Print audio from Midi Track (not Instrument Track)

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

OOPS I reread what he had written. I see now he is gettign external audio. if played live I had that part completely backwards, compounded by the IO naming being wrong.

So to THE OP... IF YOU HAVE AUDIO COMING INTO PRO TOOLS ON AN AUDIO TRACK BUT THE SEQUENCER IS NOT PLAYING FROM THE MIDI TRACK THEN YOU HAVE A MIDI OUTPUT/SETUP WRONG. So the sequencer sees no MIDI from Pro Tools? What address is it set to? What is it connected to? Screen shots of MIDI setup in Pro Tools and the MIDI track would be great.

To the OP:

In addition to everything said before also make sure to have 'use first selected track' set in PT. And enable 'instruments' view in the Edit screen and see if the MIDI routing is right there. And another is to make sure the keyboard is set to do MIDI on the correct set of connections; some that have both USB and traditional 5 pin MIDI have to be specifically set for the mode to be used.

It's probably something as simple as PT and the synth aren't talking on the same MIDI channel.

[hardcase]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

So you have the correct playback engine selected and have then defaulted the IO as described (that should have renamed all that IO and removed any reference to "aggregate". Do that deleting and defaulting on each of the input, output and bus pages. But only after you are sure you have the right playback engine selected), and created an *audio* (not MIDI) track in Pro tools, and selected the correct input/feed from your Apollo for the input on that track.... Right?

If that does not work then create a new test empty session (not from template), make sure the Apollo is the playback engine (no aggregate anything). Create a single Audio track. Input on that track set to the line in from the synth/keyboard and output to whatever the monitor outs on the Apollo are. Nothing else, no master fader etc. Does that work?

I did all that and did hear and record audio onto an "Audio" track.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Or is it you can hear/see audio on the track when you play by hand but you can't get the MIDI track to play the synth for you?

Yes!

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

In addition to everything said before also make sure to have 'use first selected track' set in PT

I was wondering about that.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

some that have both USB and traditional 5 pin MIDI have to be specifically set for the mode to be used.

Yes, I figured out which to designate when. This is very near the problem. When midi is set to "USB off" , that's when I can play the keyboard and trigger the external sampler. When "USB on" is selected, the Midi Track in PT plays the external sampler but a correctly routed Audio Track is not registering audio from the external sampler. Got to break for the night, thanks!

[hardcase]

Ok, there seems to be a metering issue. The Audio Track meter doesn't register any movement when the Midi region is triggering the external sampler, it is record enabled. I seem to have got hung up on this and didn't try to actually record audio. Well, it records the audio. I get the audio from the Apollo input triggered by the midi clip in PT. That's kind of whacked of me. I thought you were supposed to be able to see meter movement when record enable was active whether or not you were actually in record mode. I did this on a test session with another external sound module, My EPS was starting to throw errors. Sorry, it gets confusing for me as I'm just starting to use external devices with a USB controller. Will have to try the EPS in the actual session. Thanks all!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by hardcase

Ok, there seems to be a metering issue. The Audio Track meter doesn't register any movement when the Midi region is triggering the external sampler, it is record enabled. I seem to have got hung up on this and didn't try to actually record audio. Well, it records the audio. I get the audio from the Apollo input triggered by the midi clip in PT. That's kind of whacked of me. I thought you were supposed to be able to see meter movement when record enable was active whether or not you were actually in record mode. I did this on a test session with another external sound module, My EPS was starting to throw errors. Sorry, it gets confusing for me as I'm just starting to use external devices with a USB controller. Will have to try the EPS in the actual session. Thanks all!

Why not bring the audio back in on an aux track - that will tell you if you're getting signal back in and that your routing is okay. You will see meter movement on the aux track (and don't forget to select 'use first selected track' in PT prefs like I mentioned before). Then when this is good route the output of the aux track to an audio track.

BTW - you have a couple of things you quoted in a previous post of yours attributed to Darryl when they are actually something I wrote.

[hardcase]

Thanks musicman691!! Sorry for the mis-attribute, late night for me!

I went ahead and printed midi successfully just going with Audio tracks and not using any Aux.

There is some strange midi behavior though and I'm not sure why or what part of the chain is causing it. Sometimes notes jam up and trigger out of time in clusters and then silence. And there seems to be inconsistent results with the same settings. Sometimes a VI on an Instrument track gets all goofy and out of tune and tempo. I shot some phone video of it.

Anyway printing the external midi parts and moving on! Thanks for bearing with me and offering excellent help.

[Darryl Ramm]

Great you got it to work. Sorry I misread your earlier post and wasted time on the audio track side of things.

[hardcase]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Great you got it to work. Sorry I misread your earlier post and wasted time on the audio track side of things.

Thanks, I was focusing on audio as well and doing so helped me solidify those concepts.

[nigelpry]

Well we're all clutching at straws trying to help you ... it's so difficult when you are trying to describe in words what is more easily conveyed in pictures.

Persevere and we'll get you there.

One thing occurs to me regarding the strange MIDI behavior .... that sounds very much like a MIDI loop going on. Giving you MIDI feedback that is in concept the same as audio feedback, though the results are very different.

If your MIDI track is set to accept MIDI from all MIDI inputs ... AND ... you set up that setting to enable MIDI Thru to first selected track ... then depending on how your EPS is set up you could be creating a loop.

Is your EPS set up to send the MIDI it receives back out again (not using the Thru Port, but the actual MIDI Out port)? Some samplers/sequencers allow that to be set up.

Another common scenario that can cause that kind of problem is if you have a keyboard with Local On enabled, so the keys trigger the sounds directly, and you have the MIDI data from the keyboard going to the computer (Pro Tools) which you've set to send the MIDI back out to the keyboard. Setting the keyboard to Local Off cures that problem.

But I thnk your keyboard is a controller only? No internal sounds?

Finally, if you keyboard uses both USB and MIDI connectors, is it possible that the MIDI data is goung out of both?

I get the impression fom your first post that you may have the keyboard's USB connector going to the computer to let you record MIDI into Pro Tools, but you may ALS have the MIDI out of the keyboard connected directly to the EPS sampler.

Is that true? If so, is the sampler also connected to the computer via USB, or by another set of MIDI ports? .... it must be to be getting MIDI from Pro Tools.

In that case, the sampler would be getting the same MIDI both directly from the keyboard and from the computer via the keyboard's USB and the computer's MIDI port connections (are they on the Apollo Twin, or something else?)

If the sampler is set up internally to be receiving MIDI on multiple ports and automatically merging it, then I wold expect pretty much what you are describing in terms of strange MIDI behaviour.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by nigelpry

Well we're all clutching at straws trying to help you ... it's so difficult when you are trying to describe in words what is more easily conveyed in pictures.

Persevere and we'll get you there.

One thing occurs to me regarding the strange MIDI behavior .... that sounds very much like a MIDI loop going on. Giving you MIDI feedback that is in concept the same as audio feedback, though the results are very different.

If your MIDI track is set to accept MIDI from all MIDI inputs ... AND ... you set up that setting to enable MIDI Thru to first selected track ... then depending on how your EPS is set up you could be creating a loop.

Is your EPS set up to send the MIDI it receives back out again (not using the Thru Port, but the actual MIDI Out port)? Some samplers/sequencers allow that to be set up.

Another common scenario that can cause that kind of problem is if you have a keyboard with Local On enabled, so the keys trigger the sounds directly, and you have the MIDI data from the keyboard going to the computer (Pro Tools) which you've set to send the MIDI back out to the keyboard. Setting the keyboard to Local Off cures that problem.

But I thnk your keyboard is a controller only? No internal sounds?

Finally, if you keyboard uses both USB and MIDI connectors, is it possible that the MIDI data is goung out of both?

I get the impression fom your first post that you may have the keyboard's USB connector going to the computer to let you record MIDI into Pro Tools, but you may ALS have the MIDI out of the keyboard connected directly to the EPS sampler.

Is that true? If so, is the sampler also connected to the computer via USB, or by another set of MIDI ports? .... it must be to be getting MIDI from Pro Tools.

In that case, the sampler would be getting the same MIDI both directly from the keyboard and from the computer via the keyboard's USB and the computer's MIDI port connections (are they on the Apollo Twin, or something else?)

If the sampler is set up internally to be receiving MIDI on multiple ports and automatically merging it, then I wold expect pretty much what you are describing in terms of strange MIDI behaviour.

The Ensoniq EPS16+ has it's own keyboard (unless he has the rack mount module) plus the op is also using an external keyboard to trigger sounds. There could well be a MIDI loop thing going on (not to mention issues with local on on the EPS). Both Ensoniq models only have the traditional 5 pin MIDI connectors; they're ancient pieces of hardware that haven't been made in decades (released 1990). So there's no worry about that piece going out both USB and regular MIDI connections.

One of the few good things about the keyboard version of the EPS is it has polyphonic aftertouch; very few keyboards have that anymore.

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Both Ensoniq models only have the traditional 5 pin MIDI connectors; they're ancient pieces of hardware that haven't been made in decades (released 1990).

So what does that make me? ;-)

I regard any of my kit from the 90s as hardly worn in yet!

Yeah, poly aftertouch can be good. I have it on my 2x Roland A-80 Controllers, though you have to dig in so heavily that its unusable in as subtle a way as I would like.

Unfortunately none of my Roland A-70, DX7s and DX7IID and older keyboards have poly aftertouch.