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Korg Z1 synth works as MIDI controller w/ Kontakt in standalone, but can't trigger Kontakt in CbB


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9 hours ago, JoseC said:

Have you tried all the possible input ports in that track? I don't know how many input ports you have in your interface, maybe CbB doesn't assign numbers to them as expected. Did you try setting input channel to Omni or None in that track?

Have you tried with a new project and track? Maybe your project or project template is corrupted somehow.

Have you got any other program running at the same time that might use your midi driver? Close all apps, restart CbB and check.

At this point, if none of the above show any midi arriving into CbB, I would reinstall CbB. If the Z1 is working fine with standalone synths, while its input does not even show in any midi activity indicator in CbB, I don't think that any other controller will work, either. 

Yeah the RME MIDI has only one port and there's also a selection in there called "All Inputs" as well as "Virtual Controller" and I've literally tried them *all* as well as "None", "Omni", everything. And I'm doing this on a fresh new project. No other programs running, and have restarted. But stuff is really weird now which I'll post in the next post. 

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7 hours ago, Robert Bone said:

I, too, am a bit confused why this would be happening with your setup - it seems like a settings and/or a device issue, that is either not working right, or is not configured right.

I see you mention currently running Windows 10.  I looked at the RME site for any drivers for that interface, and maybe I am missing the boat, but is this interface even supported anymore?  If so, I don't seem able to select your interface on the drivers download page.  IF this link is the correct one, you please tell me what I need to do to pull up available drivers for your model of interface, for ANY version of Windows, let alone Windows 10. 

(https://www.rme-audio.de/en/downloads/driver_updates_readme_hdsp.php

When you have Cakewalk running, you should see a little keyboard icon in the Windows 10 System Tray (bottom right corner of your display monitor - you may need to expand the display of items in the System Tray, by clicking on the arrow that points up).  Anyways, when you trigger notes on the Z1, do you see any little tiny light turning on and off on that little music keyboard icon?  (the little music keyboard icon is supposed to show midi activity, so when notes are triggered, it should have a little red activity indicator light go on and off on that keyboard icon - a bit to the left of the center of the keyboard icon).  I see this turning on and off when I play notes on the Roland A-800 Pro midi controller I currently have hooked up to the computer using a USB cable - I do not know if connecting your Z1 through your RME card using a standard midi connector would also result in that midi activity indicator light go on and off - just because I do not know if that midi activity app in the system tray works for old-school midi cable connected devices, such as your Z1.

I had mentioned earlier a suggestion of designating Omni or None on the midi track's Input, and I am unsure of whether or not you have  tried running this way.  I saw where you indicated it is set to something other than Omni or None, so please try changing to one of those.   If set to Omni, the midi track should send ANY midi data received, to the Kontakt instance.  

In any case - it is a good thing you have a new controller/keyboard coming, so this issue shouldn't persist beyond when they new device arrives.

Bob Bone

 

Hey Robert, yeah believe it or not the RME 9632 is not only still supported, but it's still sold. Pretty expensive too for an old pci card @ $550 new at Sweetwater. Yeah I've got the latest driver installed which was released on 06/25/19 w/ support for Windows 10. I just upgraded to Windows 10, and since then I've been seeing this problem. I also reinstalled the RME driver after the Windows 10 upgrade. You can see the correct RME 9632 driver link below:

https://www.rme-audio.de/en/downloads/driver/hdspe.php

And just click on the first drop-down link there that says, "Windows WDM streaming driver (32/64 Bit)"

So now I've unhooked from the RME MIDI interface and now I'm hooked up to an old MIDI Sport interface and I've adjusted all the appropriate settings for it in CbB Preferences etc. I enabled that little midi activity keyboard icon so now it's in the system tray - but it's already blinking on its own w/ no activity from me anyway, I'm not touching anything. When I turn the Z1 off it stops blinking.

However, that midi indicator light in the system tray does randomly stops blinking on its own for a while and when it does I notice that it *is* responding when I press/release a key on the Z1 (though still no response from the track meters) and also responded to the mod and pitch wheels, though moving pitch wheel made the light constantly/randomly flash again even after I let go of it, and now its back to flashing randomly on it's own and I'm not touching anything lol. When I turn off the Z1 all the CbB midi indicator stops flashing. 

I should say that I've never used the RME 9632's midi interface feature, or the Midi Sport for that matter, to try to control anything through them - I can and have triggered the internal sounds of the Z1 through these interfaces, but never tried to use the Z1 as a midi controller through them. The M-Audio Oxygen I just sold connected via usb, so hooking up to the RME's midi was just temporary.

It kinda looks like the Z1 is the culprit, at least when trying to use it as a midi controller. But I think reinstalling CbB is not a bad idea and I think I'll do that anyway since this CbB installation carried over from Windows 7 to this Windows 10 upgrade and maybe a fresh install of CbB would be good anyway. After the reinstall I'll try this Z1 one more time but after that I'll just wait on the new controller, which will hook up through USB and I believe is plug and play like that Oxygen was. 

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3 hours ago, Variorum said:

One other thing to check is the Control Surface mapping (Preferences/MIDI/Control Surfaces). When MIDI devices are added or removed, the In Ports and Out Ports can get scrambled. If any of these Control Surface In Ports are set to your Korg, they will effectively intercept all the MIDI data and you'll get the symptoms you're describing. This catches me occasionally and I always seem to forget about it :(

ControlSurface.JPG.9646e211777649dca7556388af8841e7.JPG

Thanks man, yeah I did have to go on to adjust those settings but still it wouldn't work. 

Thanks everyone for the help. I think this Z1 is behaving badly as a controller, but I'll try once more after reinstalling CbB. Lol I still have a Kontakt issue to troubleshoot as well so I guess I've got my Sunday planned

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The midi activity that you are seeing might be Active Sensing or even Midi Clock if the Z1 is sending any, or both types of messages. I don't believe that modern synths use Active Sensing anymore, but old digital synths did. 

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Install MIDI-OX and set it up to monitor incoming MIDI on the MIDI port that the Korg is connected to. http://midiox.com/

Play around with the keys, mod wheel, etc., on the Korg, and see if you are getting good MIDI data at the MIDI interface into your PC, or if there is anything strange being transmitted.

If that all looks good, I would assume it is strictly an issue with Cakewalk, and the way it handles the legacy MIDI port. Especially since you said it worked OK with a standalone virtual instrument.

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On 7/14/2019 at 7:26 AM, JoseC said:

Have you tried all the possible input ports in that track? I don't know how many input ports you have in your interface, maybe CbB doesn't assign numbers to them as expected. Did you try setting input channel to Omni or None in that track?

Have you tried with a new project and track? Maybe your project or project template is corrupted somehow.

Have you got any other program running at the same time that might use your midi driver? Close all apps, restart CbB and check.

At this point, if none of the above show any midi arriving into CbB, I would reinstall CbB. If the Z1 is working fine with standalone synths, while its input does not even show in any midi activity indicator in CbB, I don't think that any other controller will work, either. 

I had an M-Audio Axiom 61 Pro, that was several years old, that began randomly, but consistently, spewing out midi data - )Pitch Bend data, actually), and I ended up disabling the Pitch Bend wheel on the Axiom, to prevent it getting recorded on any midi tracks.  I would use a different controller for any tracks where I needed to actually have any pitch bending.

If Windows is properly detecting midi activity from the Z1, then unless something like a control surface issue is at play, then if all of the settings are correct in Cakewalk, it would look like somehow, and in some VERY weird way, Cakewalk would be having some sort of issue.  That does not make ANY sense, though, because again, unless you DO have a control surface definition/mapping set up for it, Cakewalk shouldn't even be AWARE that it is any particular make/model of midi device sending midi data.  

If you DO happen to have a control surface set up for the Z1, can you please try removing it, to see if that has any effect?

Bob Bone

 

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1 hour ago, Robert Bone said:

That does not make ANY sense, though, because again, unless you DO have a control surface definition/mapping set up for it, Cakewalk shouldn't even be AWARE that it is any particular make/model of midi device sending midi data. 

Exactly! When using a legacy 5-pin MIDI DIN connection, the application software is interacting with the MIDI port and driver of the interface being used, and not the actual keyboard.

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20 minutes ago, abacab said:

Exactly! When using a legacy 5-pin MIDI DIN connection, the application software is interacting with the MIDI port and driver of the interface being used, and not the actual keyboard.

I see your Exactly, and RAISE you one Exactly.

This is why I kept trying to figure out what settings could be problematic, ONLY with its interactions with Cakewalk, and I turned to a possible control surface definition interference, after (I think) exhausting other settings.....

If midi output from the Z1 works, as is clearly the case using stand-alone synths, then something within the Cakewalk settings must be slightly askew.

Bob Bone

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Another thing to consider is whether the MIDI drivers that are being used by the interface are multi-client or not. Some legacy MIDI drivers were not.

If not multi-client, then if something else is using them,  they will not be available for the DAW or another MIDI app.

Similar to ASIO drivers only being available to one app at a time.

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Quick update and thanks to everyone who indulged in my nightmare.

So today I installed midiox per abacab and confirmed that the Z1 is in fact functioning properly in sending MIDI data as I got good on/off response from the keys, pitch/mod wheels and X/Y pad responses. I also confirmed in midiox that occasionally the pitch wheel was a tad slow at returning to zero when pitching down (though not audible) and nudging the pitch wheel lightly "snapped" it to zero, so that would explain the trailing midi data that the CbB midi indicator was sometimes seeing when moving the pitch wheel down and after I had let go of it. So as all that looked good I went ahead and uninstalled/reinstalled both my RME audio driver which also carries the MIDI interface, and CbB, rebooted etc. Went into CbB and selected all the proper settings and verified that the CbB midi indicator was in fact receiving proper signal from the Z1 aaaaand.... it's still not working. So I cackled madly and threw a metal spoon at the window    Lol I know you were hoping for a happy ending after that buildup but I'm telling you, the Z1, under no circumstance, is willing to be a MIDI controller inside of CbB. It's just stone cold not gonna happen. Not through the RME interface, not through the MIDI Sport. Probaly no other interface on the planet either for that matter. It's cool though, I got something proper coming soon. And if nothing else I got a clean reinstall of CbB on my new Windows 10. It's not a settings issue--can't be--not in CbB or the Z1. This is not a sad ending of a movie; it's one of those where you're like, "WHAAAT...?"

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It's definitely NOT the Z1. MIDI-OX proves that.

Cakewalk is communicating only with the RME or MIDI Sport drivers as the middlemen, and doesn't directly see the Z1. So I would expect the same results with any  MIDI keyboard plugged into a legacy 5-pin MIDI port on your setup, not just the Z1. If you could borrow another MIDI keyboard, you could test that, and maybe prove me wrong. ;)

So it must have something to do with those interface drivers and Cakewalk, and how they are interacting.

I would look into Bob's last suggestion, and maybe even delete all control surface definitions.

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11 hours ago, Christian Jones said:

Went into CbB and selected all the proper settings and verified that the CbB midi indicator was in fact receiving proper signal from the Z1 aaaaand.... it's still not working.

It may be instructive to see the MIDI setup in CbB preferences. These are pretty big images so, in order to post legible copies use an image service such as imgur.com and post links to the images.

If the CbB MIDI indicator is flashing, it may be instructive to record some of the data and review it in the event inspector. There are some filters in MIDI playback and record preferences so, these may need to be reviewed along with the other preference settings.

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6 hours ago, Robert Bone said:

Sorry to hear the last update - I did not see where you answered my earlier question about a control surface definition being used, or not, for the Z1.  So, ?

Bob Bone

 

Sorry Robert, yeah there's no control surface definition being used. I had deleted the entries that were already there so there's not only nothing selected but there's nothing to even chose from.

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5 hours ago, abacab said:

It's definitely NOT the Z1. MIDI-OX proves that.

Cakewalk is communicating only with the RME or MIDI Sport drivers as the middlemen, and doesn't directly see the Z1. So I would expect the same results with any  MIDI keyboard plugged into a legacy 5-pin MIDI port on your setup, not just the Z1. If you could borrow another MIDI keyboard, you could test that, and maybe prove me wrong. ;)

So it must have something to do with those interface drivers and Cakewalk, and how they are interacting.

I would look into Bob's last suggestion, and maybe even delete all control surface definitions.

I installed Cantaible Lite to see if I could trigger vsts through it and the Z1 worked with it right away when I loaded Kontakt into it. So yeah it must be an interface driver/CbB interaction thing going on. The weird thing now--and I don't recall if this was always the case--but w/ everything set up right in CbB for the Z1 to be able to work, I see that when pressing keys on the Z1 the corresponding key(s) on the midi track's Piano Roll depress too but there's no sound. But when I click on those same keys on that piano roll then I hear sound from the Kontakt instrument lol.

The MIDI track input is set to Ch.1 of the RME MIDI interface (hdsp midi), Z1 on ch.1, and that track's output is set to Kontakt (or whichever vst I'm trying to trigger).

The corresponding audio track's input is set to Kontakt st. stereo as per usual (unless I chose something else) and the output set to Master. That's how it's always set up w/ any controller I've used and it's always worked. Clicking on the keys in the Piano Roll and on Kontakt's keyboard and you get sound; just not from the Z1, though like I said when pressing the Z1 keys the corresponding keys on the Piano Roll depress too, but there's no sound. CbB is pranking my @** is what it is lol but really I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. My Novation will be here in a few weeks, and I have some vsts that don't work in standalone that I wanted to vet the presets of in the meantime so I can just use Cantiable for now since the Z1 work there, no big deal. I'll post an image link of my midi preferences, but really I doubt it's user error at this point.

Edited by Christian Jones
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OK - last attempt at this - If present, HAVE YOU TRIED REMOVING ANY CONTROL SURFACE DEFINITIONS FOR THE Z1?  (note - caps were for emphasis only, and not representative of any anger or shouting, or anything like that - I just have asked about that 2-3 times now, and am not sure there has been a response to that specific question, as of yet).  :)

Thanks, 

Bob Bone

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4 hours ago, scook said:

It may be instructive to see the MIDI setup in CbB preferences. These are pretty big images so, in order to post legible copies use an image service such as imgur.com and post links to the images.

If the CbB MIDI indicator is flashing, it may be instructive to record some of the data and review it in the event inspector. There are some filters in MIDI playback and record preferences so, these may need to be reviewed along with the other preference settings.

You should be able to see my MIDI Preferences images at this link https://imgur.com/a/mNgTnKa

Even though the CbB MIDI indicator is flashing, and even though when I depress the keys on the Z1 the corresponding keys on the CbB piano roll also depress, when I arm the track to record it does not print any data when inputting from the Z1 so I'm not able to record anything that way.

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7 minutes ago, Robert Bone said:

OK - last attempt at this - If present, HAVE YOU TRIED REMOVING ANY CONTROL SURFACE DEFINITIONS FOR THE Z1?  (note - caps were for emphasis only, and not representative of any anger or shouting, or anything like that - I just have asked about that 2-3 times now, and am not sure there has been a response to that specific question, as of yet).  :)

Thanks, 

Bob Bone

I've responded to that a couple of times brother, the most recent being two posts above your last one. 😉

it's no big deal though man as I'm pretty much over it now and it was just to be a temp solution anyway.

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