MIDI Sustain Issues

[taylorjheinzen]

Hey guys, having some weird things going on with the sustain control. Hooking up an SL88 to an NI Piano plugin and everything seems fine when recording, but during playback, all the recorded data is being read backwards, as in whatever is supposed to be sustained isn't and vice versa. Tried using multiple plugins and all do the same thing. I flipped the polarity switch on two different pedals and trying playing the inverse and it still didn't work. Almost like PT is reading the data backwards, as manually reversing the sustain data gets the job done, but not really a fan of doing that for a 5 minute song.

Any thoughts?

[Stig Eliassen]

This is Pro Tools 11.3.1 on OS 10.10.5 (I looked at your profile)? If not, what is your setup?

Are you saying that sustain data is recorded correctly, but plays back inverted?

Have you tried unplugging/shutting down your master keyboard during playback for testing purposes?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Stig Eliassen

This is Pro Tools 11.3.1 on OS 10.10.5 (I looked at your profile)? If not, what is your setup?

Are you saying that sustain data is recorded correctly, but plays back inverted?

Have you tried unplugging/shutting down your master keyboard during playback for testing purposes?

In addition to this when you change the polarity of the sustain pedal on the pedal power down and restart the keyboard so the keyboard can recognize the new configuration.

I suggest getting the free snoize MIDI monitor program and see exactly what is being sent from your keyboard/pedal setup. Here's a link yo a lit of MIDI message and parameters: http://web.archive.org/web/200707021...ntrollers.html

[taylorjheinzen]

My mistake, have since updated to 12. I'll change that ASAP.

Correct, sustain data is recorded correctly, but is playing back inverted. What's weirder is that I opened an older session that had MIDI recorded, with a different keyboard, and when I recording with the new controller, the data I recorded on the SAME track was playing back inverted, but the previous recorded audio was playing back just fine. All sustain data looked the same, just playing back differently.

[BScout]

Are you using a MIDI track or an Instrument track?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by taylorjheinzen

My mistake, have since updated to 12. I'll change that ASAP.

Correct, sustain data is recorded correctly, but is playing back inverted. What's weirder is that I opened an older session that had MIDI recorded, with a different keyboard, and when I recording with the new controller, the data I recorded on the SAME track was playing back inverted, but the previous recorded audio was playing back just fine. All sustain data looked the same, just playing back differently.

Have you gotten snoize to check and see exactly what your setup is actually transmitting to PT? That's the only way to verify how correct or not your setup may be.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Have you gotten snoize to check and see exactly what your setup is actually transmitting to PT? That's the only way to verify how correct or not your setup may be.

Will snoize intercept an internal playback midi? He's using an NI plugin so on playback it isn't transmitting to anything but the plugin internally. And if it is working during recording, that would imply that keyboard is sending the right info into pro tools (I guess it doesn't hurt to double check.) Just that his issue is the playback and not record. (reason I asked about instrument tracks in case this is happening outside of midi in some way; there doesn't appear to be any cc transform plugins that could intercept)

The other thing for the OP, could you just post the session (mentioned in post #4) which has the good MIDI playback that was followed by the bad MIDI playback? just need that session with only that track in it. I think a lot of us would have the same sampler instrument so we could see if your session does it on our end

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by BScout

Will snoize intercept an internal playback midi? He's using an NI plugin so on playback it isn't transmitting to anything but the plugin internally. And if it is working during recording, that would imply that keyboard is sending the right info into pro tools (I guess it doesn't hurt to double check.) Just that his issue is the playback and not record. (reason I asked about instrument tracks in case this is happening outside of midi in some way; there doesn't appear to be any cc transform plugins that could intercept)

The other thing for the OP, could you just post the session (mentioned in post #4) which has the good MIDI playback that was followed by the bad MIDI playback? just need that session with only that track in it. I think a lot of us would have the same sampler instrument so we could see if your session does it on our end

It might accept internal MIDI. I'm more interested in seeing if there's a clean bill of health of MIDI data coming into the computer - if that's got issues then that has to be fixed first. Without that verification we don't know if the recording is right or not.

One way to verify if it's PT or not is to manually enter cc64 messages and see if they do what they're supposed to do. That would take the MIDI input out of the picture. The vi in use shouldn't make a difference. cc64 message should be either 0 or 64 although values of 0 to 63 would be valid for one state and 64 to 127 would be valid for the other state.

[john1192]

could this be the same Sustain issue / or similar, that we had a couple years ago ??? no sustain information being recorded ??? i had this happen - what a nightmare to manually input sustain info for a piano heavy song ... hope this is not back ..

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by john1192

could this be the same Sustain issue / or similar, that we had a couple years ago ??? no sustain information being recorded ??? i had this happen - what a nightmare to manually input sustain info for a piano heavy song ... hope this is not back ..

Wasn't that found out as having something to do with MIDI merge? Doesn't sound like cc64 not being recorded as far as can be told. Really need to know exactly what's being sent by the sustain pedal & keyboard. Like I wrote one way to find out if it's PT or not is to manually enter cc64 messages in the event list and listen to what happens (or not).