Solved: Midi clock is not consistent

what are your midi playback buffers set at..

btw...

I just tried this on the same machine withSonar Home Studio 7
and I dont getting the issue.
Thats set to 500mSecs.
I'll try that value and see how that goes

I'm not sure why this is and it really shouldn't matter but try starting your project on a different measure than 1.  when starting at 1 I have encountered such issues.  ever since starting my projects at 17 this has been remedied.  I really shouldn't have to do this but it works so I do.

Richard,

Did you check your MIDI cables? 
Did you confirm your MIDI Interface is working correctly?
Did you look for hidden MIDI messages, particularly aftertouch, that could be causing this problem?
Did you check your synth to make sure Local Control is off? (this will cause issues, such as doubled notes, best to have it off)

You can use (in track view) APPLY TRIMMING and BOUNCE TO CLIPS to delete any hidden MIDI messages
Try setting your MIDI playback buffers higher, 1000 or even up to 2000 (edit - preferences - MIDI - Playback & Recording - Playback)

I hope this works, but since I cannot be in front of your system its hard to troubleshoot...

Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com
www.jerrygerber.com/fivepiecesforvi1.htm

Are you using more than one soundcard? That will usually cause timing problems. 

RichardDuce


Thanks for the all the replies..

I'll try to answer them all

I am not using a sound card. I have a Yamaha S90 connected via USB midi 

You must use a soundcard to hear any audio. Poor soundcard drivers are the most common source of all problems reported here.
Your answer propably means you use the integrated chip of your computer.
 
I can't think of any reason why your X1 shouldn't run as smoothly as your Home Studio. They should work with the very same settings, AFAIK.

What is the Source set to in Preferences > Project > Clock?

If you don't know, it's probably the default, which would be Audio, meaning it's using the audio clock in your onboard soundcard or other interface, unless there is absolutely no active audio card in the PC, which would be unusual.

Assuming the clock source is set to Audio, the quality/configuration of your audio interface  and its drivers can have a bearing on the timing of MIDI driving external hardware. As mentioned earlier, you'll want to confirm that at least one input and one output are enabled in Preferences > Audio > Devices - even if you're not using them for direct audio recording and playback - and set those as the Record and Playback Timing Masters, respectively.

If I understand you correctly, you're just using Sonar to send the midi data to your synthesizer, and your synthesizer is either making the sound or you are routing it to another device / speakers other then your sonar computer? 

If that's the case it could be a few things. Is the synth set to slave to Sonar? If this is the case, it could be your poor sound card clock. I wouldn't think so, but maybe. 

Try setting the synth as master. But that means that you'll have to press play from the synth, since sonar is now it's slave.

Josh is a bit incorrect there. Sonar should always be the master. It should be running on its own clock and sending midi data out to your hardware.

 I definitely think that in general, Sonar should be your master. I meant for more of a test to just see if that fixed the sync issue. Throwing Ideas out. I don't really use midi to control other devices much. The closest I have is using spdif sync, in which I had to have Sonar be the slave for that particular situation to work, but that's a different beast.  

thanks to everyone for their inputs.
I checked and currently my midi clock was set to Audio (using the builtin sound card)  It was set to WDM driver, I changed to MME.
That now seems to work fine. (clk runs consistently. )
I also tried setting to Internal  and although I do  Apply  and Save  then close
when I bring the settings page back up its set to Audio again.

but thats OK, since it now seems to work fine with Audio setting.

As for brundlefly's question why I am using Sonar...
well, this is certainly not all I intend to use it for. Since it is a new version
of the program for me I wanted to try out some simple things first.
I noticed something strange when I had a larger midi track with its playback and then made the test case I mentioned.
In fact, later I will be recording audio  and running soft synths etc..
and also bought the Garritan Personal Orchestra special offer that
Cakewalk were selling at the same time as I bought Sonar X1 essential.

But the other reason is that I have always used Cakewalk products and try
to update when ever there is a major update.
I probably will not use all the features, but I rather have the most recent
version than an older one since if I ask questions about something a few years old I would not be surprised if I get the answer  well why are you using
Sonar HS 4.
In fact that program worked fine for me, also various before and I tried
HS 7 for a while. If they made a simpler version I would upgrade to that
but apparently HS has gone away and been replaced with Essential

so .. .thanks again everyone. I seem to be OK now