Help!! I can't take SD3 anymore

Curious.   When the missed notes occur, what do you have playing through SD3 (e.g.  Project 5 PTNs, Step Sequencer patterns, MIDI clips, a normal MIDI track, etc.)?

Mosvalve

tonedef


Curious.   When the missed notes occur, what do you have playing through SD3 (e.g.  Project 5 PTNs, Step Sequencer patterns, MIDI clips, a normal MIDI track, etc.)?

 
I'm using step sequencer.

I noticed similar behavior when I was playing step sequencer drum patterns from the included media library.  In my case, the missing notes behavior turned out to be due to the "step probability" feature of Step Sequencer 2.0.  Certain notes in the pattern were set up to have a probability less than 100%, so sometimes those particular notes did not get triggered.   Since the release of Step Sequencer 2.0 with Sonar 8.5, the "Per Step Probability" feature provides control over the probability of how often a step will be triggered. It can be used to create automatic variations (make some steps only play occasionally) to keep repetitive patterns sounding fresh.  This setting can be checked per row in the step sequencer by clicking the drop down and selecting the "Step Play Probability" setting.  Steps that will not play 100% of the time will be displayed with less than a full vertical bar. 100% probability is at the top of the vertical gauge, 0% is at the bottom of it. [see attachment]

This may not be the source of the behavior you are experiencing, but it is a neat feature to be aware of.

Cheers.
ToneDeF

Check your MIDI buffers at " MIDI buffers, use XXX ms buffers". Doubling the buffer often helps.
This is the most common reason to skipped MIDI notes.

If you do talk to Cakewalk, please let us know how you make out.  Others may run into this issue sooner or later.

Thanks and good luck!
ToneDeF

I remember stumbling into this a while back, but for me it seemed to "get fixed" just by changing drums. So I assumed it was something in that particular "prog" or the sfz's. Didn't check further though. 

swamptooth

Mosvalve

tonedef


If you do talk to Cakewalk, please let us know how you make out.  Others may run into this issue sooner or later.

Thanks and good luck!
ToneDeF

since my last post on this thread  I've been communicating with Jon at Cake to resolve this issue.  I sent him screenshots of my settings as he suggested try some buffer increases but it did not resolve the problem. Yesterday he had me try playing my pattern in a blank project but skips still occurred.  Today his suggested testing my pattern with SI Drums. No skips occurred in the blank project as well as the real project. So it's something with session drummer itself. I probably won't hear from him until Monday. I'll keep you posted.

set your midi buffers to 100 or so, in preferences/audio/configuration file set extrapluginbufs to 32.  I know it sounds counterintuitive, but reduce your asio buffer size.  this will also happen if you have swing settings too far either one way or the other.   this can also be a problem with the sfz files themselves (an odd parameter here or there).  which kit are you using and which drums is it affecting?
 
edit - oh, and latest info suggests enable metronome on playback, but mute the metronome bus.  for some reason this is helping folks when looping audio.

Jon emailed me on Friday and said to delete session drummer and re-install it. Did that and still skips. So far it's only the snare that skips. I'm not changing any of the settings like swing etc. They are at their default positions. I created a kit using the kick ride and crash from jbsonr kit, the snare is from dsf studio kit, the toms are from the andy johns kit, the hat is from the SL tight kit. I tried your suggestion but it's still skipping. I don't use loops so I'm not sure that applies to my situation. I use the step sequencer to work out the drum parts then I'll actually play my electronic drum set when I'm ready to record the drums.
 
My buffer settings are as follows:
 
ASIO 256. I tried several different settings.
 
File System: Playback 1024 - Recording 128
 
Midi record: 128  -  Midi playback 500
 
Something with session drummer just don't like to play nice.
 
Thanks for helping.

Paul P


Only the snare skips ? Anything special about the snare beat-wise ?

Have you looked at the snare's sfz file ?

Do other SD kits, instruments, patterns miss notes also ?

No matter what kit I choose I get skips and a couple of times the kick shipped. I'm doing nothing special to the snare and it happens to any snare I choose. I'm at a loss and I think cake is too..

i'd check the sfz file to see if there's a round robin that's constructed improperly - that would be an erroneous seq_length setting or missing a seq_position sample.

which drum kit are you using???

nothing to with antivirus realtime scanning?  just mention it as a check...

might need to check buffers on your audio device, and lower the midi buffers in sonar because they could be clogging and not flushing.  kick up your io buffers too. not sure what's going on.  i had that prob with sd3 a bit in x1- not quite sure what fixed it...