bottom line: MIDI SUCKS

[zele]

Got our first MIDI piece back 'round 85. Never had any problems >>> unless I tried to connect the MIDI devices to a PC or Mac. So our 10 MIDI pieces always work flawlessly ...just so we keep them from the computers interface.

[Billster]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

Originally posted by offramp:

Mac. OSX.3.5

 

Same cables, but test good.

OHHHhhhhhhh!!! On a Mac, eh? That solves that problem.

 

{Running from thrown cabbages and beer in styrofoam cups}

 

I throw rocks and tomatoes!

[tradivoro]

Hey offramp, probably the easiest thing is to get somebody to come over your place and set you up... What you want to do is real easy, and you shouldn't be having these problems... Why it's not happening for you, I couldn't say... If you lived in New York, I'd set you up myself... I've done 100s of midi productions since 1984, I could count on the fingers on 1 hand the times i've had problems wiht midi, and those problems were solved in 5 minutes... Something is definitely off if you can't get results crack out the box with your setup...

 

Here's an additional head's up... The roland manuals are not the best for setting up the keyboard so it can play back what you're recording into your midi software... So, that's gonna be an additional source of frustration... That's why I say, get somebody over your place who knows what they're doing and knows this equipment to set you up, so that all you have to do is make music after that...

[offramp]

Originally posted by DC:

I've used midi for ages with very few problems.

 

If your keyboard is responding with single notes instead of chords, it sounds like your keyboard is set to mono mode where it will only play one note at a time. Keep in mind that what you send and the way the play back part of the synth is set can be very different.

I'm not THAT stupid. That's not exactly the arpeggiation I was referring to; I don't know how to describe what it was doing, but the closest I could come was 'arpeggiation'. Very staggered-out chords.

 

Read the manual offramp.

You apparently have never owned a Roland manual.

[offramp]

djwayne has hit on perhaps the most apt metaphor for my dilemma; a beautiful way to describe the frustration.

 

Dan South has pretty much pegged the issue. MIDI seems to be a pretty black and white issue, like math. I always hated math in school; in fact, I managed to get my algebra teacher to lay off me when I looked her dead in the eyes and asked if algebra would be required to balance my checkbook, now or in five years.

Hendmik's right: I AM a smart guy. But there are niches in everyone's cognitive pathways, and for me, MIDI falls headfirst into one of them. The concept of MIDI, I get; it's the execution and the "need" for mind-boggling detail of something that should be so disgustingly simple, that I DON'T get. Feels like I'm trying to keep 60 trains from meeting head-on at the Union Pacific hub.

 

I'm also a very hands-on, analogue kind of guy, and I think I spend more time trying to make it easier on myself than just doing it, where MIDI is concerned. I only got into this again because my Roland decided to screw my sequence at a critical moment; I was hoping to be able to get the sequence loaded into DP, change the tempo, and be back to work. Instead, the whole day became a clusterfuck.

[M Peasley]

MIDI is simple enough when it works, sure, but when it doesn't, and you don't have a lot of experience with it, it can drive you up the tree and leave you there.

 

Settings in the sequencer, settings in the module/keyboard, settings for the interface, and operating system details all have to jive. So in the long run, unless you are lucky enough to just plug in and run, you have to learn what all those dratted parameters mean at each stage of the MIDI stream. That can be a steep learning curve.

 

The worst thing is simply malfunctioning equipment - bad cables, bad interface, unstable OS, etc. So hard to pinpoint them and you spend so much time blaming MIDI. But you can't blame those problems on MIDI, to be fair.

 

My first MIDI setup was a Kurzweil K2000, Cakewalk 3.0, and a single-port midi interface that connected to a serial port. Simple enough, you'd think. But it took me a few months before I had it working consistently. I mean it would all be working when I powered down at night, and the next morning it wouldn't work. Drove me nuts. But I learned the right tricks, and eventually MIDI became an invisible part of the background.

 

But I spent a lot of time under the hood at first, and yes, I eventually had to read the manuals.

 

Sheesh, for Win98 and the Opcode 64X I later bought, I had to make entries into the Windows registry itself before the Opcode would work at all. That was really tweak-land. Again, not really a MIDI problem per se, but still, why should a simple stream of serial MIDI data pose such difficulties?

 

Anyway, I have shared your agony and felt my version of your pain. I think the idea of getting a MIDI guru in on the job is probably the best idea and the most likely to keep you from busting a brain artery.

 

Cheers

 

M Peasley

[thisDude]

Whoa man... Take a deep breath, count to 10 and relax or you'll blow an "O" ring.

 

I'm a relative newcomer to midi and I'm a bit spoiled in that most of what I do is softsynth nowadays with midi-learn and whatnot. However, as stated by others, most of my hardware problems "back in the day" occured as a result of "local on/off" or transmitting on the wrong channel or having my software not setup correctly to receive on said channel (usually 1). The way you describe your problem and the fact that you haven't used this board with midi in so long makes me think it's a setting on the XP80.

 

But don't knock the spec. You can do amazing things with it... even controll robotics and lighting. Plus, it's the only game in town.

[DC]

Yeah, Roland manuals do suck, but you can usually find your problem in there somewhere once you learn to read Japanglish.

 

The reason I said what I said is that once I had a Roland synth in mono mode and played a chord and it sounded like a sawed off arpeggiation sorta. Thought that might have been it.

 

Originally posted by offramp:

Originally posted by DC:

I've used midi for ages with very few problems.

 

If your keyboard is responding with single notes instead of chords, it sounds like your keyboard is set to mono mode where it will only play one note at a time. Keep in mind that what you send and the way the play back part of the synth is set can be very different.

I'm not THAT stupid. That's not exactly the arpeggiation I was referring to; I don't know how to describe what it was doing, but the closest I could come was 'arpeggiation'. Very staggered-out chords.

 

Read the manual offramp.

You apparently have never owned a Roland manual.

[Dan South]

offramp,

 

It shouldn't be that difficult. Maybe you can posts more details about your setup and we can help.

 

Computer

Operating system

Sequencing software

Have you downloaded the lastest Fastlane drivers for your OS?

How many cables are you running, and from which ports to which ports?

 

We'll get you up and running.

[offramp]

I think...

 

I think...

 

I've got this whoredog working.

 

Trouble is...I don't have much #%^&$% clue as to how I did it.

 

So far, I've been able to record on different MIDI tracks and have them play back appropriately, and have been starting to rebuiild the tune.

 

Would like to understand "auto-channelize'; I think it might be one thing, but I suspect it's another. Unisyn isn't accesible in any way, and the DP manual talks it up like a used car salesman but is naturally silent on telling you how to get the window to come up.

 

Round 2 of Hairpull '05 will be when I go to record the 80's outputs individually from the MIDI tracks...I'm sure I'll be back to the screaming, then.

So far, I'm just glad to see the little dots and dashes, and have it do what I ask it to.

[KenElevenShadows]

Well, I'm glad it's working...

[Raymar]

Offramp, glad you got it going for now. Part of the "fun" of MIDI are the headaches. Roland likes to add additional headaches of their own. I remember the first time I tried to make a synth/sequencer connection, it took hours, everything looked right, re-read the manuals several times for hours and couldn't get a connection. It turned out to be the Midi Thru switch. Digital Audio has its gremlins too! However the MIDI playing chords as random arpeggios sounds like a cool effect. Let us know how you did it if you ever find out.

 

Steve

[Billster]

Originally posted by offramp:

Unisyn isn't accesible in any way, and the DP manual talks it up like a used car salesman but is naturally silent on telling you how to get the window to come up.

Unisyn is a totally separate program, it integrates with DP for patch lists and so on, but you must buy the Unisyn program separately.

marketing!

 

Originally posted by offramp:

Would like to understand "auto-channelize'; I think it might be one thing, but I suspect it's another.

Auto channelize is a feature of the interface.

 

In MOTU world, the different MIDI cable outs on the interface box can be assigned to carry only one channel. Auto channelize can take your MIDI input (playing), and based on the sequencer track you are recording to, assign the MIDI patch thru to the right channel for playback on the appropriate MIDI instrument. I haven't had to deal with this for a while, so check your manuals.

 

For instance, back when Performer was just a sequencer with no digital audio component, I had one keyboard and three rack mount synths. I could assign track outputs to the channels of the rack modules, and using auto channelize with local off on my one keyboard, play any synth in my rig from the one keyboard.

[offramp]

Well, according to the CD's I have Unisyn with my purchase of DP4; I clicked on a Unisyn installer, and it installed.

Can't find it for shit, though.

[Dave The Rave]

I recently upgraded from DP4.11 to DP4.5 with Unisyn (online). They sent me the DP4.5 discs and manual, but no sign of Unisyn....I emailed them and they told me that whoops, they forgot about that and they'd ship it to me to arrive by today. Is it here? Nope. Just an invoice telling me that they have shipped it and that I paid for it.....rats.

 

Why am I rambling about this? Cuz I don't think Unisyn is ever shipped on the DP discs. You may have the same issue as I have Offramp.

 

:DTR

[Dan South]

I'm not sure what "auto channelize" is, but here's how it works on most sequencers.

 

You record notes to a track. Before you do, you have to associate a synthesizer to that track. And you also have to associate a MIDI channel to it.

 

But first go into the System mode of your keyboard (XP) and set LOCAL CONTROL to OFF in the MIDI options. This means that your keys no longer play the synth sound engine. Your keys send messages to the computer, and the computer plays the sound engine via MIDI. Otherwise, everthing that you play will be doubled.

 

So, let's say you have a piano sound on channel 1 of your XP (synth is in Performance mode), and you want to record that onto track 1. Select track 1 in DP, pull up the XP and set the MIDI channel for that track to 1. When you play the keyboard you should hear the piano sound. Press record and play something. You may have to set up a metronome sound in order to know where DP thinks 1,2,3, and 4 are, or it may click automatically, but that's another story.

 

Please stop. Rewind to the beginning of the track. Disarm record, if necessary, and press play. You should hear your performance. Edit as necessary.

 

Select tract 2. Maybe you have a drum kit on XP channel 10. Select the XP as the instrument for track 2 and set its MIDI channel to 10. Record as before.

 

Repeat as necessary.

 

That's all there is to it. It's not that complicated.

[Anderton]

MIDI does not suck. However, sometimes user interfaces do...

[fingerz88]

All Midi is is a set of instructions to your keyboard/sound modules. Tell 'em what to do, and it's done (play note, hold note, change sound, change effect, etc...).

 

Now...to learn the language.

 

Just like Spanish, French, English...a language can be learned.

 

I've seen a few books and videos teaching this languge they call..MIDI!

 

Now get busy! Start with a book, leave it in the bathroom, and in 2 weeks, report back with your new "tune"!

 

Good luck, Fingerz

[DanS]

Aren't you the guy who ran over an iPod?

[offramp]

Touchy subject.

Only because I was completely unaware it had fallen under the car.

 

This has been a hell of a month, and I'm not even halfway into it.

Other things have happened, as well.