Sonar 8 problem recording MIDI electronic drums - solved

A while back I was having issues recording e drums in Sonar 7. The drummer would have a good take, and playback would be way off timing. I wasn’t using input monitoring, so I had the latency settings set pretty high to avoid clicks and pops. I searched the forum and found out that some suggested lowering the audio latency setting, while recording. It didn’t make sense to me, but I tried it and it worked. I just installed Sonar 8 today. I now have this same problem in Sonar 8 no matter what my latency setting is. I can open the same project in Sonar 7 with the same settings and record OK. Anyone have any thoughts? I hope I don’t have to record all of my drums in Sonar 7 first.

The gear used for this is a Hart Pro edrum kit and a Roland TD-12. The MIDI signal is going into a RME HDSP 9652 sound card. The computer is a Studio Cat Intel Quad Core with 4 gigs of ram and 4 hard drives. The drums are mapped to BFD 2.

That is odd.
You would think it has to be some setting you made in Sonar 7
that you yet have to adjust in Sonar 8.

I have a "little" latency problem...but not bad.
Used EZdrummer on this one....give it time to download.

WARNING: A country song Dixie On My Mind

How you calling this thing "snap to grid"- it looks like cells- make sure it set to 16 notes or higher or is inactive for the track. If you have it active, I believe it doing something simmilar to quantization. Also- space out notes, ask the drummer to play simple, with good timing.

that is scary- I gotta try it- I use electronic drums all the time with live drummer. I don't think latency is midi-related- I thought it is for audio. Your drums send MIDI input or Audio? I record drums MIDI first, and keep it this way till I ready to run audio. In midi recording it takes good timing and spacing as computer interprets notes in strange way. But if yoi talking about audio- your letancy should be same on all Inputs.

Are you talking about timing while recording MIDI or during playback? Are you playing back via softsynths or through the external hardware MIDI device?
If its recording look at the MIDI recorded in the PRV or event list view and see if its visibly off from how its played. You could also connect another source to SONAR and record the MIDI for a simple click and check the timing.
Regarding MIDI playback if anything S8 is much tighter with hardware MIDI playback irrespective of the audio latency as compared to S7. This is an area that was addressed.

If the problem is exclusively on recording (i.e. the input data itself is incorrect) this sounds like somehow incoming MIDI events are not coming in perfectly in time from your driver. Which MIDI interface are you using to record the MIDI and are you certain that the MIDI being transmitted by the source MIDI device is actually perfectly in time? It can be tricky to troubleshoot timing issues like this so you should carefully eliminate all sources of the problem.

To confirm that its record related only, manually quantize the data in SONAR or create a steady repeating 16'th note pattern and verify that SONAR plays that back perfectly - this takes playback out of the equation.

Also try this. Set the variable IgnoreMidiInTimeStamps to 0 in TTSSEQ.INI and then retry recording again. It should be set under the Options section like below:

[Options]
IgnoreMidiInTimeStamps = 0

This will use the driver supplied timestamps instead of timestaming MIDI just in time.

Is the data you record just "shifted" by a set amount, or are the timing errors variable? If they are just shifted, try dragging the clip until it lines up properly, and seeing what the offset is. Not sure what to do next, but at least you'd know something quantifiable. If the data offset is variable, then there must be an issue somewhere in the chain leading up to Sonar, be it the drumpad's triggering mechanisms, the Roland brain's output or the RME MIDI input.... I have no issues using a Roland TD-6V and Sonar 8 (E-Mu 1820M for MIDI input)...good luck...

and does this issue only happen with midi drums- can you replicate it with another midi device?

You sure you're running the Roland TD-12 brain in "Local Control Off" mode?

Willy from Tech Support did some tests to determine if this was a general problem. We found no problems with MIDI timing on record. I'm posting his results here:

Basically we ran two different tests to try and reproduce this.

Test #1 – Record the MIDI out of a Roland TD drum module. In our test case I used a TD-6 kit.

1. Insert SD2 in project creating a MIDI track and First Synth Audio output
2. Set input of MIDI track to Edirol UA-1000 MIDI Omni
3. Enable audio metronome, set project tempo to 120
4. Arm MIDI track and hit record. Recorded about 32 measures
5. Playback project listening to tempo sync issues. None.
6. Insert TTS-1 and re-assigned MIDI track to TTS-1 Ch. 10
7. Playback project listening for tempo sync issues. None.
8. Repeat #1-7 with an SPS-66
9. Repeat Steps #1-8 at 160 BPM and 200 BPM

Test #2 – Record a MIDI Loop from another external device

The goal of this test was to validate the first test by ensuring that it wasn’t related to the TD-6 and that SONAR 8 isn’t having issues with MIDI timing during playback.

1. Set-up a second computer to play a 16 measure midi loop with sections of straight 16th and 32nd notes
2. Connect MIDI out of second computer to the MIDI in of first computer’s UA-1000.
3. Create both SD2 and TTS-1 tracks, record MIDI from Computer #2 for 64 measures
4. Stop transport and then playback MIDI, listening for timing dicrepancies.
5. Repeat steps #1-4 with SPS-66 on Computer #1
6. Repeats steps #1-5 at 160 and 200 BPM

In both tests SONAR 8 played back the recorded MIDI sequence without any timing discrepanices. Below are the specs of both computers used:

Computer #1 – The main computer

Windows XP SP3
Intel Xeon Dual Core x2 (Quad Core)
1.0 GB of RAM
Edirol UA-1000 (USB)
Cakewalk Power Studio 66 (FireWire)

Computer #2 – Used to send MIDI to Computer #1 in Test #2

Windows XP SP2
AMD 3200+
2.50 GB of RAM
Cakewalk Power Studio 66

Our drummer cancelled tonight, so I did some testing myself. Since I am not a drummer I recorded midi and audio with all of my tests so I could compare what was recorded (midi) with what I actually played, even though it was not very musical. I added the IgnoreMidiInTimeStamps = 0 line under [Options] in the Sonar 8 TTSSEQ.ini file. Same results - they didn't sync up. I switched to the Midisport 8X8 interface and still got the same results. I tried SD2 instead of BFD2, same thing, maybe worse. I played midi piano mapped to the TTS-1 (also compared to recorded audio file), same thing. All of this was in a project that was created in Sonar 6 (I believe), tracks added in Sonar 7 and now trying to rerecord drums in Sonar 8.

If I open up a new project in Sonar 8 and start a new recording, the audio and midi sync up, both piano and drum tests did OK. I can rerecord drums in the old project in Sonar 7 OK as long as the latency is set low. I tried deleting all of the old tracks in the project using Sonar 8 (not including the test tracks), and then rerecord the same tracks that I was just having problems with and the midi recording would sync up with audio. The problem seems to be with recording midi in Sonar 8 in a project with other tracks that was recorded in a previous version.

I guess another question would be if I will be able to record midi effectively in a Sonar 8 project that has a lot of tracks already added to it. I haven't tried that yet, and it will be quite a while before I get to that point.

Thanks for all of your comments. And thanks to Noel for the testing they did.

My drummer has shipped me two midi files recorded from a TD12 brain into Sonar 7 and I insert them in Sonar 8 and trigger BFD2 no problem.

Don't forget in BFD2, if you are having latency / crackling etc when tracking, try to reduce detail on kit pieces to medium or less and select 16 bit mode. When you mix down you can increase detail and select 24 bit mode again.

Something I have found in both S7 and S8 is that Perfect Space (all my projects have Perfect Space on send bus) will cause really bad midi --> soft synth triggering latency. When I input monitor a midi keyboard playing along in real time, the latency is horrible, no matter what the audio latency settings are. So If I need reverb when tracking I replace Perfect Space with a Sonitus reverb and then add perfect space back in for mix down.

Just a thought.

Quick question, your recording MIDI drums at a high latency setting to ensure that they are recorded properly.

You have input monitoring off, ie I am guessing that you are recording an audio input frmo the Drum Brain to act as a monitor, then either discarding this track (or you may not have even recorded it)

This suggest that you are using ASIO drivers as they will allow you to do Direct Monitoring while at high latencies.

So firstly can you record the audio input from the midi drums alongside the midi track Ie set it up so you have an audio track recording the drum output simultaneously with the midi.

Then enable audio snap on the audio and add audio transient to pool, you will then be able to compare the audio (heard Drums) to the midi and see if there is an offset like Jinga mentioned.

I think that this is an issue with the ASIO driver offset not pertaining to the midi. Ie if you record with direct monitoring on audio, the ASIO driver will playback audio in realtime and then offset the recorded audio for you so it automatically matches the source material. It may not be offsetting the midi (I am not even sure whether ASIO drivers will offset MIDI, and if it does, I guess you will need to use the MIDI input on your soundcard rather than an independant MIDI interface, otherwize how will it receive the offset info). So you will have heard a perfect take, but the MIDI playback is out.

This can be combated by shifting the entire midi track back so that it matchs the recorded audio track, you could further fine tune by snapping to the transient in pool from the recorded output of the drum brain, once your happy with the Midi playback you can then discard this 'monitoring' track.

The other thing to check is that you do not have input quantise accidently enabled on your midi track as it will attempt to quantise each midi note as its inputed, this also could cause the issues your experiencing.

I would definately record the audio output of the drum brain simulataneously next session (with input monitoring turned off) it will really help you trouble shoot.

Ooh final question are you monitorign by routing the drum brain into your Soundcard at all, or are you using the headphone socket on the drum brain (and routing an output from Sonar into the drum brains line in), I did this once, and it can also cause problems because again you would be able to record along perfectly, but the MIDI sent would be offset due to the high latency you were recording at. IN this situation the ASIO drivers can do nothing to offset, becuase they are actually excluded from the picture.

If you are expereiencing MIDI offset, there is a offset option somewhere in Sonar where you can manually enter offset value, this is for soundcards where the ASIO drivers are sending an inaccurate offset value, you might be able to play with this so thta you don't have to manually shift the midi track, just remember to turn it back when recording other sources.

Hope this helps focus you as to your issue, let us know how you got on.

Regards
Gordon

Regards

Regards

j boy

Read the original post, he states he has the latency settings high to avoid clicks and pops.

I am responding to that.

Cheers