bad external MIDI timing?

[m_a_t_t]

Hello,

I am running Tracktion 3.0.4.8 on Windows XP 2002 SP2 with a MOTU MIDI Express 128 connected to several external MIDI devices.

It seems to me that Tracktion's external MIDI timing is quite jittery and unstable. Has anyone else noticed this?

You can try this simple test: Create a MIDI clip that contains contiguous 16th notes perfectly aligned on 16th note boundaries. Arrange for the clip to play a short percussive sound on some external device (e.g., rim shot in a drum kit). This test must be done with an *external* MIDI device, not a soft synth.

Loop the clip and play it at 100 bpm, 200 bpm, 300 bpm, etc.. With good timing, the result should be a solid, uniform "buzzing" sound. With Tracktion, however, the sound is quite "jittery".

The same test done with Cakewalk Sonar 4 (same computer, same devices) produces that nice, stable buzz. In fact, Sonar's timing is almost as good as my harware Alesis MMT-8 sequencer performing the same test, so I know that great timing is possible with my system, just not with Tracktion.

Has Tracktion always been this jittery with external MIDI timing, or is this new in T3? (I have not tried the test with an earlier version.)

[m_a_t_t]

For comparison listening, here are some recordings of the test I mentioned in my previous post, played on an MMT-8 (hardware sequencer), Sonar 4, and Tracktion 3:

mmt8.mp3
sonar4.mp3
tracktion3.mp3

Each file contains a few seconds of 16th notes at 50, 127, and 250 BPM.

The MMT-8 and Sonar 4 tests sound very good (nice stable "buzz" at higher BPMs) but the Tracktion 3 test exhibits some jittery "galloping", most evident at 250, though you can also hear a bit of instability throughout the 50, and a really noticable timing glitch right at the switch to 127.

Is anyone else hearing this sort of thing with their Tracktion 3 install playing to external MIDI devices?

Here is the original MIDI file of clicks if you'd like to run the test yourself:

clicks.mid

The click is note #31, which happens to be a simple noise in the drum kit of one of my synths. You may need to map notes as appropriate.

Just to note (haha, no pun intended), I created this .mid with Tracktion 3 (and used to record tracktion3.mp3). To record sonar4.mp3, I simply exported MIDI from Tracktion and loaded it straight into Sonar... thus, Sonar plays back Tracktion's own MIDI files more accurately than Tracktion does!

[t3]

interesting!

this must be t's neuronal-network-autohumanizing, and - apparently - it's only available through external midi...


SCNR

[m_a_t_t]

Umm... so everyone else here is getting perfect MIDI timing to external devices? To me, it seems pretty obvious that Tracktion 3 doesn't deliver here.

I know a lot of folks probably use soft synths exclusively (with sample-accurate timing) but there must be somebody using external devices?

[Unknown Sound]

Umm... so everyone else here is getting perfect MIDI timing to external devices? To me, it seems pretty obvious that Tracktion 3 doesn't deliver here.

I know a lot of folks probably use soft synths exclusively (with sample-accurate timing) but there must be somebody using external devices?

Yep, I had the same problem with clocking my Virus. Only remedied by throwing the piece of shit T3 in the bin and buying a REAL sequencer that's rock solid...LOGIC 8!

No, I'm not on a promo rant, I finally got sick of the bugs and performance problems with T3 on the Mac. Now I make music without worrying about wether the sequencer will hold up on the next take.

-US.

[m_a_t_t]

Well... I just tried my clicks.mid test with the Tracktion 2 demo version and the timing is fine (I don't have the non-demo T2). It's on par with timing I get from Sonar and my MMT-8.

So, somewhere between versions 2 and 3, they screwed up a basic function like MIDI timing.

*sigh*

[DWS]

Well... I just tried my clicks.mid test with the Tracktion 2 demo version and the timing is fine (I don't have the non-demo T2). It's on par with timing I get from Sonar and my MMT-8.

So, somewhere between versions 2 and 3, they screwed up a basic function like MIDI timing.

*sigh*

I also can't get the Midi Clock to work with my hardware synths. It starts out fine then starts floating by huge amounts, especially if I try to record. I've tried everything possible and read every post I could find and it's still not working. All I want to do is the send the simple MIDI clock to a drum machine for tempo/sync and it can't seem to do that, on my Vista system anyway.