi from MWS. Where did the data come from? Is it something you recorded or a file you're loading?

You're recording the audio back in, is that correct?

Then, you're comparing the audio waveform with the midi data in MWS? Do I have this right?

[Tim Miskimon]

Every hardware box I've ever used or own has a different amount of latency - some of the older Roland stuff was really bad. It takes time for the midi information to travel up the midi cable to the hardware box & be converted to the audio output you hear. The timing from note to note also varies do to how the midi stream is read and transferred to output by the hardware box. It may be very slight but there is variation and every box is different - even 2 of the same boxes will vary slightly. That's one reason why the industry standard for sync is SMPTE not MIDI. MIDI is not solid - never has been - and those of us who have been working with it since the pre-computer days have noticed the drift. It's there and it's always bugged the hell out of me. Too many variables to ever make it rock solid.
It doesn't matter what software you use - Cakewalk, Cubase, MWS, etc. there will be some kind of delay created by the hardware box.
The tight timing that Bob speaks of is between the SS audio output & MWS midi output which is as described very solid.
My question is how were you measuring the midi output?
Were you recording it back through to an audio track and viewing the new wave file? If so you also have to consider the added latency created by the recording through the sound card.
If you can please explain in more detail the process you used to come up with this test.

[Bob L]

There are a ridiculous amount of system and hardware variables involved in sending midi data through a stream and generating an actual sound.

I have focused hard on keeping the variables within the SAWStudio engine tweaked to minimize any drift or timing discrepencies when attempting to sync audio and midi... and I believe I have acheived one of the tightest syncs in the industry.

Once the data leaves my engine and is sent to a midi device driver and then to a hardware synth, I have no control, and these devices will introduce their own timing discrepencies.

Nothing is perfect, down to the sample... my focus has been on bringing the results as close as possible to that goal.

You can spend a lot of time trying to calculate and measure and prove or disprove the usefulness of anything... the closer you look... the more insane any of this stuff becomes... in the end... its all about the effectiveness of creating music and mixing sound to acheive a final result which you are pleased with in a manner which should be fun.

I just tried the same test with a softsynth and the results were pretty impressive here... eliminating more of the hardware in the loop brings things even tighter into perspective.

And... the real focus for me was not to fight the impossible elements that are outside of my control... but to work hard at keeping the audio/midi sync as solid as possible by maintaining one engine instead of two... I think I have acheived that sucessfully... although others may have a different opinion. :)

Bob L

[Microstudio]

I use MWS to record my S80 and then I run MWS back out to my S80 and then record the S80 in the SS MT. When I play back the audio in the MT everything is tight as it can be with the other stuff I recorded... but then again I have never taken the time to spy in down to the sample to see if everything is spot on.... I am a human being and far from perfect and I know for sure the Beatles were not spot on...

[hexfix93]

I drew the notes into mws. And i am not blaming saw alone for this. But it does in fact matter a lot to the type of music that i produce, i cannot accept anymore than 4 ms of jitter. The atari st and cubase has about 4 ms of jitter.

It is not midi. know why? because i have a mobius hardware sequencer, and yeah i spit out the same test with it, and it its 1 to 2 ms of jitter and that is it, now that is tight.

I'm not trying to open a can of worms here, just trying to get midi fixed on the pc, its hard, cause no one listens anywhere else. i figured Bob would..

and yeah as far as vsts, yeah that is going to be wicked tight, the slow comes from controlling external midi deviced, and i know tightness can be acheived, it is tight on the atari, it is tight on the mobius. I honestly think the problem is "WINDOWS" and non real time o/s systems.

I need tight midi, i do dance production and need drums to be tight. this is really important. you should see how anal most producers get in pro tools when tracking a drummer, nudge nudge nudge, tighter and tighter. this same law applies to any kind of drums... on my atari i could live with the drums i wrote, on the pc, i never could.

[Microstudio]

Hex I have a question.

When making your music what is the final product form.

Is it .wav files or do you just write midi and then play it live through the hardware?

[hexfix93]

Hex I have a question.

When making your music what is the final product form.

Is it .wav files or do you just write midi and then play it live through the hardware?



In the old days, it was all live being sequenced with an atari through a mackie. Now i am multi tracking, now i track things in.

[hexfix93]

Good news. I did the tests on my personally audio tweaked system and not the studio. Yup i did the test and got 5ms of jitter. that to me is the best ever on a pc... WOW... I still havent tested it with a full load going... i gotta do that next.

Now, if MWS could offer up a loop mode. a realtime looping mode for writting stuff. then it would own. like you could turn off the audio engine and fire up everything live and loop fast no hiccups all that. and the famous cubase b key, while in loop record mode, if you didnt like what you did you hit b and it erased the last recorded thing but kept loop record mode going. i loved this so much, it kicked so much butt for writting drums. made it so fast..

I miss the old cubase, new cubase doesnt do that. any how. one can only dream..

[hexfix93]

Here is how my audio pc is tweaked:

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/PCI_Latency_Tool/1105467085/1

i think the pci latency tool where i set everything but the sound card to 32, and the sound card to 255 really helps, along with turning off tons of services in the START->CONTROL PANEL->ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS->SERVICES HELPED. HERE IS WHAT I SHUT OFF:

Automatic updates: disable
dns client: disable
error reporting service: disable
eventlog: disable
fast user switching: disable
help and support: disable
human interface devices: disable
internet connection firew3all: disable
ipsec: disable
messanger: disable
network dde: disable
network dde dsdm: disable
portable media serial number: disable
print spooler: disable
protected storage: disable
remote accesss auto connectio nmanager: disable
remote access connection manager: disable
remote desktop help session manager: disable
remote registry: disable
routing and remote acess: disable
secondary login: disable
security accounts manager: disable
smart card: disable
smart card helper: disable
ssdp discovery service: disable
taske scheduler: disable
telephony: disable
telnet: disable
terminal services: disable
themes: disable
upload manager: disable
web client: disable
windows management instrumentation: disable
windows management instrumentation driver extensions: disable
windwos time: disable
wireless zero configuration: disable
wmi performance adapter: disable

processor scheduling is set to background services too.

i suggest that you use a dual boot on your system, and disable everything that is not being used for music, all cards and things... make one for the net, and one for the music.. this will make it so your tweaks wont mess up your net machine... i have two comptuers a music box and a games net box.. the best way...

[Craig Allen]

processor scheduling is set to background services too.
For SAW, you should change this to Applications. If not, I've found building a mix can take a long time.

[mako]

>snip<

I'm not trying to open a can of worms here, just trying to get midi fixed on the pc, its hard, cause no one listens anywhere else. i figured Bob would..

and yeah as far as vsts, yeah that is going to be wicked tight, the slow comes from controlling external midi deviced, and i know tightness can be acheived, it is tight on the atari, it is tight on the mobius. I honestly think the problem is "WINDOWS" and non real time o/s systems.

>snip<

on my atari i could live with the drums i wrote, on the pc, i never could.

Ahh - I see where this is coming from now. Another ex Atari user :) :) :)

We Atari midi users were spoiled rotten with the excellent midi the Atari platform offered. I also expected that same performance when I moved over to PC's.

What a shock it was to find what a mess the music side of PC's were and, because I'd "traded-up" to Cubase VST 5, I'd forfeited my Atari dongle, so there was no going back.

I wasted 5 years trying to get music happening on various PC systems and was thoroughly dissillusioned.

Thankfully, I saw a post on a site one day that pointed to SAWStudio.

I tried it, liked what I heard, but the operation was so foreign.

A lot of my posts in the early days had similar requests to yours - "make it more like Cubase".

For me, SAWStudio and MWS is the only combo in PC land that actually works and recording is again fun.

Best wishes and hope that you too can "let go".

mako

[Tim Miskimon]

It is not midi. know why? because i have a mobius hardware sequencer, and yeah i spit out the same test with it, and it its 1 to 2 ms of jitter and that is it, now that is tight.

deviced, and i know tightness can be acheived, it is tight on the atari, it is tight on the mobius. I honestly think the problem is "WINDOWS" and non real time o/s systems.

I need tight midi, i do dance production and need drums to be tight. this is really important. you should see how anal most producers get in pro tools when tracking a drummer, nudge nudge nudge, tighter and tighter. this same law applies to any kind of drums... on my atari i could live with the drums i wrote, on the pc, i never could.

If you are getting that kind of tightness out of the mobius hardware sequencer I would suggest using it cause you're never going to get that kind of tightness on any PC software. Everyone's been trying for the past 12 years and it hasn't happened yet.
Like I mentioned in my last post - it's been driving me nuts for years. So if you are so set on the drums being that solid you should use what works for ya!
You could always create your rhythms with the outboard box and then record it into SS and do your overdubbing & editing there. I know of a lot of R & B guys that do it that way and it works. Just a thought - everyone works a little different - once they find what works for them they usually stick with it - old school or not.

[hexfix93]

Ahh - I see where this is coming from now. Another ex Atari user :) :) :)

We Atari midi users were spoiled rotten with the excellent midi the Atari platform offered. I also expected that same performance when I moved over to PC's.

What a shock it was to find what a mess the music side of PC's were and, because I'd "traded-up" to Cubase VST 5, I'd forfeited my Atari dongle, so there was no going back.

I wasted 5 years trying to get music happening on various PC systems and was thoroughly dissillusioned.

Thankfully, I saw a post on a site one day that pointed to SAWStudio.

I tried it, liked what I heard, but the operation was so foreign.

A lot of my posts in the early days had similar requests to yours - "make it more like Cubase".

For me, SAWStudio and MWS is the only combo in PC land that actually works and recording is again fun.

Best wishes and hope that you too can "let go".

mako

yeah i used cubase on the st for years, but went to pc cubase, and it was sorta tight, but once i upgraded my pc to vst5, everything went to hell, believe it or not cubase 2.8 with my motu micro express was pretty spot on midi wise with windows 31 and windows 95...

it was vst5, and audio that made everything go to hell. not the pc initially, it was the uart chips that replaced the serial chips on the mother boards that killed stability on serial interfaces...

And on sx and sonar, and the rest, when i would record myself, it would drift and notes would never be right, it was a nightmare. i havent tried recording myself with mws yet, i hope its more accurate.

i still love old cubase loop record. so fast to get ideas down. it was so perfect. i could work so fast, didnt have to worry about rewinding or pauses... it was a seamless loop that i could record over and delete what i recorded without ever stopping it. i miss it dearly. i wish mws was a tad cheaper. i can buy an atari for 50 bucks.... :)

[Dave Labrecque]

Good news. I did the tests on my personally audio tweaked system and not the studio. Yup i did the test and got 5ms of jitter. that to me is the best ever on a pc... WOW... I still havent tested it with a full load going... i gotta do that next.

Now, if MWS could offer up a loop mode. a realtime looping mode for writting stuff. then it would own. like you could turn off the audio engine and fire up everything live and loop fast no hiccups all that. and the famous cubase b key, while in loop record mode, if you didnt like what you did you hit b and it erased the last recorded thing but kept loop record mode going. i loved this so much, it kicked so much butt for writting drums. made it so fast..

I miss the old cubase, new cubase doesnt do that. any how. one can only dream..

Reminds me of writing drum patterns on my old Alesis HR-16. Very, very interactive. I agree, somwthing like that in MWS would be a huge benefit to the "in the moment" composer-performer. :D

[Dave Labrecque]

Hex,

You could always compose on the atari and drop the MIDI into MWS, lickity split. :)