Some bugs or frustrating probs in Cantabile

[TiUser]

Another great post from TiUser.
thanks, LOL

I think this only happens when you don't pay attention...
that's in some way true but concerning myself I think such things should be as dummy proof as possible. Especially in a live situation simpler operation gives more security. There are more importan things to do live than fixing technical issues...

Basically it's windows that provides limited information on midi ports. You can not rely on getting manufacurer and other midi device info. The plug&play driver may not support it and edicated drivers may or may not provide that...

With the id's it's not just the port location but also the order of detection which can change with the order you power on your midi devices too...

One better way from an application is to try to find the port with the appropriate port name. If this does not work for any reason the other informations may help to resolve to the right port. But again windows provides no guaranteed way to reassign the proper device to a midi port... finally all calls refer to a port id...

I have one workaround in my app when all strategies fail... I present and open all ports and wait for a key press to reidentify a keyboard port. That's quite simple and easy to do. However on complex setups with many midi controllers on different ports the procedure can be cumbersome too... and I haven't worked out complex reassignment issues as well.

[pinkcanaru]

FWIW I have never seen Win 7 allocate the wrong midi device to the wrong ID if it was plugged into the same USB port every time. Maybe I'm lucky? Have you?
More serious is if you update your interfaces and it really IS a different device. No way around that at all. (Again, this is a Windows issue - not Cantabile.)
I hope we see the port alias facility which Brad posted on YouTube months ago. That is is the answer to the current Windows shortcoming.

[TiUser]

No clue about Win7 yet - I'm still on Vista, but I doubt there is much change.

Did you try to power on your midi peripherals in a different order?

From a programing standpoint the port id is nothing to rely on. To make sure there's the right device you need to store and check more. Maybe Win7 assigns useful port names? IMHO the win plug&play drivers are the main practical problem because there is usually no useful device name to identify.

Not sure how Cantabile identifies ports but I assume there is more than hoping for the same id order. Apps that rely on this have frequent issues with port assignment and Cantabile seems not to belong in this category.

However, deeper port info examination is possible, especially with dedicated drivers that report proper device info (there is a lot, like manfacturer id, driver version, device name...)

I've even experimented with dynamic midi port monitoring. It is possible to detect disappearing or new midi devices while a program is running - with a little deleay of course. So you can warn users abour broken midi conects or offer reconfiguration on pluggin in / powering on new devices. However I didn't include that yet in my app because even I found this feature to be too extreme to adjust the effort against the benefit...


Port alias is conceptually something else - even it can of course resolve the port issues sometimes caused by Win too. Port alias means we can better exchange sessions as these do not deoend any longer on specific hw/port assignment.

[pinkcanaru]

I found vista to be the most latency prone CPU hog and was very relieved when W7 came along.
I always run two interfaces. The port in my m-audio FireWire and the midisport 4x4
I stopped using the onboard USB of some of my keyboards because I didn't want more trailing cable and the chances of swapping a keyboard are much greater than me changing interface.
I have made sure to memorize the ports used for the 4x4 and dongle and I have never seen it fail.

[godly]

Thx guys for your precious info.
Yes, that windows midi id is a real problem. I wonder if there is a fix for it? I've seen some tutorials here and there but lost the link to it.

I'm not sure if this tut is related to it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTHwxXpHEeY

Here's another windows fix from M-Audio, might be handy also
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=sup ... ivers&f=84

[pinkcanaru]

The M-Audio utility was useful for clearing out 'dead' ports from no longer used interfaces. I think this was important on XP because there was a limited number of midi ports which could exist and if someone was moving the interface from USB port to USB port, creating more and more ports, and then using different interfaces and doing the same all over again, those ports could run out pretty quickly. That M-Audio tool tidied things up.

The DOS youtube is obviously super geeky but there is a far simpler way to deal with this now. Just use the same USB port every time! Think about it like it would be a key.... you gotta have the right key to open the correct port.
As Microsoft will change this ridiculous shortcoming when hell freezes over, Cantabile users are going to be offered a solution in the next version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcZhoDhYQtI

Your other video seems to be geared to issues with some interfaces and underpowered Mac USB ports. This is a different issue and not really related to the ID issue.

[godly]

The DOS youtube is obviously super geeky but there is a far simpler way to deal with this now. Just use the same USB port every time! Think about it like it would be a key.... you gotta have the right key to open the correct port.

Your other video seems to be geared to issues with some interfaces and underpowered Mac USB ports. This is a different issue and not really related to the ID issue.

Nope, that doesn't work, since my venom has synth in (usb) and midi in (hw), windows switches them also. Even on the same USB port.

[godly]

As Microsoft will change this ridiculous shortcoming when hell freezes over, Cantabile users are going to be offered a solution in the next version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcZhoDhYQtI

Good to see, I think CAntabile is a great piece of software and I like the devotion of the developer ! Pitty that I got some problems on my system.

[pinkcanaru]

OK - you've hit on another major No No , IMO.
I use 4 keyboards in my rig. An 88 note controller, 2 M-Audio Axiom 61 and, believe it or not, an old Roland D-50 used purely as a controller. (I like the keyboard, and it was sitting in the basement along with other old relics not being used, so I thought I would put it to work )

I learned very quickly that using USB ports on the Axioms was way too ambiguous. Two keyboards - both the same - how could I really ensure that there was no conflict? In order to be idiot proof I stopped using the USB connections on those keyboards and run midi via one 4 port interface. As long as that interface is plugged into the same port, there is NEVER a problem.

Did you manage to find software that would deal with the proteus browser?

[pinkcanaru]

Tell you what -
I have a bunch of interfaces here...
a midi sport 4x4 - two Midex 8s, the port on my M-Audio FW, and the USB ports on the Axioms. Enough to cause some real havoc, LOL.
I'm going to post some examples of what happens when all of those devices are connected and the computer rebooted, say, 10 times.
I'll swap the ports around we'll suddenly find all these dead ports looking for a device on a given USB port which it can no longer find... rendering the Session useless unless I edit.
I'll then swap back and see if we recover.
I'm betting the worse thing I'll see is that I have acquired 48 redundant midsx ports, 12 redundant midisport ports and 3 redundant Axiom ports.
At which point... I trash my prefs

[godly]

Hey, I think my ports are resolved ! Suddenly they have a fixed number in front of them. Only thing I can remember is installing DOSbox and listed midi?
Strange. I found this info.
http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?topic=3025.0

I fixed the switching IDs before by putting them to ALL That fixes it, haha Is there a downside to?

Nice to see the D50 still has use, I have one also, but heavy as hell, so that's why I like my venom and nord.

I didn't manage to get the fix in Proteus, but (!) in the other host, the state of the proteus (or other SW) is saved, so problem solved here also

[pinkcanaru]

Cantabile also recalls the state.
Just enable bank load by right clicking the plugin and selecting the appropriate option.
Glad u got the port thing resolved !!

[pinkcanaru]

There is not really a downside to using ALL unless you are using a specific kind of routing which may not apply to you.

If each keyboard is set to transmit on a unique channel, say channels 1 and 2 respectively, that is enough for Cantabile to allow unique splits and transposes etc. for each keyboard.

For example:
IF Midi comes in on channel 2, set the top octave to plugin XX set the mid octave to hit channel YY and the low octave to hit channel ZZ.

So, even though Cantabile is looking at ALL it can split out data as required.
And if you employ the MIDI Routing functions, you can pretty much do anything with the incoming MIDI, just determined by the fact that each keyboard is transmitting on a unique channel.

I'm working hard here. :-)I guess if I thought there were showstopping bugs in Cantabile, I would be looking at another solution but, so far, I have not found anything as bloat free as Cantabile - or as perfect for my live performance needs when it comes to performance. My gripes are with the 'housekeeping' functions. I want to see some more refined organizational tools for the MIDI routing.

[godly]

Thanks for the help!

[ludvicek]

Hi, nice to see so many Cantabile users here. I have a little problem with the Solo version. After a longer testing I bought it this week, but it denies to work properly with my plugins. The problem is that I removed the plugins to different file and after opening them from this file Cantabile still remembers both - the previous way and also the last. So now when I click to open new plugin there are duplicates of the same instruments or my vb3 is there even three times since I removed it twice. When I'm lucky enough I manage to open it, otherwise Cantabile fails to load the plugin. And the most funny thing is that when I load the proper ones and save this rack Cantabile again "fails to open" the plugins. I tried to reinstall it few times, but it has to have some "secret file" because it again offers the duplicates. I also cleaned the registers but now I have no idea how to fix it. Also when I reinstalled it there was no need for pasting the code, but that might be because of the IP address. Any suggestions? [/img]