Any Tracktion Mac users here?

[Axl]

Hi all,

since I still haven't gotten Tracktion to cooperate with my external synth, I would like to hear some positive comments from people who use it on the Mac, preferably with external midi equipment.

Please tell me that it works for you. I would be even more grateful for a suggestion on what to do in order to get it to work. Otherwise I would have to consider writing my own Audio/Midi Sequenzer which would postpone my recording career considerably

You can find an exact description of the mess here:

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=655355

Greets,
Axl

[james]

Many mac users here.
I don't have an external midi synth but do get great results with an older serial port midi interface and fatar controller.
Best of luck.

[epiegols]

I use a Yamaha S80 through a MOTU 828 mk II with Tracktion on OSX. No problems.

[l0ss]

I've used a Yamaha DX200, a Roland JP 8000, a Yamaha A4000, and an Ensoniq ASR-X with a MIDIMan Midisport 2x2 USB MIDI adapter on an iBook and a Powerbook running 10.3 with no problems, and no tinkering required.

[Axl]

Thanks for your answers!

epiegols, do you use the S 80 as a soundmodule or only as a controller for midi input? If it plays back midi from Tracktion fine, my second question would be: which Mac do you use? I have an iBook (16Mb ATI) and I suspect the graphic chip to mess with Tracktion, so what is your graphic card/chip?

Greets,
Axl

[james]

If you're concerned about graphics performance, reduce the monitor resolution in system preferences to "thousands". There's also a free haxie app called "shadowkiller" that gives some performance back by reducing os x eye candy.

In general, performance should be very good on any ibook. You might consider running some general maintenance utilities. One of the best I've found is Onyx which packages some very good tools together in one place. If you haven't already, repair disc permissions using your disc utility. Onyx includes this and other features like cleaning various cache files. It also allows you to run all maintenance tasks with one click. Did I mention it's free?

See www.applelinks.com today for some product announcements/reviews of onyx and xupport among others.

[epiegols]

Thanks for your answers!

epiegols, do you use the S 80 as a soundmodule or only as a controller for midi input? If it plays back midi from Tracktion fine, my second question would be: which Mac do you use? I have an iBook (16Mb ATI) and I suspect the graphic chip to mess with Tracktion, so what is your graphic card/chip?

Greets,
Axl

Axl,
I use the S80 as a midi controller and sometimes record the stereo outs, so I dont send midi back to the keyboard. Sorry that doesnt help you. As for the Mac I use, its a PowerMac G4/733 with Nvidia GeForce.

[Axl]

You might consider running some general maintenance utilities. One of the best I've found is Onyx which packages some very good tools together in one place. If you haven't already, repair disc permissions using your disc utility.

I've been using MacJanitor for quite some time now, so my caches are clean.
Still, Onyx has a lot more to offer (especially the log reader), so thanks for the tip.

I've lowered the displayed colors and repaired permissions. Nevertheless, the midi doesn't get better. When I move faders or do selects the stuttering gets worse. The audio runs smoothly at all times. Also vst instruments are not affected by this, only the external synth, which runs fine with Cubase on the pc.

So if it works for you, it must be either the demo version or some kind of black magic. The latter sounds very plausible to me since we're talking about computers.

Greets
Axl

[scared]

i use a 15" powerbook with tracktion 1.6.0.1 (registered), a fatar sl-161 controller, motu micro express usb, motu 828 mkI and a waldorf microQ. os X 10.3.5, latest drivers for both motus.

i haven't noticed any problems with playback personally, but due to your questions, i watched the midi output a bit more closely and noticed some spurious all notes off and reset all controllers messages being sent. it looks like every time you stop/loop, a pair of these messages will be sent (midi cc 123 and 121). this seems normal to me. however, they also seem to be randomly being sent during playback. i haven't been able to determine what triggers them.

they do show up regardless of whether i am outputting to the motu or a virtual port.

like i said, they aren't affecting my µQ, but your synth may be reacting to the messages. to see if they are being sent on your machine, grab midi monitor from here. in the sources section, turn off MIDI sources. turn on Spy on output destinations. to make the readout a bit clearer to read, uncheck Note On/Off in the Filter section.

if you see a bunch of the All Notes Off and Reset All Controllers messages, that may be your problem. as a temporary work-around (i'm assuming this is a bug in tracktion as it happens with multiple types of midi destinations), you can use midipipe.

make sure you launch midipipe before tracktion so it's virtual inputs/outputs are available to tracktion. in tracktion, set up your midi output to use MidiPipe Input 1 instead of the motu. in midipipe, set up a pipe as follows:
• Midi In: set to MidiPipe Input 1
• Message Filter: uncheck everything except Control/Mode Change
• Midi Out: set to your motu's hardware midi out for your synth
• Alist: optional. just used to monitor the output to your synth.

the only real problem i can see with the above setup is that you can't send any midi cc data to your synth. this could be a large hinderance. however, nico (the author of midipipe) seems to be quite responsive and frequents the osxaudio.com forums (look for the midipipe thread in the midi apps section). there's a decent chance he would either update the program to filter out specific cc messages or have a solution using the software as is. of course, there's also a chance this could be fixed in the next update of tracktion (unless it really isn't the problem afterall )

hope that helps,
scared.

[Axl]

Thank you scared for the detailed answer!

I'll try MidiPipe tomorrow and report my results.

Greets,
Axl

[scared]

cool. i'm quite interested to find out whether or not the spurious midi cc messages are the cause of the problem...

[Axl]

i'm quite interested to find out whether or not the spurious midi cc messages are the cause of the problem

Well, I'm afraid they're not

I've set up Tracktion and MidiPipe (seems to be a nice little app) as you described and got rid of the All Notes Off Controller messages that Tracktion sends every couple of seconds in my demo version. Still, the results are just as disturbing as before.

Next thing I'll do is try if the pc demo works. If it does it must be some strange issue with my iBook.

Greets,
Axl

[scared]

pisser. well, at least you found a new app to add to your arsenal.