[2.1.33] Loss of notes from the Midi input port on the start of a Part

Hi team,

last weekend, after installing version 2.1.33, I reused a project for a band in which the drummer uses a Roland E-Drums as a controller and that via USB drives a Layer based on a shared instance of Battery.

The PC used to run VST Live 2 on OS Windows is essentially a Mac Mini based on Intel Core i5 and with 32 GB of RAM.

The Songs are composed of multiple Parts and what we unfortunately noticed is that the midi notes played through the E-Drums coinciding with the start of a Part of the Song were occasionally lost, but quite frequently. :confused:

I 'm certain of the connection of the problem with the start of the Part because the same Song, if deprived of the definition of the Parts, no longer presents the problem in a fairly evident way.

I specify that the same project and the same hardware were used a couple of months ago without any problem related to lost midi notes.

Also using the same project, but with a different PC and a different controller, although more rarely the issue still occurred.

Any idea what is happening? :thinking:

This is related maybe

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Yes, maybe related. Check if the event (clip on the timeline) is ending shortly before the cycle end, maybe try to snap it to cycle end, and see if the problem goes away.
If not, we would like to get your project, best through “Save Archive”; you may remove everything not needed if it’s too much (or just extract the MIDI track and save a new version).

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Hi @musicullum,

I couldn’t understand if the fix released with the Pre-Release 2.1.35 is also useful in your opinion to solve the issue I reported, that is the loss of MIDI notes at the beginning of a Part.

Could you kindly update me on the state of things and at least tell me if you’re able to reproduce the issue?

I leave you to imagine that this kind of issue is frustrating during rehearsals with the band and unthinkable to use the software in a live context. :frowning:

Thank you in advance! :blush:

Did you

So…is your issue related to cycle or loops?

If not, would you mind to send a (reduced) project that shows the issue so we can reproduce it? We have many test projects with notes at the beginning of a MIDI clip and no such issues.

It may well come down to specifics, like tempo, did you start at 1.1.0 etc, so any hint will help.

Hi @musicullum,

first of all thanks for the feedback and, as I was trying to explain in my initial post, the occasional loss of notes that I noticed does not seem to be related to the use of cycle or loops, but to the loading of a Part of the Song, in the case of notes coming from an input port to a shared Layer.

Anyway, I tried to reproduce the issue in the rehearsal room (unfortunately the band’s drummer was not present), after installing the Pre-Release 2.1.35, but without being able to obtain the loss of MIDI notes.

I’m actually the first to be perplexed as to how I’m apparently the only one to have reported this particular problem.

In the next few days I will try again, this time together with the drummer and I will let you know if the issue is actually resolved.

Thanks again.

Thanks a lot!

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Hi @musicullum,

as anticipated in the last few days, I had the opportunity to try again with the drummer who uses the E-Drums and, unfortunately, I have to inform you that the issue has appeared again.

The thing I noticed is that the issue, which I confirm appears exclusively and exactly at the start of a Part (but not systematically), seems to affect Songs that have the issue reported in this further post of mine:

[2.1.35] Issues with the Part trigger saved in a Song - VST Live - Steinberg Forums

I’m not absolutely sure, as said there is a random component in the issue, but the relationship with the issue reported in the link just reported seems to be there.

Furthermore, even if I have not had the opportunity to do a test with the drummer to support this hypothesis, could in your opinion the Sustain Seconds of the Layers section of the Preferences set to zero negatively influence the behavior of the software causing the issue that is the subject of this post?

As always, thanks for the support. :blush:

pls try again with todays’ new version. Feel free to bring it up again if it still exposes the issue, thanks.

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Hi @musicullum,

these days I have tried in every way to reproduce the anomaly, described in this post and that often occurs in the rehearsal room, in a “systematic” way also on my home computer.

I also waited for the new version 2.2.0 and I finally managed to systematically replicate the scenario and the issue.

In practice I used an instance of Cubase as a source of the MIDI messaging normally produced in the rehearsal room by E-Drums and, using a second audio card, made sure that this MIDI flow reached VST Live 2 through a USB port simulating what happens in the rehearsal room.

Using the structure of the Song for which I noticed that the issue occurs most frequently and “playing” with the position of the notes that occurred near the beginning of the Parts that make up the Song, after having synchronized Cubase and VST Live 2 (the latter as a master), I recorded both the MIDI notes coming from the external DAW source and the audio produced by the VST layer (a drum kick produced by a HAlion Sonic, but with my Battery the result is identical) in response to this MIDI flow.

MidiNoteLostOnPartStart.zip (159.7 KB)

As you can see from the tracks contained in the project created for this test, the MIDI track actually contains all the notes received from the input port, while the audio track lacks the notes at the beginning of Part 2, Part 4 and Part 7, while, paying attention to listening to the audio track, you can also notice how the note that occurs at the beginning of the other parts is still played in a “strange” way compared to all the other notes that occur within the Part.

I would also like to point out that the structure of the Song I used for the demo project is the same as reported in the post

[2.1.35] Issues with the Part trigger saved in a Song - VST Live - Steinberg Forums

post in which I reported another anomalous behavior of VL 2, however, linked to the definition of the Parts.

The conclusion I draw from this (but it is only a “feeling” from what I saw and heard during the tests) is that there is a “dark” temporal area near the beginning of a Part, an area in which the processing of a MIDI note by the Layer does not occur correctly and all this in particular conditions linked to the BPM of the project, to the enhancement of the trigger associated with the Part where the issue occurs and to the temporal position of the note to be played.

I’ll leave you to imagine how frustrating it is to use the software in band rehearsals with this issue and how unthinkable it is to bring it live, but I am confident that, also with the help of this test project and the additional information provided, we can identify the cause of the issue and finally create a fix that solves it definitively. :blush:

Waiting for your further feedback, as always, thanks for the support. :slightly_smiling_face:

We are looking at it (using version 2.2). When opening your project, some Part trigger times look strange like 15.2.4, is that intented? Tempo is fractional, that may be another clue.

However I can start all Parts, and the first note will sound, also running the entire chain misses no beat. A noteable exception is there is no note at 1.1.1.

But we are looking into something else that may be related. We’ll get back to you, thanks for the projects!

As described in detail in the post (same Song)

[2.1.35] Issues with the Part trigger saved in a Song - VST Live - Steinberg Forums

the trigger 0015.2.4 is something that I find after saving the project, because the trigger I originally defined is 0015.3.1.

The same goes for:

Part 8 → 0101.3.1 → 0101.2.4
Part 9 → 0119.1.1 → 0118.4.4

which are redefined after saving the project and then reopening it.

I hadn’t noticed this, but it could be due to how I configured the synchronization of the two DAWs, while the notes, received from the source DAW but not transformed into notes generated by the VST of the Layer, remain significant.