jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Now Midi won't play back anymore
On another thread I recently outlined a problem with huge memory issues, which are apparently (though not definitively) caused by an errant plug-in, which has since been (I think, mostly) removed. Now, however, I can't play anything via straight Midi. I have a Roland rack mount synth that I've been using for over ten years. It accepts straighforward Midi through a Midisport 2x2 box connected by USB. All of a sudden now, I hear nothing. My EastWest soft synths play fine, and TTS plays fine. Just this physical external synth. Sonar recognizes notes are being played on my piano, and I can even record them, but there's no sound. When playing notes, I can see the Midi box light up, but the Roland synth does not light up, which normally it does when a note is pressed or released. I have rebooted the synth itself, still no change. This is true for a brand new empty Sonar project, after several reboots. It seems unlikely to be a hardware issue, because I haven't touched either the synth or the Midi box, and they've both been working for years without my touching them, AND just the last few days I've been messing with plug-in manager and such to try and get to the bottom of my memory leak and plug-in issues. I can't think how a plug-in would affect my vanilla physical Midi output, but I don't really understand all this stuff well, so perhaps messing with all that wrecked something, and I need to reset something or re-scan something or something else easy and simple like that? Please? Here is a video demonstrating it. There's no sound, but trust me.... there's no sound http://imgur.com/a/2C1Sv
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|
Anderton
Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
- Total Posts : 14070
- Joined: 2003/11/06 14:02:03
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 15:35:49
(permalink)
In the immortal words of Herman Cain, "I don't have facts to back this up" but...I see quite a few issues with the MIDIsport crop up in this and other forums. From what I understand there are drivers, but it's also class-compliant. There may be some issues with Windows updates. I suggest uninstalling the drivers, and plug directly into the computer (using a different USB cable "just in case"). It may work right out of the box. If not, check Device Manager and if the driver shows a warning, uninstall it and re-install the M-Audio drivers. It seems SONAR is doing what it's supposed to do and so is the Roland, so I'd look in what connects the two - the operating system, USB, the cable, and the interface drivers.
|
jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 16:03:07
(permalink)
Thanks, I'll look into that today.
Possibly related, is that I have this big project with 20+ EWQL instruments, about 17 minutes long. Since I've been having this problem, and the memory thing from the other thread, this project seems unstable. Sometimes the audio freaks out or Sonar crashes altogether. Through all this memory trouble I fear the project has become corrupt, and I'm wondering if I might want to start fresh with a new project, copying all the tracks over painstakingly.
Is there any best practice step by step documentation anywhere on how I should go about this? I have all these tracks in folders, the instruments, the note events themselves, some buses, a few effects, tempo changes, dozens of markers, track colors, whatever else. The idea of copying this into a clean project piece by piece sounds daunting and dangerous. I'm thinking someone may have written up a paper on how best to go about it.
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|
Anderton
Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
- Total Posts : 14070
- Joined: 2003/11/06 14:02:03
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 16:07:49
(permalink)
Do a "Save as copy" and see if that helps. Next, save as a bundle and then unpack into a new project.
However, I think a very likely problem is that 8 GB of memory is simply not enough these days, especially for big projects.
|
abacab
Max Output Level: -30.5 dBFS
- Total Posts : 4464
- Joined: 2014/12/31 19:34:07
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 16:53:26
(permalink)
I would test the external MIDI with a fresh blank test project with one MIDI track. See if the Roland responds to that.
[Edit] Just watched the video you posted. It appears that you already did this. Look in your MIDI device settings and make sure that your MIDI outputs are still pointing to the physical ports with the MIDI cables.
Then if that still fails, I would proceed with Craig's troubleshooting suggestion in his first reply.
I have a MIDISport and Roland gear, but I haven't connected it since Windows XP, so I'm no help there with Windows 10. But maybe I will learn something here if I ever decide to plug in my Roland.
DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ...
|
jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 18:53:27
(permalink)
Thank you! I will try that.
In the meantime, I've been thinking that I barely use that Roland synth much anymore. I asked myself what I really need from it, and I use its basses a lot, though TTS and SI are as good to my ears. I use various real-world instruments not found in EWQL, such as accordion and harmonica, though again, TTS covers that base as well. Then I have a World Instruments add-on card that I'd be sad to see go, but I rarely use it either. So I'm thinking after all these years it's time to bid farewell and go 100% soft synths finally.
But not before I try the things mentioned above. :-)
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|
abacab
Max Output Level: -30.5 dBFS
- Total Posts : 4464
- Joined: 2014/12/31 19:34:07
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 19:25:13
(permalink)
I have found that the AIR Xpand!2 VST instrument has many good real instrument sounds. There are 2500+ presets included in the library, which is fairly light at 1.5GB. It loads up quick, is 4-part multitimbral, so good for quick combinations or layers. The best thing is it occasionally goes on sale for $1. Not to be passed up at that price. It makes for a decent soft rompler. http://www.airmusictech.c./product/xpand2#features
DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ...
|
auto_da_fe
Max Output Level: -56.5 dBFS
- Total Posts : 1866
- Joined: 2004/08/04 21:32:18
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/07/30 20:38:23
(permalink)
I just had a similar problem.
Came out of nowhere.
I noticed that on the midi send led in the system tray the red light was on solid. Midi receive would wink whenever I hit a key on my Komplete Kontrol S49. But no sound. (virtual key board worked fine)
I ended up deleting the ACT controller settings and then re-adding and then midi went back to the way it should. The fact that the midi send was pinned from the ACT controller settings tells me it was something in Sonar got hosed up.
HP DV6T - 2670QM, 8 GB RAM, Sonar Platypus, Octa Capture, BFD2 & Jamstix3, Komplete 10 and Komplete Kontrol Win 10 64 SLS PS8R Monitors and KRK Ergo https://soundcloud.com/airportface
|
jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/08/01 03:40:52
(permalink)
Update, new information:
Following Craig's suggestion, I tried Save As Copy... no difference. However, I found I could repro the crash reliably by adding a new TTS synth and assigning an instrument to Channel 1. Sonar reports a failure and I need to shut it down. At this point, the "Systen and compressed memory" process in Task Manager is up around 3 Gb, something I thought was due to this plug-in I'd added.
Then I tried saving as a bundle and unpacking the bundle to a new project, and now things seem a lot more stable. The Task Manager shows Sonar as the biggest consumer of memory, and the System process doesn't spike when I add the TTS instrument, hovering down around 200 Mb. I'll report back if this seeming stability is a mirage or if it holds.
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|
Base 57
Max Output Level: -86 dBFS
- Total Posts : 249
- Joined: 2014/12/26 16:30:14
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/08/01 04:21:28
(permalink)
I have a midisport 4x4 that screwed up with a recent win 10 update. I renamed the TTSSeq file and let SPlat build a new one when it restarted. It's kind of a pain to redo all the friendly names but It fixed the problem. I did the Aud.ini While I was at it. YMMV.
|
jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/08/01 14:53:50
(permalink)
It was a mirage. Here is the now consistently repeatable behavior: - I open my project from a clean instance of Sonar on a clean rebooted system
- Project is large,coontaining about 25 EWQL instruments. When fully loaded, which takes 5-6 minutes, Task Manager shows it consuming about 2.5 Gb of memory. A process called "System and compressed memory", which points to a file called ntoskrnl.exe, and will come into play later in these steps, hovers around 100 Mb RAM.
- I start working in the project.
- After sometimes just a minute, sometimes longer, Cakewalk Fault Reporter opens and asks if I want to send a report, then Sonar closes. There seems to be no consistency around what I'm doing at the time the Fault Reporter opens. NOTE: Sometimes Sonar just crashes without the Fault Reporter.
- At this point, BEFORE closing Sonar, I check Task Manager, and "System and compressed memory" is now at about 2-3 Gb RAM. Research has told me this is evidence of a memory leak.
- I close Sonar, and the System and Compressed memory drops back down to 2-300 Mb RAM consumed, pointing to something in my project being the memory culprit here.
Steps tried: - Windows Update
- Scan for malware
- Tried to repro with other projects, could not repro
- Removed recently purchased plug-in because it seemed to coincide with the onset of these problems, though I'm not sure of that, and the problems remain after having uninstalled it
- Saved project as a bundle and unpacked it as a new project. This seemed to make the problem take longer to occur, but otherwise no change in behavior. Also, in case this matters, the unpacked .cwp file is slightly LARGER than the original. (6.4 Gb vs 6.1 Gb)
- Re-opening the project without a reboot at this point causes a message to appear when loading the project, that the system is low on memory. I choose Ignore, because Task Manager tells me I still have plenty unused at that point.
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|
jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/08/01 15:41:23
(permalink)
UPDATE:: Removed all references to Midisporrt 2x2, seems more stable now, though System and compressed memory is up at 2 Gb again, so I feel a crash is just around the corner...
Closed project, left Sonar open thouggh, and System and compressed memory immediately went down to around 100 Mb again.
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|
scook
Forum Host
- Total Posts : 24146
- Joined: 2005/07/27 13:43:57
- Location: TX
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/08/01 15:54:12
(permalink)
A 6 GB project file, how does that compare to your other projects? That seems unusually large for a cwp file.
|
jkoseattle
Max Output Level: -79 dBFS
- Total Posts : 556
- Joined: 2004/10/21 16:29:48
- Status: offline
Re: Now Midi won't play back anymore
2017/08/01 17:13:36
(permalink)
Oops! I meant 6 Mb, not Gb! And that does track with the sizes of other projects.
More update: The crashing of Sonar coincides with this System and Compressed memory process in Task Manager. Whenever I get a crash, that process is up around 2 Gb RAM. Close Sonar (and even re-open the project afresh) and it's down to about 200 Mb. So I decided to open the project and start playing around with it while watching to see what I do to make it jump up and therefore facilitate a crash. What I discovered was that the System and compressed memory goes up when Sonar isn't even the active application on the computer! I did some playback, moved the now time around and the SACM (System and compressed memory) didn't budge much at all. Then I went on to do other things, (Chrome, Outlook, Evernote) and saw the SACM start to creep up, to about 275 Mb. I left the room, ate some bacon and fed the dog, and came back, and SACM was well over 1 Gb. In the time it's taken me to type this post, it has gone from 1.8 Gb to 2.4 Gb. I just now closed the project, did NOT exit out of Sonar, and now it sits back at 150 Mb. (Chrome, Outlook and Evernote are still open, btw. Sonar is definitely what's causing this memory leak)
Something in this project is causing the SACM process to consume oodles of RAM even when the computer is idle. In past years, with X3e, I knew that if I left a project open and came back to it the next day, it would often immediately crash on me, but this was before I knew about System and compressed memory in Task Manager, and it has seemed better for a while with SPro.
Any ideas why this is happening?
Sonar Version: Platinum Audio Interface: M-Audio Delta Computer: Dell i5 3.1 GHz, 12Gb RAM, Windows 10 64-bit Soft Synths: EastWest PLAY Symphonic Orchestra MIDI Controllers: M-Audio 2x2 MidiSport Anniv Edition Settings: 16-Bit, Sample Rate 44.1k, ASIO Buffer Size 128-1024, Record/Playback I/O Buffers play:256k, rec: 64k, Total Round Trip Latency 48 ms Check out my work here
|