Pro Tools 8.0.3 Instrument Track not playing MIDI

[OpenDoerr]

Very strange behavior from a couple of sessions in PT 8.0.3:

I have a demo session with a Mono Instrument Track that has an instantiation of Kontakt 4 for a keyboard bass part. Everything was working fine from the tracking and mixing standpoint. Could play MIDI information into track and hear response from Kontakt.

Then, today, when I opened up the session to check my mix and tweak on it a little, every track was playing back except the MIDI bass track. The MIDI regions are right there in the track, but Kontakt is not responding to them. No meters moving, no incoming MIDI indicators. Nothing. Here is what I have done to troubleshoot so far:

1) I changed focus to the track in question to try to play some notes real-time -- no sound.

2) I switched focus to another MIDI track in the same session to make sure my MIDI routing is OK. Sure enough, the other instrument tracks in my session respond just fine, both to existing MIDI notes and to real-time entry. So I can probably rule out a systematic MIDI problem within the session.

3) I went back to the problem track, opened up the Kontakt plug and mouse-clicked on the virtual keyboard in the plug-in. Kontakt played it back. The plug-in's audio is apparently still routed fine, so I can rule out audio output routing issues.

4) I switched to another plug-in on the same track to see if this is a Kontakt bug. I opened up FM8 in place of Kontakt to see if it would respond. It did not. Same behavior as Kontakt. Makes sound if I mouse on the virtual keyboard within the instrument, but does not play back any incoming MIDI data.

5) Finally, I duplicated the track in question. Duplicated everything: Active playlist, Alternate playlist, Automation, Inserts, Sends, Group Assignments. Left all the boxes checked. Figured this should make a perfect clone of the problem track. Pressed play and...voila. Duplicated Track plays back perfect! Meters bouncing. Bass bumping. What the...?! Meanwhile the original track just above the duplicated track sits there motionless.

So I've found a workaround anyway, but this is just bizarre behavior and I'd like to know what the issue is. Anyone ever encountered a problem like this before?

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Aaron

[Ramtitam]

There is a known midi bug on 8.0.3 where the midichannel (on the instrument section in the top of the mixer ) switches from 1 to 2. Could that be your problem?

[meech]

Likely it's a reassignment to a different midi channel like Ramtitam says. Right click the "I A-E" text at the top of the mix window, select the instrument view, and check what channel the midi is assigned to. This happens to me all the time (apparently an update has fixed it). Occasionally an instrument track reassigns itself when inactive, and starts sending it's midi to a completely different instrument track while I'm working on it! That can be a real pain, because I have to look through every instrument track to check if it's the culprit. Good luck

[Reesho]

Well this is embarrassing. I thought I had the same exact problem with my bass track until I finally realized I had inadvertently transposed the track two octaves down and therefore out of the range of the instrument. It took me over an hour however to realize this. Woohoo what a genius I am!

[kittonian]

I get this with random sessions and it's a pain. The "sort of" workaround that only works on occasion is to move the VI plug-in to the insert slot below the one that it is currently assigned. Likewise, if that work, the next time you open the session you have to move it to the insert slot above. If that doesn't work, the only solution I've found is to create a new instrument track and copy everything over.

I've found this with Kontakt, Indigo, and most recently IK's Ampeg SVT (which isn't even a VI, nor was it instantiated on an instrument track - it was on a mono audio track).

[OpenDoerr]

Originally Posted by meech

Likely it's a reassignment to a different midi channel like Ramtitam says. Right click the "I A-E" text at the top of the mix window, select the instrument view, and check what channel the midi is assigned to. This happens to me all the time (apparently an update has fixed it). Occasionally an instrument track reassigns itself when inactive, and starts sending it's midi to a completely different instrument track while I'm working on it! That can be a real pain, because I have to look through every instrument track to check if it's the culprit. Good luck

Indeed this was the problem...and, of course, the solution. When I opened up the Instrument view in the mixer view (this is also available in the edit view BTW), I could see that the Instrument/MIDI channel assignment was greyed out/inactive. I had to reassign it, which made it active again. Everything's fine now. Interestingly, I had a dedicated MIDI track that was sending MIDI to a separate channel on one of these problem Instrument tracks, and it never had a problem with a MIDI assignment becoming inactive.

From the comments on other posts here, looks like this bug has been resolved in versions after 8.0.3. Hope this helps anyone that is still choosing to live life in the past with me.

Thanks everyone for the input.

OD