MIDI Piano Roll "Greys Out"

[Fastermouse]

All my plugs are current and approved.

[filosofem]

Originally Posted by danander11

and a three year old that likes to help me push buttons

Ahhh... we have found the cause.

Jokes a side, can you link a screenshot? Also have you tried reinstalling Pro Tools? Does this happen for you running version 8.0? No cs updates installed?

Does this happen when creating a Instrument track with no VI's inserted?

Does this happen when opening a session? Was this session created with Pro Tools 8.0?

Does this happen with any Creative Collection VI's inserted?






filosofem

[danander11]

Originally Posted by filosofem

Ahhh... we have found the cause.

Jokes a side, can you link a screenshot? Also have you tried reinstalling Pro Tools? Does this happen for you running version 8.0? No cs updates installed?

Does this happen when creating a Instrument track with no VI's inserted?

Does this happen when opening a session? Was this session created with Pro Tools 8.0?

Does this happen with any Creative Collection VI's inserted?

filosofem

No.. (maybe next time it happens I'll grab a shot and post it)
Yes.. complete drive reinstalls.
8.0 yes
through every cs update
Not sure I understand this one. Anytime you have an Instrument track (assuming with notes written to it) and no VI it will be "greyed" out.
Yes. From the begining of opening a session until you figure out which chicken bone to toss over your shoulder and it starts working again.
Yes, created with 8
Yep. and this is in addition to the standard Structure problems..

I thought it might be a M-Audio Drum and Bass Rig plug that I had in, but I removed it, trashed prefs, etc... Some ofthe Air plugs are.... uhmmmmm... cumbersom????? I still like them though. (Structure could be pretty nice, but that one causes me to have to restart PT whenever it decided to not cooperate).

I have rewire issues as well, but only when use Waves version of it..


All in all, it doesn't happen often any more. I'm not sure if it's my increasing reluctance to use VI's, Click, Midi, etc... or PT has improved somewhat. At the end of the day it's just a bother that's easilly worked around. Just niggly though that it's there....

Peace!

[DigiTechSupt]

Can you verify that the MIDI OUTPUT TAB of the Instrument track has a valid VI selection?

Every time I've seen this occur, it's because the MIDI output tab has an invalid selection - usually caused when option-drag-copy a plug-in from one track to the next, putting multiple VI's on the same track, deactivating a track, hiding a track, etc.

[danander11]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

Can you verify that the MIDI OUTPUT TAB of the Instrument track has a valid VI selection?

Every time I've seen this occur, it's because the MIDI output tab has an invalid selection - usually caused when option-drag-copy a plug-in from one track to the next, putting multiple VI's on the same track, deactivating a track, hiding a track, etc.

I'll have to check next time that happens. I do sometimes drag/copy a VI from one track to another, and do deactivate tracks with VI's on thm so maybe that's it. From memory it's happened without doing any of those things though.

Thanks.

[Fastermouse]

Will check when occurs.

[filosofem]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

Can you verify that the MIDI OUTPUT TAB of the Instrument track has a valid VI selection?

This is generally the cause of this issue and has been pointed out earlier on in this thread.





filosofem

[danander11]

Originally Posted by filosofem

This is generally the cause of this issue and has been pointed out earlier on in this thread.
filosofem

Indeed it was.. Why I didn't pick up on it is beyond me.. so thanks to you too!

[danander11]

Lo and behold, I open a file tonight and my midi bass won't work, (greyed out).

I've checked every setting I can find, (including searching the ref manual for MIDI OUTPUT TAB), with no luck. It just will not play. It worked fine when I shut the file down the last time.

I pick the VI move it to Insert Slot 2 and everything works fine. All of the other VI's are working fine.

I don't know what I might be overlooking, but this is the same problem that I have always had. Works one time, and not another with no changes to the VI track at all.

EDIT:
On closing the session and re-opening, I had to move the VI back to insert 1 for it to work. Save, close, open again.. and move it back to insert 2 for it to work. Then it hung and I had to use taskmanager to exit out of the not-responding program (pt).

What am I doing wrong? This only happens every now and then (except apparently on this particular file) and it is different VI's, not just the same one every time.

Edit Edit:
When PT locked up, I had the ref manual open in the background and for some unknown reason, Adobe Reader tried to update. I have update turned off for both apple and adobe, and this box is not connected to the net by any means (abled or disabled). I keep it isolated to avoid unwanted gremlins. Maybe the updater had something to do with it?

[DigiTechSupt]

Ok, let's try this again.

First, if you can't identify where the MIDI input and output tabs (drop-down menus) are, then we're already off to a bad start. You NEED to understand how Pro Tools works to avoid problems like this.

Here's a screenshot of an Instrument track:

Instrument Track

See up at the top there where it says 'All' and 'Xpand 1-1'? Those are the input and output tabs, respectively. The 'All' indicates that track is accepting MIDI input from All available MIDI input sources. The 'Xpand 1-1' means it's being routed to the first instance of Xpand in the session, on MIDI channel 1.

If a track does not have a valid input and output, it will be greyed out.

Now, if you're putting multiple VI's on the same track, dragging and dropping them from one slot to the other or one track to the other, disabling them, bypassing them or doing anything else that may cause confusion for Pro Tools about what it's supposed to do with that plug-in, that's 99.9% of the problems we're seeing about this particular complaint.

When you create an instance of an Instrument track and insert a plug-in, Pro Tools is going to assume you want the MIDI IO of that track to route to that plug-in on it's first available MIDI channel. Now let's say you drag or option-drag that plug-in to another track - this is where confusion can occur. Do you want the original track to route to the new instance or do you want the track you dragged it to to route to it? And which MIDI channel? Believe it or not, there's no direct consensus on what the behavior should be - some people want multiple instances of the same plug-in, set to the same MIDI channel so they can have different tracks that play the same plug-in. Others want a new instance on a new MIDI channel and are just thinking it will be easier to drag or option-drag the plug-in, rather than selecting it from the plug-in list.

The only assumption with Instrument tracks is if you put a plug-in on the track it's going to assume you want the MIDI IO to change to route to that plug-in on it's first available MIDI channel.

Also, in cases where you have multiple MIDI or Instrument tracks routed to the same plug-in instance, if you change the plug-in in any way, all tracks routed to it will follow suit. For instance - if I had Boom inserted on an Instrument track and 2 additional MIDI or Instrument tracks routed to the same instance, if I then change that plug-in to Vacuum, all the MIDI outputs of that track will change to route to that Vacuum plug-in.

Make a little more sense?

To avoid problems like this, it's best not to move Instrument plug-ins, but rather to deinstanciate them and/or insert a new plug-in.