Sorry I haven't read the entire thread - what 100 samples off are you referring to?

ORIGINAL: Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
You can't get MIDI jitter purely within SONAR while bouncing or freezing. (irrespective of whether its a fast or slow bounce)
MIDI events stored in a SONAR project are timestamped. When you bounce to a softsynth, the MIDI events are fed to the synth with the timestamps implicitly locked to the audio buffers. There is no chance of jitter occuring in this scenario since the synth knows exactly when to render the audio for the MIDI based on the current sample position and the timestamp on the MIDI event. Jitter doesn't apply at all here.

Noel, thanks for chiming in. That is what I would have expected also and counted on. So far I have not experienced anything to challenge that, but some other people on this thread seem to have. Still trying to get to the bottom of it.

Noel,

And also, let me ask you, you mention that fast or slow bounce should have no jitter... is the same true for when I hit play on the transport to listen to my midi tracks as they play through the soft synth plugins? Is the same audio timestamp used by plugins during that as when freezing or bouncing?

ORIGINAL: Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

Sorry I haven't read the entire thread - what 100 samples off are you referring to?

Its long, complicated, but interesting thread with many tangents that are interesting nonetheless. That is why you thought I was "confused" but its ok I forgive you.

I encourage you to check it out(the whole thread). I think in the end Sonar is going to reign supreme as king of pc midi tightness but we're just proving it out right now.

Another question I have is about how Sonar can handle hardware midi timestamping from interfaces such as the MOTU stuff.

It should be identical yes. Exactly the same timestamps are used at bounce time as are used at playback time.
During a (fast) bounce all thats different is that the audio is being pumped fast (not locked to the drivers sample clock) but the relative timestamps for events should be identical.

Excellent. What I would have expected. The people that are reporting otherwise we need to understand why they are experiencing otherwise and try to get to the bottom of what it is they are experiencing.. From my end, my playback seems rock solid also.

The only thing that is kind of not great is the playing of a midi controller in while trying to record a midi track, which seems to have a lot of wishy washy timing in milliseconds due to many factors that are out of Cakewalk's control I realize, but still frustrating. That is how I see it.

You are confusing when jitter can take place. You can't get MIDI jitter purely within SONAR while bouncing or freezing. (irrespective of whether its a fast or slow bounce)
MIDI events stored in a SONAR project are timestamped. When you bounce to a softsynth, the MIDI events are fed to the synth with the timestamps implicitly locked to the audio buffers. There is no chance of jitter occuring in this scenario since the synth knows exactly when to render the audio for the MIDI based on the current sample position and the timestamp on the MIDI event. Jitter doesn't apply at all here.

Hi Noel,

Good to hear form you. I was wondering when someone from Cakewalk might jump in on this. We could use some info directly from the source.

What you're saying is kind of what we all thought/expected. But this is not what I'm seeing in my testing. Ignoring for the moment whether a given transient starts right on the beat or not, if what you say is true, the beginnings of transients should be at even intervals (i.e. all early or late by the same amount. But I am seeing differences on the order of 100 samples from the expected interval between consecutive events when rendering through the TTS-1. I just did a test with the Dreamstation DXi, and got smaller errors, on the order of 30 samples. So it seems to be Synth-specific. I have not yet tried a VST instrument.

I realize these are tiny errors, and not significant to many of us, but this thread started out being concerned with 1-tick of MIDI jitter, so in that respect, this level of error in rendering MIDI through a soft synth is relevant.

Please go back a few posts and find the description of my test method for clarification.

Any light you can shed on this will be a welcome addition to the thread.

Regards,
Dave

OK I'll need several pots of coffee or something stronger<g>
SONAR always respects the MIDI timestamps from incoming MIDI unless the IgnoreMidiInTimeStamps flag is set.

ORIGINAL: dewdman42
Its long, complicated, but interesting thread with many tangents that are interesting nonetheless. That is why you thought I was "confused" but its ok I forgive you.

I encourage you to check it out(the whole thread). I think in the end Sonar is going to reign supreme as king of pc midi tightness but we're just proving it out right now.

Another question I have is about how Sonar can handle hardware midi timestamping from interfaces such as the MOTU stuff.

ORIGINAL: Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

OK I'll need several pots of coffee or something stronger<g>
SONAR always respects the MIDI timestamps from incoming MIDI unless the IgnoreMidiInTimeStamps flag is set.

Right. But one thing I never understood is how the MOTU is able to get a timebase established in order to create timestamps in the hardware. How does it synchronize with Sonar?

It could very well be a bug in the synth. I'll try and investigate your post when I get some time. You should definitely try a VSTi as well since the mechanics are different.