Muse Research

dsamwell · Post by **dsamwell** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:11 pm

Hi,

Apologies for this this seems a bit of a roundabout post, but I just want to explain in detail what happened at a recent show, where we discovered a very strange glitch, and I wonder if any of you guys could shed any light on it as it has me stumped....

So during the show one of our midi controller keyboard got wet (how I love festival season.....) and started spitting out random pitch bend information. One of the controller knobs on this keyboard can be used to send a constant pitch bend that doesnt snap back to zero as you conventially have on a keyboards pitch wheel (I hope that makes sense!) and this knob became faulty.

It was constantly very slowly but surely tuning down the sound on its midi channel (ch 3) through songs where midi ch3 had a plugin on it that responded to pitch bend data.

Now this was obviously DIRE but at least it makes sense...

What DOESNT make sense is that SOME of this pitch bend data was being read by a plugin on channel 3 of our receptor, which was listening to only midi channel 1. Not all the time, but sometimes the plugin on receptor channel 3 seemed to be getting tuned down as well.

As far as I can tell one of two things was happening.

1) The keyboard was occasionally sending midi data on channel 1 instead of channel 3 (although never note data, only this weird pitch bend)

2) The receptor channel 3, despite being set to only listen to midi channel 1 was occasionally accidentally "listening" to channel 3.

Some further delving leads me to believe that its WAS infact the second option.

In one of our patches, there is a layered sound, with two different synths (both on midi channel 1) being played simultaneously. They are loaded onto receptor channels 2 and 3. With this patch loaded, when the anomalous pitch change information came in ONLY the plugin on receptor channel 3 "listened" to it, as we could see the plugins pitch wheel being detuned in receptor viewer. The plugin on channel 2 listening to the same midi channel was unaffected.

I was just wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this before? It has be pretty baffled, but seems to me to be a fairly major bug..... Im open to suggestions, and I hope this long boring post makes sense!

looneytunes · Post by **looneytunes** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 10:59 pm

Wow ... weirdness ensues ...

I've never seen anything like that. Though if you have a wet/shorting controller, I suppose anything is possible.

I'm not sure how you are suspecting the problems with the Receptor Midi reception. If your controller is still acting weird though, you may wish to view Midi info over a 'MidiScope'. An easier way to do this might be from within a plugin - eg. I believe PianoTeq has an option that allows you to view Midi messages coming into the plug.

Hope this helps,
Kevin L

Kevin@MuseResearch · Post by **Kevin@MuseResearch** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:40 pm

Kontakt also has a script (under the Utilities area in the factory scripts) that'll serve as a MIDI monitor. Classic test case for figuring this sort of thing out is to swap hardware around. for example, put the broken keyboard on another piece of gear, see if the issues are reproducible, and then connect a known good keyboard (or new one) to Receptor.

- Kevin, Muse Research

dsamwell · Post by **dsamwell** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 7:12 pm

Kevin@MuseResearch wrote:Kontakt also has a script (under the Utilities area in the factory scripts) that'll serve as a MIDI monitor. Classic test case for figuring this sort of thing out is to swap hardware around. for example, put the broken keyboard on another piece of gear, see if the issues are reproducible, and then connect a known good keyboard (or new one) to Receptor.

- Kevin, Muse Research

It is totally re creatable, and as I explained its definatly NOT spitting our pitch bend information on channel 1. The keyboard has been put in the naughty cupboard and we have a new one now for the shows but I would still like to get to the bottom of this...... Let me explain further the patch that made me discover this.

Receptor channel 1 - Blank (there used to be another layer to the sound on this channel but we scrapped it, hence why its blank)
Receptor channel 2 - FM8 up 1 octave on Midi Channel 1
Receptor channel 3- FM8 down 1 octave on Midi Channel 1
Receptor channel 4 - FM8 separate sound on midi channel 3

If the keyboard were sending out pitch bend data on channel 1, then both the synths on receptor channels 2 and 3 would obviously be effected by it, but in this case only the FM8 instance on receptor channel 3 responded to the pitch bend data. I am SURE this is a bug. Receptor channel 3 listens to MIDI ch3 by default, and on this patch we have re-channelized it to listen to midi ch1, but I am convinced that it was responding to the pitch bend information on ch 3 from time to time. Also this is NOT a single receptor, BOTH of our units were doing it, as we have an A and a B system on our show. Both units are running the latest software as well before anyone asks!

I haven't had a chance to plug a midi monitor into the keyboard but as you can see, if it were spitting out information on midi channel 1, then the two plugin channels would respond to it, not just the one. I am somewhat of a nerd with the logic enviroment (I've build entire show control in it before, with big obvious buttons for guitar techs to mash with their oversized grubby paws) so I will investigate when I get the chance exactly what its spitting out. I am 100% though that whatever nonsense its sending out, its not doing it on the wrong midi channel. All that happened is the contact that does the pitch bend down occasionally got closed due to some light water damage.

Im happy to email anyone the multi if anyone else would like to try and recreate on their receptor, but as it happened to both our machines Im pretty sure its a bug, for the reasons explained above. Im happy to be proved wrong though if anyone can explain it!

gary@museresearch · Post by **gary@museresearch** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 8:52 pm

The water damage is the thing that sticks out the most when it comes down to what might be happening. Have you tried another controller yet on the Receptor? When you are testing this are you going by ear or are you looking on the GUI for FM8 on Receptor Channel 2? If you want to send your multi here to tech support you can open a ticket on http://www.plugorama.com for free and attach the file. We would be glad to take a look at it.

Thanks,
Gary
Muse QA and Support[/url]

dsamwell · Post by **dsamwell** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:53 pm

Hi Gary

I was looking at the channel in receptor viewer. You could see the pitch wheel being turned down on channel 3 but not on channel 2. This is what makes me think that it was something on in the receptor as if pitch data were sent on midi channel 1 then both the plugins would have been effected.

I'm in rehearsals tomorrow so I'll see if I can recreate it with another keyboard and get a midi monitor on the broken one to confirm it's not doing anything weird.

If it is as I suspect I'll report back!

Muse Research

KVR Audio

Strangest receptor glitch I've ever experienced..... plugin channels listening to wrong midi channel