I’m experiencing some pretty crazy MIDI jitter when sequencing MIDI and using to track my external hardware.
Heres my Setup:
RME M-1620 Pro
RME HDSPe MADI FX
Sync via Word Clock
Buffer 64 Bits
Sample rate 48 kHz
RTL ~3.5 ms
Record shift 195 samples
All MIDI is over USB and directly connected to the PC
I noticed when I was tracking my Prophet 10 Rev 4, Elektron Rytm Mk2 and Analog 4 MK2 using Cubase as the sequencer I’m seeing between my tracks where about 195 samples after the grind so I’ve applied record shift which has made things much tighter but after testing. I noticed that the same MIDI sequence is drifting each time I record, surely this isn’t expected behavior is it?
There are no plugins being used, teh signal path is:
MIDI out via USB > Elektron Analog Rytm > Preamp > M-1620 > MADI FX > Cubase.
Here’s an example, the start of the same midi note triggering the Rytm’s HH:
I have screenshots but as a new user I cannot upload them, however my example show the same midi note triggering audio which is being record other 3 different takes and the start of each transient beings with a 107 sample range.
As you can see the notes are being recorded between a range of 104 samples. I have been able to produce this constantly. This is concerning because this is going to cause phase issues when over dubbing etc. Is Cubase’s MIDI functionality inconsistent?
I’ve searched this forum and people have suggested this is caused by MIDI over USB, however in many of those threads the OP’s then tried direct MIDI and the same thing still happens so it seems to me like this is an issue with Cubase’s MIDI implementation.
You have to correctly configure your DAW and your MIDI devices.
Have you configured your MIDI clock in Project Synchronization Setup (in the Transport menu)?
Depending on how you’re using the devices with Cubase (and what they’re capable of doing with MIDI sync, thru, clock, local control on/OFF), you may need to have Active External Sync enabled in the Sources tab, and have your external devices designated as MIDI Clock Destinations in the Destinations tab.
Also just to be clear, I’m not trying trigger other devices sequencers, this is cubase just sending midi notes to a device and the audio be recorded out of sync on each take.
Not sure what your input latency is (you have RTL quoted). I imagine it’s around 2ms. Also note that reported RTL and actual real-world measured RTL are not often the same thing.
Add to that audio input latency the fact that a single note-on message over MIDI 1.0, assuming no other controllers or other messages (clock, active sense, pitch bend, CCs), takes 1ms per MIDI 1.0 protocol assuming, the receiving device has zero processing time (unlikely) before it makes the sound.
That gives you a likely expected total latency of around 3ms, if the Electron itself has zero latency. So this seems pretty close to what you’re seeing.
I’m not a Cubase expert, but once you measure this, you can account for this latency in Cubase.
Edit: Also, if you can reproduce this constantly, it’s not jitter. Jitter is randomness over time. Latency is a constant delay.
Not entirely clear but I think the 195 sample shift is fixed to compensate for the audio latency. The variable appears to be in the range of 100 samples or so, which is approx 2ms.
It doesn’t surprise me much that a midi hardware unit has ~ 2ms or so variation when clocking to a midi signal from the DAW.
Since every note on your Prophet is different, it’s a moving target. I suggest testing with a digital synth or a drum machine, to evaluate if this is a problem with MIDI over MADI. You could try a different MIDI interface or connect a synth directly through USB MIDI. This is to identify where the issue is.
Please humour me on this one…Have you tried to set the Cubase Transport clock setting to ‘Internal’ clock and then not set any clock sync settings for the other outboard equipment?
I may be misunderstanding the situation, but the only time I have ever had to use synched outboard gear was if I was trying to lock the clock sync to other ‘Transport’ devices, like MTC with Akai DR4d Multitrack recorders.
Now that I don’t use those anymore, whenever I do a project sending ‘Internal’ Clock to my other outboard devices, it seems to align well…
You may have already tried this, but with the issues you are mentioning, this is worth a shot….Here’s hoping!
Yeah I’ve tried that and it made no difference, my understanding of that setting is, its for when you want to trigger a device to start playing its own sequence, for example if the Rytm had its own sequence and I wanted it to start when I hit play in cubase.
This usecase is I’m just sending MIDI notes to the 3 synths.
I also have Ableton but I loath using it as its missing loads of the functionality Cubase has, I’m sorry to say this issue is not happening. All audio start ~ 1ms after the MIDI starts. I can post some screenshots in the morning.
I have the same with all my synths. I thought that this is just typical MIDI jitter that is simply normal.
After ages of working only itb at the beginning I was trying to fight it and at the end I gave up. It’s giving a bit of “human touch” to the music. Absolutely fine for that retro vibe but definitely bad for modern music genres where everything must be ultra tight.
