Strange MIDI behavior in PT7.1

[Ray Campbell]

Hey, all.

I'm getting some very strange behavior when I do a drag 'n' drop of MIDI data into Pro Tools. So far this holds true with BFD and EZ Drummer groove libraries. I don't know if other MIDI data does the same.

If I have a large MIDI region, say 20 or more bars, then drag 'n' drop, say, a 1-bar phrase into the middle I will usually get one of the following things happening:
[*]Data is pasted, but all MIDI data following is deleted to the end of the original MIDI region.
(Sometimes I can still "see" the MIDI data on the screen, but the background shading is gone and it's not really there... )
[*]Data is merged with the underlying MIDI data and all MIDI following deleted, as above.[*]Data is pasted, but all MIDI BEFORE is deleted from the original region.[*]Data is pasted, but RANDOM BARS of MIDI data deleted from the original region.

I was running PT7.1cs5, and updated to PT7.1cs9 with no change in behavoir.

Has anyone else seen this?

Can anyone reproduce this?

Is this a known issue with some system?

My system particulars are:
Pro Tools HD|2 v7.1cs5 (now cs9)
Mac OSX 10.4.6
Dual 1GHz MDD "Blowhole"
1.75 GB RAM

I have some screen captures to illustrate if this is not clear -- but I don't think there is a way to include them with a post here...

Ray

[Stig Eliassen]

Have you tried drag'n'drop the midi to a new track just above/below the track you're working on?

This is to see how drag'n'drop behaves with new tracks. Some applications, like Melodyne, exports the midi from bar 1 no matter where the audio starts in the session. This might be user-definable in Melodyne, but it doesn't matter to me. I never merge midi tracks.

I figure if you import midi regions into both existing and new midi tracks you'll soon start to see a pattern of how PT behaves, eh?

[Ray Campbell]

I've tried dropping the MIDI on a different track. It comes in where I drop it at approximately the proper length (*).

If I then drag it up onto the instrument track into the middle of the other region, I will get the same behavior. It does not always happen 100% of the time. While messing around trying to get a sense of what affects this, at some point, everything will start to work as expected.

(*)I suspect it may have something to do with how PT treats MIDI files with no tempo and meter info, which a lot of these groove libraries remove due to differing behaviour in different hosts. I've noticed that PT will default to 4/4 for imported grooves, even if the session is in 3/4. A 3/4 MIDI region dragged in will come in at 4 beats regardless.

The only way I've gotten this to work reliably is to first cut a hole the exact length in the existing MIDI region. Of course, this requires a whole bunch more steps to do what should only require one.

Does no one else get this? Is it just some "miracle" of my particular system?

Ray