I've wondered about Sonar and DirectMusic drivers myself .... could never find any info on the Sonar site.

It may be possible to a) query Windows to get a list of the currently-available MIDI drivers and then b) see how that list compares with the list of drivers Sonar reports. If Sonar omits the DirectMusic ports - it should be pretty obvious. There's actually a standard Java library that should provide the necessary hooks (6 years ago I would have used C++, but these days I'm strictly a Java guy, so using Java is easier than installing the C++ toolset on my current machines...)

So, what have you done with MIDI programming and timers?

- Jim

Edit. Heh. I just looked in a box in my office - there's an old 8PortSE there (long story). Guess maybe it's time to drag it out and dust it off.....

I never got around to coding much of anything, but its in the back of my mind. Always a conflict of time between writing software and writing music. Music always wins.

I'd had some ideas floating around in my head for an ultimate sequencer/compositional/notational program, but the amount of work that would be required to do it would be astronomical...so basically....just haven't really gotten started.

One thing I want to do that won't take much time, but I promised to do it, just haven't gotten around to it...is to port the TSE3 library to windows, including both a MM timer and DirectMusic timer version. Check it out if you're curious:

http://tse3.sourceforge.net/

Right now I'm also trying to find out if there are any old DOS based sequencers or something like that I can run on an INTEL box and get closer to hardware quality midi timing. The Atari's were always rumored to be solid this way, but I don't know if there have been any tests. Atari's are hard to find. There is an Atari Emulator now, called STEEM, that runs on windows..and you can run all those old Atari midi programs now, apparantly a lot of them are being re-released because of STEEM. But I reckon the midi timing under STEEM would be the same or worse than windows. Supposedly it can also run on top of linux though, so I am curious about that.

Otherwise, last night I resarched a bit more. Found a few hardware sequencers that might occasionally come up on Ebay. They are all about $500 or so for the ones with 480ppq. The older ones that are 96ppq tend to go for $100-150. Some of the newer Roland Grooveboxes look interesting, for 500 bucks used you get sample handling and synth features, etc.....but mainly.....a hardware sequencer. THe Akai MPC-4000plus sounds to be the one to get, but they are in the $1500 range for a used one.

I'm also curious if anyone can compare their midi timing jitter experience on say Reason or Guru (on Windows) compared to Sonar's. Or maybe some other oddball windows sequencers like SweetSixteen(which started out on Atari actually).

I may be going insane.

In Sonar 7 in Options|Project, would someone try changing the clock to internal, hitting OK, then reopening that dialog to see if it took? I tried it 3 times and the first 2 times didn't stick, 3rd time did. Same with changing the timecode format.

ORIGINAL: dewdman42

Right now I'm also trying to find out if there are any old DOS based sequencers or something like that I can run on an INTEL box and get closer to hardware quality midi timing. The Atari's were always rumored to be solid this way, but I don't know if there have been any tests. Atari's are hard to find. There is an Atari Emulator now, called STEEM, that runs on windows..and you can run all those old Atari midi programs now, apparantly a lot of them are being re-released because of STEEM. But I reckon the midi timing under STEEM would be the same or worse than windows. Supposedly it can also run on top of linux though, so I am curious about that.

I find that interesting. I have a Motif XS, Yamaha Tyros and Korg PA80. All 3 all have on board sequencers. Many times I have started a song outline on those seqencers because it's so easy to do and transfered to Sonar via sneakernet as a smf. I have found that as hardware based seq/instruments they simply faithfully record and play back what was originally played. But the 1st major problem in staying with the keyboard seq'er then becomes editing klinkers and such which could not be made any more convoluted imo. Additionally I have midied up electronic drums to the Tyros sequencer and it worked great also - So I think you guys are really on the right track with your theory as far as it perhaps being a windows problem. Sonar is my only venture into a PC daw. As I mentioned previously, the old C64 didn't have these problems (that I ever noticed anyway) nor did the Roland MC500MII hardware sequencer. I missed out on the Atari my going straight to dedicated hardware.

Thinking maybe I was asking to much of my music computer, a couple years back I bought a Muse Receptor so I could offload some of my softsynths. Problem with that is Muse says it runs all VSTI's but it really doesn't because it runs on linux and Muse has to port over whatever instruments folks ask for. I've been waiting these last couple years on getting Realguitar to run on it buy afaik it's not done yet. Sheesh.

Pianodano...try setting the midi resolution in Sonar to 96ppq and see what kind of results you get. You might be surprised.

ORIGINAL: dewdman42

Pianodano...try setting the midi resolution in Sonar to 96ppq and see what kind of results you get. You might be surprised.

I will and see what happens. Sorry for my spelling in my last post.

ORIGINAL: dewdman42
Pianodano...try setting the midi resolution in Sonar to 96ppq and see what kind of results you get. You might be surprised.

After hours of testing and trying different sync methods with the Fantom, the largest wav offset between the originally recorded wav and a wav recorded into Sonar playing midi from the Fantom sequencer was 112 samples (2.53ms) with Sonar set to 480ppq. Repeating with Sonar set to 96ppq and that went down to about 20 samples (.452ms)!

I'm beat. Will try to do more testing tomorrow.. maybe I'll print the wav on the Fantom and see how that compares to the one recorded in Sonar..

So contrary to what seems logical, in fact it seems that lowering the clock resolution actually improves MIDI accuracy. Weird.

Also, although I haven't thoroughly read each reply, I will comment that whatever the issues with the OS and drivers, it appears that from a practical/pragmatic viewpoint, Ableton has both recognized the issue of MIDI jitter, and done something about it with the latest version of Live, unless it's just marketing hype.

I would love to see some MIDI sequences recorded in non-quantized mode to both Live 6 and Live 7 and compare the results, both with the ear, and looking at where the waves hit graphically.

ORIGINAL: Nick P
So contrary to what seems logical, in fact it seems that lowering the clock resolution actually improves MIDI accuracy. Weird.

Yes, but bear in mind that the test was with just 8th notes. Don't know what will happen with 64th notes yet, or adding pitch bend and modulation controller events. Also, I should note that all this was done using the Fantom's USB midi driver and I should probably retest using the emu 1820m midi ports.

ORIGINAL: Nick P

So contrary to what seems logical, in fact it seems that lowering the clock resolution actually improves MIDI accuracy. Weird.

Maybe I'm missing something here but that's exactly what I think should happen if you are aiming for say... the exact beat. But I don't think improved acurracy is the correct term if you're intentionally playing behind the beat and want exactly what was played captured.

It stands to reason, ALL midi is quantized to one tick or another. More ticks should equal capturing with higher accuracy the original performance. Whether the orginal performance was accurate or not is another matter entirely and, in my mind, a poorly timed performance is what quantization is used for, traditionally.

Danny

EDIT: Without opening up a giant can of worms (I hope), I have suspected for sometime now that this very issue is why many have requested INPUT quantization. Many users knew/know something is wrong but they just assume it is not the DAW. So in their minds they must not be a accuarate as they think they are and need some help. On and on it goes. I do know that if you set down at a Yamaha disklavier and enable record, you will be blown away by just how good midi can made to work.