Bizarre Protools MIDI behavior...

[piggyuk]

Yeah I'm fighting this again today. Similar behaviour to before.
I worked fine in the session for hours, then all of a sudden the issue starts, and won't stop.

Same behaviour as my previous screenshot.

Anyone had any luck fixing this? Making sending midi clock basically unusable / my external effects useless.

non-time based FX for now it is!

[marianna]

Originally Posted by piggyuk

Yeah I'm fighting this again today. Similar behaviour to before.
I worked fine in the session for hours, then all of a sudden the issue starts, and won't stop.

Same behaviour as my previous screenshot.

Anyone had any luck fixing this? Making sending midi clock basically unusable / my external effects useless.

non-time based FX for now it is!

Piggyuk

I created a case for this and have asked an audio tech to look at it for you...

BTW I noticed that you have a car open for renewal issues and have a temp license. How far from expiration is that?

Marianna

[Ghost In The Attic]

Originally Posted by marianna

BTW I noticed that you have a car open for renewal issues and have a temp license. How far from expiration is that?

Marianna

Marianna, I didn't realize you handled temp licenses for car renewals.
Do you handle DEQ renewals too?

[piggyuk]

Originally Posted by marianna

Piggyuk

I created a case for this and have asked an audio tech to look at it for you...

BTW I noticed that you have a car open for renewal issues and have a temp license. How far from expiration is that?

Marianna

Sorry Marianna, I hadn't spotted your reply! Thank you for raising the case!

I believe I'm up to date now, but still experience the issue. It's a strange one for sure!

Thank you RE my renewal issues! I think.... it looks like it's fixed? I went to check how long my temp licence has left (until the 6th May), but it looks like my subscription licence is now showing 3rd May which looks correct...
I guess they might still be working on it though?

Many thanks!

[marianna]

Originally Posted by Ghost In The Attic

Marianna, I didn't realize you handled temp licenses for car renewals.
Do you handle DEQ renewals too?

LOLOL typing too fast.

Marianna

[Redpony]

I am on the latest version of both Pro Tools and MacOS.

I continue to have strange midi issues, sending midi clock, stuck notes when stopping playback, and audio glitches when turning on the midi input thru preference to play back selected tracks.

Admittedly I have a complex setup with I don't have any of these issues in Cubase.

[MKS-80]

Same problem here in 2024.6 on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra using a Midi Express XT and multiple external synths.

Most of the time if I hit play in the middle of a midi note it sends all the external synths haywire in the manner described by the OP.

[skylar_battles]

2024.6 MIDI Beat Clock Unusable - Many bugs and issues to be addressed

I'm sure all this in the above post is relevant as well.

Is there an active case regarding how deeply broken sending MIDI beat clock to hardware instruments is? I sincerely hope it can get fixed ASAP.

I use an iConnectivity MioXM so I feel fairly confident the issue is Pro tools and not either of those MIDI interfaces, not that anyone is suggesting it is. MOTU and iConnectivity seem to be the most common brands as far as I know anyway.

[marianna]

Originally Posted by skylar_battles

2024.6 MIDI Beat Clock Unusable - Many bugs and issues to be addressed

I'm sure all this in the above post is relevant as well.

Is there an active case regarding how deeply broken sending MIDI beat clock to hardware instruments is? I sincerely hope it can get fixed ASAP.

I use an iConnectivity MioXM so I feel fairly confident the issue is Pro tools and not either of those MIDI interfaces, not that anyone is suggesting it is. MOTU and iConnectivity seem to be the most common brands as far as I know anyway.

Skylar...........

they logged and fixed PT-262860 - MIDI incorrectly placed on timeline, determined by H/W buffer setting and it looks to be coming in the next version of Pro Tools but I dont have a timeframe on that yet.

As for the other link you provided... Im digging into that now.

Marianna

[skylar_battles]

Hey Marianna! :)

I’m very grateful and intrigued to hear about how the fix for PT-262860 (MIDI incorrectly placed on timeline determined by H/W buffer setting) has been implemented.

As discussed in great length in the PT 2024.3 NEW issue MIDI LATENCY thread:

Desired user behavior for MIDI note placement when recording MIDI note data with a MIDI controller in order to trigger Virtual Instruments, and I’m fairly certain Hardware Instruments as well, is to print the latency from the hardware buffer size (notes shifted to the right {nudged forward in Pro Tools terms} from where they were actually played) so that playback sounds identical to recording. This sounds like what the bug fix addresses which is phenomenal news!

What I am wondering is if this will be “fixed” or be an option that can be toggled at the track or session level.

I am not completely certain but I do believe there will be cases where the old behavior could be necessary.

Here is the situation that I have been trying to figure out and haven’t been able to properly test as of yet in regards to printing MIDI latency from the hardware buffer size:

Recording Audio and MIDI from a synthesizer simultaneously!!!

My gut instinct is that because you aren’t using MIDI note data to trigger the synth and instead playing the instrument directly, the user would not want the MIDI latency printed from the hardware buffer size. This would probably be a case where this feature would need to be turned off but again I’m not certain.

Another possible case could be the simultaneous recording of Audio and Midi from drum machines.

Since the drum machine is being triggered by MIDI beat clock and not MIDI note data, I’m also fairly certain that the latency shouldn’t be printed. If the user wanted to use the resulting MIDI data from the hardware drum machine Audio and MIDI recording in order to make another layer with GrooveCell, I would think that desired behavior would be to not print MIDI latency from the hardware buffer size because MIDI note data isn’t being used to trigger the drum machines. Because of that, then I’d think that the audio from the hardware drum machine and its MIDI clip moved to Instrument track with GrooveCell should sound in time together.

So hopefully this makes some sense but I do think:

When MIDI note data is being used to trigger an instrument, whether a plugin or hardware synth, latency from the hardware buffer size should be printed so that playback sounds the same as recording

When recording MIDI as an additional output when also recording Audio from a synthesizer or drum machine, since MIDI note data isn’t being used to trigger those instruments, the MIDI latency from the hardware buffer size shouldn’t be printed.

Let’s say you record the MIDI output of a synth while only input monitoring the audio while recording the MIDI data. I’d think that since MIDI note data isn’t being used to trigger the synth, that desired user behavior would be to NOT print the MIDI latency from the hardware buffer size, so that in this different use case, playback of the MIDI data routed to synth with an audio track input monitoring, should sound identical to when you recorded the MIDI data. I would think the new behavior wouldn’t work for this.

To say it even more simply:

USE CASE 1:

When recording MIDI, Latency from the hardware buffer size should ALWAYS be printed with MIDI note data is being used to trigger software or hardware instruments, so that playback sounds identical to recording.

USE CASE 2:

When Recording MIDI, Latency from the hardware buffer size should NEVER be printed when MIDI note data is NOT being used to trigger the instrument, so that playback sounds identical to recording, when routing MIDI data recorded from a synth back to a synthesizer to record the audio from it.

I hope this could make it to Elpiniki so that we could have her take on what makes sense here! Anyone who has extensive experience recording the Audio and MIDI output of synthesizers and drum machines simultaneously please chime in!