Midi audio spike at insert point after pre-roll of audio track?

[AudibleE]

Strangest thing started happening.

Background:
ProTools Studio 2022.4.0
Superior 3.3.2 (build 33854)(64-bit AAX)
AMD/Win10

• Superior 3.0 – Stereo Instrument Track
• Mono – GTR Audio Track – Neural DSP Gojira
• Arm/Rec GTR audio track, PreRoll 0.02.00, Count Off – 2 Bars
• Midi file in ProTools track, not in Superior.

Record, Track starts pre-roll, then when it gets to the insert rec/point I get a 1 kick and crash cymbal at full velocity on top of midi file, even if there is no kick or cymbal at that point?

I’ve tried arming other audio tracks with the same result. I get the spike every time when there’s a midi file present. Remove the midi and no spike.

During playback there is no spike. Only when recording an audio track. Can’t tell if this is a Superior issue or Pro Tools?

Recording is extremely frustrating when I can’t even record anything. Even clean/quiet parts and I get a full velocity 127 POW! kick and crash.

This is quite the pickle.

[Darryl Ramm]

SD3 has been super stable on all recent versions of Pro Tools and Mac OS for me.

Some random uniformed things I would try:

Are you absolutely sure there is not also some MIDI content in any MIDI tracks in the plugin? (maybe scrolled off screen in the UI... ask me how I know :-()

If you import the midi file into a empty session and just invoke SD3 does the same happen (ie. does it follow that MIDI?).

If you export the MIDI file and drop that file onto the Track window in the SD3 stand alone GUI are there any extra notes in it at the start that are not showing up in Pro Tools? (You could also try any number of .mid midi file to text converters to look at what they produce).

Are there any hidden tracks?

Any MIDI keyboards etc./extra MIDI software connected? Try disabling all that.

[AudibleE]

Thank you for the quick reply.

Here's what I just tested:

Checked Superior for any midi within the plugin. None.
Deleted all guitar tracks/wav files.
Exported Midi - Imported directly into Superior. Plays fine.
Arm blank audio track, start rec/pre-roll and when playhead starts recording, POW! Spike.

Although, Pre-Roll within Protools and Superior not sync'd. Drums in Superior immediately start playing while ProTools is still counting in? WHAT? HHAHAH!

Wow... I'm at a loss here. I even uninstalled all Avid products from my PC. Cleared everything out. Installed everything again and no change. Even updated SUP3.

[Darryl Ramm]

Not sure I'd call it a "spike". I suspect something is likely sending MIDI data to SD3.

Other ideas:

Any MIDI keyboards etc./extra MIDI routing software connected? Try disabling all that.

(should have suggested this one before) If you change the VI on the track to Mini Grand does that play the extra notes... that at least helps finger Pro Tools or the SD3 plugin as a problem.

And a crazy idea that is bugging me and I can't recall if this one was real, but try setting you IO buffer to a really large value.

[AudibleE]

I don't have any midi hardware plugged in or turned on. I have a keyboard and a Trigger Finger Pro, that are not hooked up.

I just tried loading a mini grand, moving the midi from Sup3. Same result. Arm audio track, pre-roll, 2 bar count in and first note does the same thing. So it's definitely a Pro Tools issue.

I jacked up the playback engine to 512 and 1024, same result. Ugh.

A few things I'm going to try next:

• Update MOBO bios.
• Defrag the SSD it records to.

[Darryl Ramm]

Ouch.

So does this only happen on punch in? Quick punch? Without Preroll? Without record arm? Or just anytime you roll the transport? (I'm lost on any connection where the audio side of Pro Tools can trigger a VI event).

Can you share a session thats does this? You can post a link here or PM me.

I doubt this has anything to do with low level optimizations like bios etc. and it absolutely will not have anything to do with an SSD. And *never* defrag an SSD, doing so is not doing what you expect and all you are likely doing is decreasing wear life on the drive.

For some reason this is ringing a bell with me and I just can't think of where/why.

Make sure you've trashed prefs, as always, who knows why but...

[Darryl Ramm]

Oh one thing I should have asked before, and I recall where I've seen something like this before.

It's possible to have a midi clip overlap another but leave a few samples of the underlying clip peeking out at the start. It might not be easy to notice depending on the horizontal scale and/or notes or clip view mode and color scheme.

With subtle MIDI timing errors I wonder even if notes hidden under the start of other clips might play? And I wonder if you've been doing loop recording with MIDI which might help cause this?

I suspect this is really a note(s) somewhere triggering stuff and not any other low level type of problem, maybe the best thing to try to do is just delete all the MIDI clips in the session and import a known good midi file (one you exported before). Maybe you did that already, but I am suggesting you check the clip list and delete all MIDI clips there.

[AudibleE]

I've tried all of your suggestions and still no change.

I deleted all midi.
Dropped in a new midi drum pattern.
Went into notes view.
Deleted midi notes in the middle of the pattern, so there's no midi to trigger anything.
Armed an audio track.
Selected an insert point in the blank area with no midi notes.
Again, a kick and crash are triggered at full velocity.

This time I even disengaged the pre-roll option and same result.

Now here's something that worked. I turned off the "Count Off" option in the Midi Controls in the Transport. Turned on the Pre-Roll and this time at the record/punch in no issue? No triggered sample.

I'd be curious if you or someone else could replicate this issue?

Thank you again for chiming in on this. I really appreciate the suggestions. For now I'm just going to roll with this and just turn off the "Count Off" in the Midi Controls. Cheers!

[Darryl Ramm]

I will give this a try over the weekend, Mac is easier for me to test on, would be great if others on Windows could try it... does not need Superior drummer, since it was reproduced with Mini Grand.

Also given all the changes in MIDI in 2022.6 it might be worth you testing with that... including because I expect Avid is going to have folks working on fixing some MIDI issues introduced in 2022.6 and hopefully continuing to give MIDI some love (thank you Avid)... so maybe a good time to add another bug report esp, if this can be reproduced.

[AudibleE]

Agreed. PT midi editing hasn't changed much in 10 years. I almost switched to Studio One this year because of the archaic midi editor compared to Cubase or Studio One.

Let's hope they do something about it soon.