MIDI USB question, sorry

[Simon Ravn]

It doesnt sound like a MIDI problem to me. More a hard drive bottleneck problem. How fast are your harddrives? Which make and model? Did you remember to enable DMA on your drives? Did you remember to not put your .GIG\'s on the same drive as your swapfile?

[ROTBOY]

After doing a search I came up with no one sharing my specific problem.

My Gigasampler dedicated computer has a Midisport 2x2 and is acting strange. It is random and only occurs with the GigaPiano (the whole reason I bought this program and built this computer was for hte piano samples). Decaying notes will change to another pitch (not bend, change to a different note). This sometimes happens when only one note at a time is played, or when NO notes are played (this only happened once and may not be true, a musician was using this in my studio and thinks he could have bumped a key accidentally).

I am not hearing of any other people having the same situation. I think there must be an inexpensive solution to this. I don\'t need or want a $500 Unitor, I only use one MIDI channel at a time. I am willing to try a parallel interface, but still fear that is not the problem.

Help is appreciated.

Thanks,
ROTBOY

[Francis Belardino]

Does this happen when you use a sustain pedal in your playing?

------------------
Francis Belardino
fbelardino@score4post.com (\"fbelardino@score4post.com\")

Composer/Sound Designer
www.score4post.com (\"http://www.score4post.com\")

[This message has been edited by Francis Belardino (edited 02-20-2002).]

[ROTBOY]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Francis Belardino:
Does this happen when you use a sustain pedal in your playing?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Francis,

Thanks for replying. I have to test specifically, but I believe it occurs whether or not the pedal is actually plugged in! Another note: this does not occur with any softsynths on the same setup/computer. Further note: I never run more than one prog at a time though.

TIA,
ROTBOY

[Mark_Knecht]

ROTBOY,
Hi. I\'ve got the same 2X2 and I have not experienced the problem to the same extent. There is a problem that I\'ve seen (heard?) where under high polyphony loads you start getting wrong notes, but that doesn\'t sound like your problem, and I know that problem is NOT related to the MidiSport as it happens on both of my MIDI interfaces.

Take care,
Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-21-2002).]

[ROTBOY]

Thanks guys. Yes, I do have the samples and programs on the same drive.

I will change that situation immediately and see how it affects things. I figured I could get away with that since I am only playing the piano and no other voices.

If this doesn\'t fix it, I might try putting an SB card in and using the MIDI port. I only need one!

ROTBOY

[Simon Ravn]

More important than if your programs and samples share the same drive, is if the swapfile and you samples do.

[ROTBOY]

Simon,

If I put the audio on a separate drive this will take care of any swapfile/audio conflicts. Correct?

ROTBOY

[ROTBOY]

Further question:

Do you guys enable bus mastering for your HD\'s? I seem to be unable to get the computer to do this. I can\'t wait till this is done. I hate building computers.

Today I rebuilt the system from scratch because I am anal. I added a second hard drive, but realized that it was a UDMA 66 5400rpm. My thinking was that a drive with huge samples should probably be on the ATA100 7200 rpm. So, I just decided to start from scratch, but it is getting messy, as I seem to recall that bus mastering for IDE should be enabled, but the computer won\'t boot when I enable it.

Maybe its time to start a new thread?

ROTVOY

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
Enabling DMA is not always an option under Windows. It\'s just one of those mysteries as to why.

My experience is that if you can\'t find the option, then it\'s probably enabled by default, but you can check by downloading something like HDTach or Sisoft\'s Sandra and then testing the throughput and seeing that the CPU load is low.

Good luck,
Mark

[Simon Ravn]

Yes, unless you have assigned your swapfile to use the same drive http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif But if you have never touched your swapfile (which you should - set it to a fixed size), it will probably use C: for the file.

[ROTBOY]

Thanks Mark,

I am referring to the option in the BIOS, not Windows.

Should I be enabling this function in the BIOS or not.

In my BIOS (American Megatrends) the option is for:

PCI IDE Busmaster

Yea or Nay?

ROTBOY

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
Sorry. Missed that you were talking about BIOS. I think the answer is is doesn\'t matter, because Windows will enable it, but mine is enabled in BIOS.

Basically, if PCI Bus Mastering is not enabled, then a PCI device could not do DMA.

Cheers,
Mark


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ROTBOY:
Thanks Mark,

I am referring to the option in the BIOS, not Windows.

Should I be enabling this function in the BIOS or not.

In my BIOS (American Megatrends) the option is for:

PCI IDE Busmaster

Yea or Nay?

ROTBOY<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[thesoundsmith]

I had the problem you described when I first installed Gigastudio 96 on my PII-333 box with 128MB Ram. (7200RPM drives, 1 for OS+GS, second drive for samples.)

The problems went away when I added another 256 RAM.

This may or may not have a relationship to your problem, but if you\'re short on RAM, it\'s worth a try.

Dasher

[Crispin]

Don\'t know if you ever got this resolved but it sounds like a problem I was having with my Frontier Wavecenter\'s onboard midi.

The solution (after months of idiosyncratic symptoms and frustration) was stupidly simple. Go to the \"settings\" tab in gigastudio. Change one of your midi port settings and then change it back to what it should be. Hit apply. The problem will be solved for at least a few hours.

Not the best solution but better than a reboot everytime.

Crispin

[ninriggs]

Greetings,

I use a midiman 2x2 with gigastudio and dont have any problems with it although all of my gigfiles are on a seperate drive.

The only issue i have with the little green thing is the constant pulsing of the USB light....really distracting.

I normally have a few programs up at the same time without any issues... these include sonar. gigastudio and soundforge.

[keith]

It sounds like you may have had a MIDI loop happening, listen very closely while striking one key over and over again. Does the sound change tone every now and then and sound hollow or higher pitched?
probably a MIDI loop. You need to disable the midi in on the gigasampler program if you are using another MIDI sequencing program to trigger the MIDI.
Try that.