Which Daw has the tightest internal midi?

[IIRs]

I was thinking in terms of recording midi from a keyboard into a DAW.
I think that midi that is in the daw will play back with perfect accuracy.

It's getting it in there from a controller that can be less than perfect.

Ah, I see. My guess is that will be a complex mix of factors, including USB latency if you use a USB interface... I seem to remember there being dedicated midi interface devices for Logic and Cubase that were supposed to provide better timing, but I don't know if they're still available?

[amiga909]

i've had loads of hassles with midi clock sync with computer+hardware setups.
i'd like to propose a theory, lemme know if its correct.

I was under the impression that internal midi is sample accurate..?

thats true.

I think that midi that is in the daw will play back with perfect accuracy.

this is half-true. internally midi data is always in sync (= sample accurate). but this doesnt mean its perfectly tight. means: a 120bpm, 4/4, 1bar loop isnt always exactly 2s. this is called jitter, means: latencies are always perfectly compensated internally, yet these latencies do not always have exactly the same duration. this is easily understandable if u look at cpu overload situations.
however, this isnt that grave if u have the computer as master.

its much more of a problem if u want to slave the computer to a hardware midi clock. good midi interfaces help. still i was never able to have a MPC (as master) working with PC software tightly. bizarrely things are much better with old Amigas, Ataris (partly also Macs).


loads of speech.. however, it surely is an excellent question!
Cubase is the tightest i've encountered (compared to Orion, Usine, FL, etc.). dont know about Logic. have to try Renoise for that purpose, thanks!

[stonestreet]

Which Daw do you think has the tightest midi? Or even which one do you think is sloppy. I dont mean for triggering external synths or modules, just internal VSTs/Audio units.

Robbie1234321

Fruityloops/FLStudio has always has adjustable ppq. I think it defaults to 96. I believe this is the max that MPC can deliver.

Have fun, Mark

[whyterabbyt]

Those concerned need to go with door number two here. A sound card with a clock function, or a word clock.

So what relationship are you saying there is between a soundcard that generates/uses wordclock and a piece of software's own MIDI timing?

Are you saying that if a soundcard has wordclock then somehow the DAW 'reads' that and generates MIDI at points in time which are derived from the wordclock signal?

Wordclock exists so that different digital audio sources stay in synchronisation with each other. The transmission of audio to and from a DAW to a soundcard is buffered and therefore asynchronous with the final digital input/output stream, so how does that 'wordclock' even 'reach' the DAW in the first place for it to use as some kind of source of timing events?

[glasgene]

Atari STE with Cubase Version 3.

[efluon]

disregarding the small multithreading based jitter (as in variable (cpu-)latencies, which was mentioned above, typically in the order of submilliseconds), for playing live-midi-input you'll get either jitter or delay in the order of your audio-blocksize.

[ckatrun411]

Those concerned need to go with door number two here. A sound card with a clock function, or a word clock.

So what relationship are you saying there is between a soundcard that generates/uses wordclock and a piece of software's own MIDI timing?

Are you saying that if a soundcard has wordclock then somehow the DAW 'reads' that and generates MIDI at points in time which are derived from the wordclock signal?

Wordclock exists so that different digital audio sources stay in synchronisation with each other. The transmission of audio to and from a DAW to a soundcard is buffered and therefore asynchronous with the final digital input/output stream, so how does that 'wordclock' even 'reach' the DAW in the first place for it to use as some kind of source of timing events?

Well, if you were not muted, than we could discuss this like adults. But I can't discuss anything with you, because your muted.

[koolkeys]

What about his reply wasn't appropriate? Seems to me everything he said was pretty on-topic and relevant.

Besides, if he was muted, you wouldn't have read and replied to his post, no? No offense, but why post a reply to somebody just to tell them you can't see their posts and you don't want to reply?

Just wondering, that's all. I have no problem with either of you.

Brent

[whyterabbyt]

Well, if you were not muted, than we could discuss this like adults. But I can't discuss anything with you, because your muted.

strange, it only seems to be affecting your ability to discuss it like an adult; i dont seem to have been impeded in that respect at all. are you sure the symptom wasnt pre-existing?

[amiga909]

Fruityloops/FLStudio has always has adjustable ppq. I think it defaults to 96. I believe this is the max that MPC can deliver.

a MPC has 960 ppq. i am not that familiar with FL but i doubt its just another notation for the same value in FL?

disregarding the small multithreading based jitter (as in variable (cpu-)latencies, which was mentioned above, typically in the order of submilliseconds), for playing live-midi-input you'll get either jitter or delay in the order of your audio-blocksize.

sounds reasonable. my theory might only be plausible under high cpu conditions..

what do u think efluon:
a) is it correct all DAWs cant be slaved (midi clock) to something like a MPC (while a MPC slaves perfectly to another hardware sequencer)?
b) if so: i feel loads of DAWs are weak at Midi precision, why? and why do some people still regard Ataris to be tighter than modern computers? maybe because lazy programmers use bad libraries for Midi processing?

[efluon]

btw: external clocking won't do anything to process virtual instruments before their audioblock is scheduled, so no change in timing for playing vstis live.

whereas if they are muted, no jitter at all will be seen, same goes for cubase on atari, no variance in vsti-output at all

[Rattleshock]

Atari STE with Cubase Version 3.

+1

[ckatrun411]

btw: external clocking won't do anything to process virtual instruments before their audioblock is scheduled, so no change in timing for playing vstis live.

whereas if they are muted, no jitter at all will be seen, same goes for cubase on atari, no variance in vsti-output at all

See how nice it is to not be muted? Now we can acknowledge this new piece of information, and retract our incorrect post.

Cheers

[efluon]

what do u think efluon:
a) is it correct all DAWs cant be slaved (midi clock) to something like a MPC (while a MPC slaves perfectly to another hardware sequencer)?

nope.
most can not be slaved to midi clock (dunno about live??). some can be slaved to midi-time-code (mtc) or harder timing. tight synchronization is very difficult, especially with usb-midi and OS-level midi-support is very bad not only with windows. (which explains why emagic and steinberg made midi-interfaces that add timestamps, and why the newish synchronizer device by steinberg uses usb as well as digital audio to connect to the computer).

b) if so: i feel loads of DAWs are weak at Midi precision, why? and why do some people still regard Ataris to be tighter than modern computers? maybe because lazy programmers use bad libraries for Midi processing?

it is more the operating system that is bad at timing. the only thing that can cause tight timing under a modern multitasking system are tasks with realtime priority, which should not be tasks with ui, and neither should it be usb-drivers, so timing of daws is slaved to the audioclock (which is or gets elevated to realtime prio). depending on your audio-hardware (this really depends a lot on the manufacturer), midi-timing can be better with the audio-devices midi-ports (or parallel ones) than with usb. i don't know about linux, it might be possible to create midi-drivers with better timing, for windows it is not really possible (AFAIK).

PS: the difficulties seem to originate in the difficulty to get ONE valid timer from the OS

[whyterabbyt]

See how nice it is to not be muted? Now we can acknowledge this new piece of information, and retract our incorrect post.

oh noes. kvr's biggest plonker is ignoring me by reading and quoting my posts!