Pre-Roll: MIDI Input Ignored During Playback Before Bar 1

Cubase
,
1

This has been an annoying issue for a while (since Cubase 8.0.0, maybe earlier).

If pre-roll

  1. Create a new project with an instrument track.
  2. Set project pre-roll to at least 2 bars, for example and turn pre-roll on.
  3. Make sure playback head is located to the beginning of the project (1st bar)
  4. Make sure the instrument track is record-armed so that you hear the instrument when you play your MIDI keyboard.
  5. Press Play or Record on the transport. (The playback head will not move because it is pre-rolling before the first bar of the project - this is normal).
  6. Immediately start playing notes on your MIDI keyboard / MIDI input device - MIDI input will be entirely ignored and you will not hear any of the notes you are playing.
  7. Press stop on the transport and immediately try playing more notes on the MIDI keyboard. That MIDI input will still be ignored for several seconds, then magically start working again.

Notes:

  • Does not matter if ASIO Guard is on or not.
  • This behavior only happens if pre-roll is on and the pre-roll value is greater than the current playback location in the project at the point you press Play on the transport.

A demonstration video:

Cubase 8.0.20 64-bit on Mac OS X 10.10