PT5 midi erratic whilst bouncing....

[johnedmonds]

I have a problem with erratic midi whilst bouncing.
During upgrading to PT5 I purchased a Alesis DMPRO drum module to replace my aging D4. Being multi-timbral I can set up a seperate drum on each PT midi track and control volume, pan etc from PT. All setting are then saved with PT and I don't need to create audio tracks of each drum.
All was fine during tracking and Mixing but when I finally bounced to disk the midi became erratic. Rather than embarace myself in front my clients, I recorded the drums to two audio tracks and bounced just audio. This worked fine & my clients left happy.
After he left I recorded the drums only by using "bounce to disk", then imported the audio into the session. The DMPRO was giving a delay of 7ms which is slighly higher than my old DM (4ms) but acceptable, but every 2.3 bars a delay of 35ms was being added by PT as follows:-
Bar delay
3:4 35ms
6.3 35ms
9.2 35ms
12.1 35ms
14.4 35ms etc etc
This caused the Bass drum and snare to be played late with obvious consequences.
But it did not happen when recording to a track !!!
Is anyone else getting this ?

Digi
Any ideas ?

I use an OPCODE 64X interface which works fine on tracking & mixing ....

[psycho]

I have got a similar problem in 5.0 which already existed in 4.2.6.
When I use the bounce function it seems to me that PT uses all of my computers power so everything else running - including the midi driver - becomes very low in priority so the midi timing is completly unuseable.
As a workaround I send output to a stereo bus and record on 2 audio tracks. Everything is o.k. except that this method consumes 2 more voices and some dsp power. I hope digidesign will improve bounce performance.
I use a winman 4x4s, NT SP4, PT5.0, mixplus and mackie HUI.

[Slypolk]

I wrote a question last week about PT5.0 and a midi sync problem...
I am having a sync problem related to syncing my cakewalk files using an external Music quest 8 port.. It seems that there is a serious time delay when I start to record.... I will call digi today to try to resolve the issue... and report back

[johnedmonds]

hello digi ....
Anyone there ......

[johnedmonds]

Is anyone else getting midi stability problems whilst bouncing or am I the only person using PT midi ?
I need to know whether it's PT5 or my setup...
Positive feedback will help me ..
Thanks
John
Promrose Studio (UK)

[Jeffrey Percival]

If any of you that are having MIDI problems are using the Midiman Winman 4x4s then you need to run the DOS diagnostics that come with the interface card. There is a chip upgrade available from Midiman that will fix certain problems. If your card fails any of the diagnostics then you should contact Midiman regarding the upgrade. I've gone through the process and resolved the MIDI issues I was having. Good Luck

Jeff Percival
Personics Recording
Phoenix, AZ

[johnedmonds]

Digi,
I went to a lot of trouble detailing my original problem, I would be grateful for a response ......
John

[johnedmonds]

I gather by the total lack of response from digi that I have touched on a nerve here ..

Is it true that you cannot bounce audio and midi in PT 5.0 NT , without getting serious timing problems ......

John
Primrose Studio
UK

[DigiTechSupt]

Hi John. No, you haven't touched any nerves (that haven't been ripped out and trampled on already concerning your MIDI sync behavior. We will test the behavior you describe. Sorry for the delay. There is an official Technical Support e-mail line : techsupt@digidesign.com If you are in need of a response from Technical Support within 24 to 48 hours, this would be the forum by which to contact us. Other than that, phone support is available of course. We'll be using a Midi man interface, but aside from that we should be able to duplicate the configuration. I'll let you know where we're at sometime tomorrow. Thanks.

Tom S.

[DigiTechSupt]

Hi John. As it turns out this is a known issue and is currently being worked on and will be resolved in an up coming version of PT|NT. It is actually documented in the 5.0 "Read this first" (or possibly "don't read this first"

Bounce to Disk feature in Pro Tools may have delays in response time when using MIDI and TDM Plug-In automation. This problem only occurs when bouncing, not during normal playback/record. To workaround this problem, follow the directions below:

Set all audio tracks and Aux tracks currently assigned to your main outputs to a free stereo bus (i.e. outputs 1-2 should be assigned to bus 21-22 [assuming nothing is using bus 21-22])Create 2 new audio tracks
Set the input for the new audio tracks to the L-R assignment of the bus you just used for all other output tracks (in this case, bus 21 is Left and bus 22 is Right). Assign the output of your new tracks to your original master output (i.e. Outputs 1-2) Put both of your new tracks into Rec, Press Rec and Play on the transport to create a dual mono, or L-R master of your session. If you need to create a stereo interleaved file, use the bounce to disk feature with your new L-R stereo pair you just created.

You knew this of course, but it shouldn't be long before this won't be necessary for bouncing with TDM MIDI tracks. Thanks for your patience.

Tom