RECORDING MIDI, PLAYBACK ANORMALLY .

SIMON-BARRETT wrote on 11/21/2018, 1:30 PM

Hi people,

I want to pick your brains with this problem i seem to be getting when i record VST Instruments. The DAW software i'm using is Samplitude Music Studio 2017. Basically my midi controller is connected by USB only. I select an instrument usually a Vita Grand Piano, link it to my midi controller, arm the record button, set the recording off and i start playing what i want it to record. However when i play back the recorded piano sound i'm only getting certain notes on playback. When i open the piano roll it's the same the notes are not there. Just say 2 bars instead of say 3. Why is this ? Can anyone shed any light on this. I keep changing Buffer size as the software keeps telling me i have Lost ASIO Buffers. What is the correct Buffer size ? For best playing zero latency i'm using 128 and 256 buffer sizes. I've tried 1024 but i then get a latency delay so i revert back to either 128 or 256 as these 2 settings i feel are the best.

I've tried a few DAWS over the years and have to admit i don't get on with them very well so i bought Samplitude music studio as it seemed a user friendly interface, and i quite like working with it, i just keep getting issues with it.

So if anyone can help me with these problems i would be most grateful.

Many thanks for time - Simon.

Comments

emmrecs wrote on 11/22/2018, 4:31 AM

Hi, welcome to the Magix forums.

First, can you please read this post because I have a strong suspicion there is something amiss with your computer or its input, sorry! 😢

The reason I say this is because ASIO, Audio Buffers and MIDI really have little or nothing to do with each other in the scenario you are presenting.

If you are recording MIDI, you are asking your computer to store a series of commands generated by your keyboard - e.g. which note, how hard struck, for how long held, etc., etc. - no actual audio is recorded. When playing back that MIDI track, all those commands are, essentially, sent to the sound generator you have chosen, in this case your Vita Grand, and the sounds are heard. For this to work, the actual audio is most likely to be going from the Vita instrument to your speakers and so not passing through your computer, depending on the audio interface you are using. (Another reason why more information about your actual computer set-up would be very helpful!)

ASIO and Audio Buffers only really become an issue when you are recording and/or replaying an audio track (remember your MIDI track has no audio) so I think you can, for the time being, safely ignore these two areas.

However, potentially much more serious is the fact that you wrote:

when i play back the recorded piano sound i'm only getting certain notes on playback. When i open the piano roll it's the same the notes are not there

I'm afraid this points to the reason why I wrote above that there is something amiss with your computer or set-up. In many years of recording MIDI I have never experienced the problem of the host failing to record ALL the notes, right or wrong, that I've played. Something somewhere on your set-up is "preventing" those missing notes from being stored. As indicated above, nether ASIO nor Audio Buffer size are going to be the cause!

I think you need to check carefully ALL the components, including your USB MIDI cable that link your keyboard and controller to your computer, as well as the computer itself. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a problem with something external to your computer, hence rather easier to fix. You write of your midi controller; is this a keyboard (you say you play what you want to record)? If not, and this is some device sitting between your keyboard and your computer, what happens if you connect your keyboard directly to the MIDI input of your computer, i.e bypass this "controller"?

Jeff

EDIT: There is a very useful free utility called MIDI Ox which can monitor your MIDI input to your computer and so will show which notes are being received. You can thus discover whether the problem you are seeing is being caused before those commands actually reach your computer or whether something in your computer is the cause.

CAVEAT: I have never used this utility (because I've never needed to) but I know it is highly regarded by a large number of users who I see posting about it to other music forums. And yes, it is now rather "old" but apparently still usable.