Errant wheel events

[David Pollock]

I have revived a large (for me) orchestral project that appeared to be completely corrupt as described here:  Crashing problem solving - Q&A - Cakewalk Discuss | The Official Cakewalk by BandLab Forum and I am nearing the end of fine tuning and tweaking. One of the original problems was, it seemed, that my old keyboard was sending errant wheel signals causing some instruments to go out of tune. I have long disconnected that keyboard and not connected another. But I just noticed a wheel midi event on a channel where I have not added one, and I have no explanation for how it got there. Since I still have these random times when an instrument will go out of tune, I think this must be the cause, and I need to make sure they stop happening.

What can cause these wheel events when there is no keyboard attached, and in fact, I have not added nor intentionally used wheel events anywhere in this project? 

[David Baay]

I have never seen an event recorded in CbB that didn't come from hardware or from a MIDI-generating plugin except in the unusual case that CbB was recording MIDI via hardware (or virtual MIDI cable) loopback and picking up messages sent at the start of playback/recording by enabled Volume, Pan or Patch widgets in a MIDI track. And I know of no circumstance in which CbB will spontaneously generate [Pitch] Wheel events in the absence of an automation envelope explicitly created to do it.

[David Pollock]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

I have never seen an event recorded in CbB that didn't come from hardware or from a MIDI-generating plugin except in the unusual case that CbB was recording MIDI via hardware (or virtual MIDI cable) loopback and picking up messages sent at the start of playback/recording by enabled Volume, Pan or Patch widgets in a MIDI track. And I know of no circumstance in which CbB will spontaneously generate [Pitch] Wheel events in the absence of an automation envelope explicitly created to do it.

Thanks, but I do not know what to do with that observation. There is no hardware attached, and as far as I know, no midi-generating plugin at play. How would I investigate the loopback possibility you described?

[Promidi]

5 hours ago, David Pollock said:

How would I investigate the loopback possibility you described?

Do any plugins (synth or effect) have MIDI out enabled?

[David Pollock]

45 minutes ago, Promidi said:

Do any plugins (synth or effect) have MIDI out enabled?

I found three out of 52 and turned them off. I will have to check if it helps when I have time later. Thanks.

[David Baay]

8 hours ago, David Pollock said:

There is no hardware attached, and as far as I know, no midi-generating plugin at play. How would I investigate the loopback possibility you described?

Do you have any MIDI I/O devices available/enabled at all in Preferences? If you're not aware of ever having set up loopback, it's unlikely to be relevant. I was just mentioning it as one of the few ways I could imagine getting unexpected messages recorded with no controller connected.

If I'm understanding correctly that you don't use any MIDI input devices, you can set the Input on all your MIDI/Instrument tracks to 'None', disable Always Echo Current MIDI Track in Preferences, and you shouldn't have any further issues. Or, alternatively, you can set all Inputs to CbB's Virtual Controller, and never open it.

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by David Baay

[David Pollock]

8 hours ago, David Baay said:

Do you have any MIDI I/O devices available/enabled at all in Preferences? If you're not aware of ever having set up loopback, it's unlikely to be relevant. I was just mentioning it as one of the few ways I could imagine getting unexpected messages recorded with no controller connected.

If I'm understanding correctly that you don't use any MIDI input devices, you can set the Input on all your MIDI/Instrument tracks to 'None', disable Always Echo Current MIDI Track in Preferences, and you shouldn't have any further issues. Or, alternatively, you can set all Inputs to CbB's Virtual Controller, and never open it.

 

My MOTO M Series audio interface was set in CW preferences to enable midi out. I turned it off. We'll see what happens. Thanks.

[David Pollock]

6 minutes ago, David Pollock said:

My MOTO M Series audio interface was set in CW preferences to enable midi out. I turned it off. We'll see what happens. Thanks.

I should also have described this which I have only noticed in this one project. Controllers keep appearing in the controller area even when I have deleted them. Then if I click on another track and come back to this one, the controller reappears. It happens most often with the wheel, but also with a few others. What does that mean?

[Promidi]

Do you run any CAL scripts and then, immediately after, do a delete of events? (Using the “delete” button on your PC keyboard)

I know, from actual, experience that that can cause unpredictable results in CbB (including adding CC events in other parts of the project).  In some circumstances immediate deletes after CAL scripts can crash CbB.

In all of my projects, I use heaps of controllers and I have never had MIDI events just appear.  The only MIDI events in my projects are ones I have manually entered with the mouse and CAL scripts. Of course I am extremely careful not to run a CAL then immediately delete.

Has turning off those MIDI outs in the VSTs and the MOTO M make a difference?

[David Pollock]

32 minutes ago, Promidi said:

Do you run any CAL scripts and then, immediately after, do a delete of events? (Using the “delete” button on your PC keyboard)

I know, from actual, experience that that can cause unpredictable results in CbB (including adding CC events in other parts of the project).  In some circumstances immediate deletes after CAL scripts can crash CbB.

In all of my projects, I use heaps of controllers and I have never had MIDI events just appear.  The only MIDI events in my projects are ones I have manually entered with the mouse and CAL scripts. Of course I am extremely careful not to run a CAL then immediately delete.

Has turning off those MIDI outs in the VSTs and the MOTO M make a difference?

I do not run CAL scripts. So far, turning off the MIDI outs and in MOTO have not fixed this last issue of random controllers showing up. I have not had time to test the other issues yet, but I will let you know when I do. Thanks for your help. 

[David Baay]

3 hours ago, David Pollock said:

Controllers keep appearing in the controller area even when I have deleted them. Then if I click on another track and come back to this one, the controller reappears.

Events can be hidden by slip-editing a clip boundary or splitting a clip with Non-destructive MIDI Editing enabled. You won't see the events in any view, but the Contoller Pane will continue to display a lane for them. Bounce to Clip(s) will permanently delete them so the superfluous lanes go away.

[David Pollock]

5 minutes ago, David Baay said:

Events can be hidden by slip-editing a clip boundary or splitting a clip with Non-destructive MIDI Editing enabled. You won't see the events in any view, but the Contoller Pane will continue to display a lane for them. Bounce to Clip(s) will permanently delete them so the superfluous lanes go away.

Hmmm. That one is going to take me a while to process. Thanks.

[Promidi]

One other thought.  Are all MIDI events on a given MIDI track set to the same MIDI Channel.  Are all MIDI tracks set to a specific MIDI channel rather than “none”?

Personally I make sure all MIDI events on a given MIDI track set to the same MIDI Channel. 

I also set all MIDI tracks set to a specific MIDI channel.

I have also configured my Cakewalk so that when I bounce MIDI tracks, all MIDI channels that are in the resultant MIDI clips get re=channelled to the MIDI channel of the track containing those clips. 

One other uncomfortable possibility is that you simply have a corrupt project.

[David Pollock]

15 hours ago, Promidi said:

One other thought.  Are all MIDI events on a given MIDI track set to the same MIDI Channel.  Are all MIDI tracks set to a specific MIDI channel rather than “none”?

Personally I make sure all MIDI events on a given MIDI track set to the same MIDI Channel. 

I also set all MIDI tracks set to a specific MIDI channel.

I have also configured my Cakewalk so that when I bounce MIDI tracks, all MIDI channels that are in the resultant MIDI clips get re=channelled to the MIDI channel of the track containing those clips. 

One other uncomfortable possibility is that you simply have a corrupt project.

Currently, they are set to none, but previously, they were all Omni.  And yes, I had labeled the project as corrupt and likely unsalvageable a while back. But after spending hours on it, I was able to revive it enough to keep working on it. I am painfully close to finishing it. I'm just tweaking here and there. So I plan to just keep at it unless it totally implodes on me. Redoing it would be a huge undertaking.

[David Baay]

2 hours ago, David Pollock said:

Currently, they are set to none, but previously, they were all Omni.

Omni is an Input setting; promidi's talking about the forced Output Channel setting that dynamically overwrites the embedded channel information in each event as it's transmitted. But I don't really think that's relevant to this issue. And I highly doubt the project is actually corrupted. Most often the "corruption" conclusion is just a failure to identify the root cause of unexpected behavior. I don't own anything from EastWEst, but if you can share a track that's misbehaving, and the cause isn't East West itself, I'm sure I can fix it. The crashing issue definitely sounds like it was a problem with EastWest. A quick Google found other reports of Reaper/Studio One/Finale crashing "after 10 minutes" using EastWest Play; sounds like a memory leak.

 

[David Pollock]

3 hours ago, David Baay said:

Omni is an Input setting; promidi's talking about the forced Output Channel setting that dynamically overwrites the embedded channel information in each event as it's transmitted. But I don't really think that's relevant to this issue. And I highly doubt the project is actually corrupted. Most often the "corruption" conclusion is just a failure to identify the root cause of unexpected behavior. I don't own anything from EastWEst, but if you can share a track that's misbehaving, and the cause isn't East West itself, I'm sure I can fix it. The crashing issue definitely sounds like it was a problem with EastWest. A quick Google found other reports of Reaper/Studio One/Finale crashing "after 10 minutes" using EastWest Play; sounds like a memory leak.

 

OK, I'll DM you. But this is my seminal work that will establish my place as a musical legend, so don't share it with the world until it's finished. 

[David Baay]

1 hour ago, David Pollock said:

But this is my seminal work that will establish my place as a musical legend, so don't share it with the world until it's finished. 

Got it. No worries. ;^)