Hi folks,
Hopefully some people came across this issue I'm having: I own a digital piano ( Roland  V-Piano) which audio port is connected to a mixer. The mixer also  receives audio  signal from the DAW through the sound card Audio OUT Port . The piano is also connected through MIDI to the Soundcard MIDI  IN Port and also the sound card MIDI OUT port is connected back to the Digital piano to be able to playback the MIDI track through the Digital Piano Sound Module.
The issue is that I record the piano in a MIDI track for further MIDI editing, if the MIDI track MIDI output port is set pointing to the MIDI port which is connected to the Piano, then I pick up two signals through the mixer: one is the direct signal from the Digital piano audio  to the mixer and the second one  through the MIDI port which controls the piano sound module and audio,as mentioned before,  is sent to the mixer. These two signals are the same but the one generated by MIDI control has a small delay (equal to the effective latency setting set at 4 msec in my soundcard). These two signals played back together in the mixer at that lower latency creates  phase cancellation which is heard by a slightly distorted sound and lower, very annoying when recording.
I'm able to record only monitoring through the mixer by selecting a midi out port different from the one connected to the piano in the MIDI track, but then I can't hear what is already recorded in that track.
My question is : is there a known setup for this configuration so I can eliminate this issue?
Hopefully the question makes sense, apologize for the long thread.  Thanks in advance for your help
Pablo
 
 

All I can really recommend is to try to use soft synths. It's much easier, simple to monitor and the variety and sounds are generally far better than what is found in a piano.
The Cakewalk TTS-1 is a GM synth as example that is on par with any of Roland's sound modules. We have so many synth sound in Sonar that in my 12 years I've never managed to pre view even half of them...
 
If there really is a sound in your piano you cannot find inside Sonar ( hard to do) then it's still best to record and work within Sonar, edit your performances using a soft synth to playback using a sound that is close to the one you want, and then once happy play the midi output and then record the analog output of the piano.
Yes there is midi latency so using a soft synth eliminates that and tightens up your timing too.

Thanks fo your reply. The reason I am using the vpiano is because is the only piano per my experience that truely reproduces the sound of a real piano. I tried lots soft synths none of them is capable of sounding like this one.
I tried what you are suggesting by using a soft synth while tracking affects the performance as the soft piano response is different.
Thanks for your advise.

The usual approach for keyboards with on-board sound generation is to turn off local control. That means the performance at the keyboard does not generate sound, just MIDI. Then the MIDI comes back from the DAW to the keyboard and generates just the one copy of sound. This merges nicely with previously recorded MIDI.
 
There is a setting in Sonar that causes Sonar to send a MIDI message to the keyboard to turn off local control (from the manual):
 
To automatically disable all local control whenever you launch SONAR
1. In the directory where SONAR is installed, double-click on the TTSseq.ini file to open it.
2. In the [Options] section, add the line:
SendLocalOff=1
3. Save the file and close it.
4. When you launch SONAR, it automatically sends a Local Off message to your keyboard.
Note: Not all keyboards respond to Local Off messages.

Thank you so much for your help. How do I revert back to the original condition if I want to use the piano without the daw in order to generate sound by itself? (If understand correctly your explanation)
Thanks

Hi this is an update. I looked at the roland manual and there is a system setting called local switch on/off which in off position prevents the keyboard sending data to the sound module. So I will try that it looks like it should work.
Thanks for you guidance

You found the manual way, that's good. Also, power off then on your keyboard will most likely set it to local on. Useful if you decide to let Sonar turn it off for you.

Good idea. I"ll try that
Thanks

pembon
Hi this is an update. I looked at the roland manual and there is a system setting called local switch on/off which in off position prevents the keyboard sending data to the sound module. So I will try that it looks like it should work.
Thanks for you guidance

YUP - local off will disconnect the keyboard from sending that additional sound, and most keyboards will automatically turn local back on if the keyboard is powered off and on again, OR just use the same function switch that was used to turn it off to turn it back on, without then needing to power keyboard off and on.
 
The Local Off/On thing has been around since the days of DOS.  It doesn't surface too often these days, because of the proliferation of folks using soft synths.  There ARE some truly exceptional piano sample libraries out there - some of which sample each note of the source piano for a full 30 seconds, at all kinds of different velocities - so that you even get to hear the naturally occurring harmonics.
 
Have FUN!
 
Bob Bone
 

I love the sound of my Kurzweil hardware synth piano and it is way better than most VST's as well.  Firstly I am referring to a Kurzweil hardware synth and Studio One but the principles are the same.
 
I actually do it the other way around.
 
Playing the piano the long way around viw your DAW by using Local/OFF gives you the poorest latency setting.  I prefer to leave Local/ON and allow the piano to be played from its own keyboard internally.  It gives the fastest response that way while you are playing stuff in and that for me is more important.  You should be able to send that data into the DAW and record the data onto the midi track at the same time.  The only thing here is you need to switch OFF any form of input monitoring on your midi track while recording.  Then the piano won't be triggered via midi at all.  You should only hear the piano sound engine being played via Local/ON.
 
Once recorded instant playback is possible as well.  Because then the midi track playing back will trigger the piano as you want to hear.  Playing along with that might be tricky as notes are being used up etc.
 
As long as any form of midi input monitoring is OFF then this process works rather well too.  And you get to leave Local/ON in your piano too which is actually handy and better.  You will never be caught out live wondering why your piano does not work!
 
It is important though if you are using external hardware synths then you get your midi timing DAW round trip latency as fast as possible too.  It should not be related to the audio buffer latency setting either.  Midi timing should be an independent parameter.  It certainly is for me in Studio One.  I have got a Steinberg Midex 8 interface running on its own USB port (and nothing else) from a PCI based USB card.  (Under Win 7) The midi timing in record and playback should not be effected by how hard the audio side of the DAW is working as well.  It can in some programs.  What you can do though is investigate the options you may have in regard to shifting midi timing overall in relation to audio timing.
 
Then there is the option of advancing midi tracks in time to compensate for slower responding synths or presets.  But this tends to work better for quantised material.