ORIGINAL: dewdman42

Some insightful posts from everyone. Jim, those openmuse links seem to not work?

Hmm.. Some turkey (me) allowed trailing periods to mess up the link. Sorry about that

- Jim

ORIGINAL: daveny5
MIDI timing is only a problem if you have an underpowered computer. If that blue thing in your avatar is your computer, there's your problem.

Umm...
I'm trying to tell if this is a serious statement, or a little sarcasm.

No matter. If that's your experience, cool.

I haven't had that though. For me, MIDI timing has been a layered issue: Interface/System clocks, DAW software, etc.

My interfaces + Cubase SL2 = Horrible MIDI accuracy... early/late... lots of workarounds, and none that worked
My interfaces + Sonar 5 & 6 = Pretty good... works as expected for the most part... no workarounds needed, but SOME editing
My interfaces + Logic 5 & 6 = Excellent (see notes below about newer Logic versions)... no workarounds needed

ORIGINAL: jb
I probably shouldn't say this here but, if you want tight midi, logic on a mac just kills.

Certainly nothing wrong with saying it, just remember that it's not going to be true for everybody, and everybody's workflow.

Logic Pro 7 (unsure about 8 yet, I've yet to test it holistically) had multiple midi timing problems, particularly with external gear, and clock drift, etc. Fairly well-documented, and as old as LP7.
Depending on your workflow, it's a MAJOR problem.
If your workflow is simply playing into a controller keyboard and recording that into Logic, then you're good. But, to say that it just kills as a general statement for everybody isn't correct, in my opinion (respectfully). Controllers... good; External Sequencers... bad. NOT, obviously, true for everyone.

Sad, too... Logic Pro 6.4 and 5 were SO tight (for me) when controlling external sequencers. It was extremely easy to fire up old hardware sequencer projects, all input to Logic Pro's sequencer, and record the entire thing in one go, with very little tweaking to do afterward. If you have 5 external sequencers with lots of old projects, this is SO much faster than exporting everything to SMF and importing.
Not MIDI "jitter" per say, but with LP7 if you try this, you'll end up with midi all over the place as the song progresses. VERY frustrating.

Not dissing Logic... I like it. But it's still just software, and has its share of bugs.

These types of discussions always lead to "works for me," and "doesn't work for me" statements (by me included). Unfortunately, there are several variables.

Take care,
- zevo

ORIGINAL: brundlefly

Personally, I would love to have systems that keep MIDI jitter to very low levels. Hopefully, some future standard will make it possible.

Hey Jim, I'm curious, with your experience on this, what would you personally propose is an acceptably low level of jitter. From everything I've read, jitter of no more than 1ms would be good enough for anyone if that were the outside limit, and MIDI-Audio synch were maintained at the same level of precision. It's been suggested here, however, that even 1ms is not good enough for top players. What do you think?

Rules of thumb: 10 msec max latency (delay from key-press to hearing the sound, if you're playing live).
1 msec max peak jitter (e.g. delta between expected note onset and actual note onset)
Smart folks at CNMAT advocate the same limits...

Personally, I'd rather shoot for a ceiling of 1/3 msec (330 microseconds) peak absolute jitter (say, +/- 160 microseconds jitter). For reference, that's about the transit time for a single byte of MIDI data over a MIDI-DIN cable.

The 1/3 millisecond limit - is about what MOTU claims for their MIDI Time Stamping interfaces, but I haven't tested it. If MOTU supports the Windows 'DirectMusic Core' API -- and Sonar uses it -- then you could probably get about that level of jitter. Those are big IFs, by the way -- they weren't true a couple of years back (don't know if they are now). Also FYI -- MOTU interfaces that I've tested in the past (MIDI Timepiece 2, with direct serial connection, not USB) -- had excellent jitter, but rather large latency (10+ milliseconds). Since other parts of the 'MIDI event chain' also contribute latency (MIDI keyboard, MIDI cable, Sequencer host...) -- the 10+ msec latency contribution of the Timepiece tended to produce a total system latency of 15-20 msec -- which is only borderline-tolerable. Hopefully MOTU has improved that, now that softsynths are so popular...

Personally, I consider myself to be having a very good day if I can consistently play within 5-6ms (8-10 ticks at 960PPQ) of where I want to be. Most of the jitter I experience is due to coffee.

That may be true if you're playing a single note at a time, listening to a click. However -- if you're playing a multiple-note gesture, you can do way better than that. Multi-note gesture? Drum flam, arpeggiated guitar or piano chord, grace note, etc. When you do that - you are producing a cluster of notes, not a single note. The onset of the first note in the cluster might vary by 5-6 msec (though you can probably do better than that) -- but the relative onsets of the other notes in the cluster (inter-onset intervals, to be technical) can be controlled down to 1 msec or better. Studies have shown that musicians can hold their hands 'just so' and let it drop against a keyboard, or drum, or brush across a set of guitar strings -- and have precise, repeatable control over the timing relationships between notes in a cluster.

What does this have to do with 1-2 msec jitter, if you can't control the absolute location of the note cluster any more closely than 5-6 msec? Small amounts of jitter can 'distort' the intra-cluster timing relationships -- and change how the cluster "sounds". It can wreck the sense of being "in the pocket". Since these are human-controllable timing relationships (yes, you can learn to 'ripple a chord' with that degree of control) -- I've long argued that MIDI sequencers should be able to faithfully reproduce those nuances. But, that's another story....

Here's a quote from the paper I mentioned. Sorry about the stuffy/academic/ubergeek tone - that's what happens with research papers:

Source: http://openmuse.org/transport/fidelity.html

A number of perceptual studies have shown that for streams of individual audio events, timing jitter on the close order of one millisecond can be audible, particularly in the context of rhythmically complex and syncopated ensemble music. [Iyer, Bilmes et al, Lunney, Michon, Schloss, Van Noorden]

[Moore] argues convincingly that time intervals on the close order of 1.5 milliseconds are both audibly significant and controllable by human performers in common musical situations. Consider a sequence of sounds, each consisting of a pair of clicks separated by a short delay (1,2,3,4… msec). Each successive sound has a distinctly different and predictable pitch. The ability to identify musical timbres is strongly linked with their attack transients. If a paired click, as discussed above, were used as the attack transient for sound with much longer duration, the delay between the two clicks would play an important role in determining the timbral identity of the sound.

This phenomenon is particularly significant when grace notes, flams and other musical decorations are played. For example, a pianist plays grace notes by extending one finger slightly before another, and moving the wrist as the hand descends so that the first finger strikes the keyboard slightly sooner. A skilled pianist can reliably control his or her hand geometry so that one finger is about 1 millimeter lower than the other. This corresponds to a time interval on the close order of 1.5 milliseconds under typical playing conditions. While the absolute time position of a particular gesture may vary 10-20 milliseconds (or more) from one performance to another, the relative interval between the grace note and the associated note is far smaller, and quite repeatable. As explained in the preceding paragraph, even small variations in such inter-note delays are quite audible under these circumstances.

In order to preserve the rhythmic integrity of grace notes and other musical decorations, timing accuracy of 1 millisecond or less is needed. Jitter above this threshold can audibly degrade the reproduction of a musical performance.

- Jim

If your workflow is simply playing into a controller keyboard and recording that into Logic, then you're good. But, to say that it just kills as a general statement for everybody isn't correct, in my opinion (respectfully). Controllers... good; External Sequencers... bad. NOT, obviously, true for everyone.

That's pretty much all I'm doing. I'm certainly not trying to sync up a raft of outboard midi gear, etc. You're absolutly right, as a general statement for everybody it's obviously false but then I didn't intend it that way ): That said, I do find it easier and tighter to record midi in Logic or Reason on a mac than in windows apps, not that I have any particular problem with Sonar itself.
Now here's an interesting and inflamatory take on midi "jitter."

ORIGINAL: jsaras

When I open up the editor it seems that I'm always playing ahead of the beat. I can't believe that my playing would the problem here...?

Actually, I wasn't aware of this...its good to know. I always thought it was me. I've even experimented with a laid back playing style to work on my 'timing issues". I don't sweat anything at 1ms, but above 2ms is definitely noticeable.

Jim, really good comments. Thanks for sharing...

Is there ANY midi sequencer that can truly get sub-millisecond timing correctly during record?

This is getting stuck in my craw now that I want to do my own test...but since I don't currently own any hardware sequencers...no way to do it that I can think of. Don't know how i could measure latency from the time I hit the midi key to when I hear the note..though that is something I really wanna know.

ORIGINAL: dewdman42
Is there ANY midi sequencer that can truly get sub-millisecond timing correctly during record?

I don't know -- I haven't done any serious testing since about 2000, and that's a looong time in sequencer-land.

It would be interesting to test the hardware sequencer built into the Korg M3 (480 ppqn resolution), but I don't think Korg will loan me one just for that.... The Akai MPC boxes have a sterling rep (I've never tested them). FWIW, I once helped develop a hardware sequencer that had sub-millisecond accuracy, by our in-house tests (Korg Q1; never shipped... a very long story, very long ago). If we could do it, I'm sure someone else could.

Ask Martin Walker (SOS) He's likely to know if anyone does....

- Jim

Yea, or I guess just hope that hardware midi timestamps actually do what they are supposed to at record time....and hope it works in Sonar. A lot of unknowns there.

Thanks gentlemen.

Before the "how dare you dis Sonar" crowd jumps in, I am really glad that this is being discussed. Without getting to much into the whys and wherefores of my distaste for this issue and the audio only diehards unequivocal support, no matter what, I had just about given up on it ever being discussed seriously here. But lot's of folks have been aware of it for a long time. I know that some pretty good players have had issues with this. In my mind, it is truly weird how the old 1984 Commodore 64 running 1st generation software did much better and certainly the old Roland MC500 introduced in 1987 was just rock solid at far less resolution.

I nearly always sequence while rolling tape at the same time. Fine drummers on a high end Roland electronic set, piano players on the Yamaha midi grand, keyboardists on the Motif also (notice all external so far) and the sequenced results are often disappointing. The feel is different. Behind, ahead and everywhere in between. Enough to drive this dico era musician that played with horns for so long totally off his rocker.

For soft synths Realguitar, EWQLSO, Colossus, and others available here. I have taken Realguitar tracks, tweaked them to where they sound so realistic I could have sworn I was in Nashville, frozen the track and couldn't believe it was the same track playing (as in wth?). I think the bakers have been too busy too long with all the audio upgrade versions to really fix this. I know it has been going on at least since Pro3. I suppose if the masses are happy, Cakewalk must have done figured right. The problem is still there though.

ORIGINAL: pianodano
For soft synths Realguitar, EWQLSO, Colossus, and others available here. I have taken Realguitar tracks, tweaked them to where they sound so realistic I could have sworn I was in Nashville, frozen the track and couldn't believe it was the same track playing (as in wth?).

Yikes, not good. That infers that Sonar is not handling midi to soft synths without jitter of some kind. Perhaps bugs in delay compensation? Not sure if the problem is happening while you're playing back the unfrozen midi tracks or if the problem happens when you free them. I would think that freezing should render perfect results..but if you can't hear it correctly while editing in the PRV..what difference does it make. They both need to be spot on and there is really no excuse for it not being so.