Rough MIDI Weekend

[Mike Bizanovich]

I had a keyboardist in this weekend doing some sessions. I had major problems trying to record in MWS.

Keyboards: Yamaha CP300, Alesis QS7
VST's: NI Akoustik Piano and NI B4II

Interface: RME HDSP9652 with 2.94 driver. Tried both ASIO and MME and tried various buffer settings.

With B4, I got the typical stuck notes that I've grown accustomed to (yes, I'm set for single CPU)

With Akoustik Piano, there were problems with sustain and note cut-offs. You could play a key on say eighth-note intervals and an individual note would play correctly, then just cut off with no natural decay. This would happen in "Live Mode" and during actual recording. Another odd thing was that once I recorded a track and played it back, I had to hit the midi panic button on the keyboard, or every note played would now act as if the sustain pedal was engaged.

I ended up recording in Acid and rendering to wav from there. Interestingly... I imported the Acid midi files to MWS and the B4 held notes and Akoustik sustain issues still occurred. I thought that may work so I could render in SS for better sound, but it still happened.

Any new thoughts on these things? I use Battery all the time with multiple controllers and don't have these issues.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Mike Bizanovich

[Arco]

I"ve had issues with Kontakt2 (and v.1) as a VSTi...random stuck notes or notes that will not play. When it happened it took a lot of time to work around so I have abandoned the VSTi experience with Kontakt, using as a stand alone on a different computer where it bahaves flawlessly.

It's a shame because I have to work in real time but I do not get bogged down so in the long run I'm ahead. For some reason MWS+SAW and Kontakt are only 90% compatible and that 10% for me is too much to work around.

I wonder if you put Kontakt into a vst wrapper if it would improve it's behavior..Chainer?

[Bob L]

The force Single CPU does not control VST plugs and other drivers from using both cpus... There are definite issues with the Native Instruments and dual cpus... so you must force the single cpu at the boot.ini as mentioned many times or... you can also try your luck forcing it in the task manager after you start SAWStudio... go to the processes and right-clcik the SAWStudio process in the list and use the Set Affinity option to check only cpu 0.

Bob L

[Mike Bizanovich]

... so you must force the single cpu at the boot.ini as mentioned many times or... go to the processes and right-clcik the SAWStudio process in the list and use the Set Affinity option to check only cpu 0.

Bob L

Bob:

I do have the one cpu switch set in boot.ini. Also, I looked for the "set affinity" option on my studio computer and it's not one of the options. I did just look at my work system and it's there. Must be an XP version discrepancy between work and studio. Or, maybe because the boot.ini file switch is used, the Set Affinity doesn't apply.

Mike Bizanovich

[Bob L]

And you still have stuck notes on the B4... are you sure the boot.ini is set correctly... check the task manager and make sure you only get 1 cpu graph.

I have not seen this issue when you are on a single cpu system.

Bob L

[Grekim]

Bob:

I do have the one cpu switch set in boot.ini. Also, I looked for the "set affinity" option on my studio computer and it's not one of the options. I did just look at my work system and it's there. Must be an XP version discrepancy between work and studio. Or, maybe because the boot.ini file switch is used, the Set Affinity doesn't apply.

Mike Bizanovich

Once you've set the boot.ini file up for one cpu, as I recall, the affinity option no longer exists. If you had booted with 2 cpu's then it should show up.

[Mike Bizanovich]

Bob:

Yes, I have the boot.ini properly configured with /onecpu. Grekim is correct, I took the onecpu switch out of boot.ini and the Affinity option was available in Task Manager. I tried setting Affinity to one cpu and the stuck note problem in B4 is worse.

- Mike Bizanovich

[Mike Bizanovich]

Bob:

I couldn't figure out how to attach to the PM so here's the MWS midi file. The E6 after the original run sticks every time for me. I appreciate you looking at this.

Thanks.

Mike Bizanovich

[Bob L]

Played the file on two different systems... one an old single cpu laptop... the other my newer E6600 DuoCore production rig... both actually play perfect... I do have a very old version (1.1.1) of the B4 though... perhaps something is connected to a newer version.

No stuck notes here... even with both cpu's active... surprising as that is.

What else can we try?

I did notice the file is loaded with channel pressure commands from your controller... turn on the MWS display switch to see the controller info... then I suggest marking and deleting all the chan pressure data... see if that fixes the problem.

Bob L

[Mike Bizanovich]

Bob:

Thanks for taking a look. I tried removing controller info. It made some changes and helped a bit, I think. The initial held "E" went away but some other notes that weren't problems before crept in.

I also tried changing CPU priority settings and it made differences in the result, not necessarily good results but different. Does that make any sense?

I wonder if I can get NI to downgrade me to version 1.

- Mike