Drum module weirdness

[Danny]

Hi everyone,

 

Was curious if anyone else has ever experienced this? I play a drum track using V-Drums. It doesn't matter what drum module I use. BFD, EZD2, Superior, AD etc. Anytime there is a choked cymbal in my project, after about 3 rewinds working inside the project, the cymbal that was choked will remain choked on every hit from the start of the project, and the ride cymbal will be sort of choked off as well. The weird thing is, all I have to do is close the project and reopen and it will work fine for another 3 plays or so. (it happens in all versions of Cake/Sonar Plat etc)

 

I'm thinking it's some sort of midi event somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't seem to figure this one out. I've tried higher and lower midi playback buffers, as well as "Zero controllers when play stops" off and on. I don't know what to do as this is driving me insane with the project I'm currently working on. Any suggestions as to how I may go about fixing this? Thanks in advance.

[RBH]

This is a very wild guess - but what are your drum note durations ? I had an issue a number of years ago where NI's Battery would occasionally hang when drum note durations were very short. I typically increase there lengths to at least 40 - 50 ticks and it solved that issue. This was with an older XP computer and a dual core - so the scenario might be  complete nonsense  for your situation. But - I can't stand editing notes that are super short in duration in PRV anyways. I use conventional ? midi note editing  - not the diamond drum note symbols.

[Blades]

I think that the vdrums send a polyphonic after-touch midi event for a choke.  I'm not using the Roland brain to send data any more - now using Mimic Pro, which sends choke as a midi note number, but I'm pretty sure that's how it worked on Roland modules.  So I think that is what you need to be looking for in your midi stream.  My guess is that there is no "off" being sent - like maybe you are somehow stopping it in the middle of a choke.  Seems really unlikely, but might be acting like a stuck sustain pedal for a keyboard that would only release once it is pressed and released again.  Flipping the bit is what I call it in many things IT/Web.

Does that help at all?

 

 

[John Nelson]

Try changing up the Key Map if you're in BFD.  IME sometimes the Roland set that you are using might work best with another Key Map.

[RBH]

I think Poly AfterTouch is switched off as default on midi record. Maybe check to see if that's how roland controls chokes.

[Danny]

Thank you all for the replies and suggestions. Two things I have figured out so far.

 

1. The choked note IS a midi note of one of the cymbals. I've not tried deleting it to see if the problem goes away, but will try that just to see.

2. It only happens if I stop the project in between and work on different sections. As long as I press play and let it go from start to finish, the issue never happens. As soon as I  set up a loop to work on back up vocals or something, the cymbals will stay choked eventually and even if I remove the loop mode, rewind and start from the top, the notes are muted. It's only one of the crash cymbals and the ride. What the ride has to do with it, I have no idea...other than it's a 3 way ride with bell, edge and bow. Whatever is happening, it seems to disrupt it when you stop in the middle of the song and work on isolated areas.

 

I've messed with all the CC numbers as well as looked in event viewer to see if anything is weird. I remember Willy Jones from Cakewalk once helped me with a client project that had weirdness in it where he made adjustments in the midi filtering options? It's been so long ago, I don't even know how or where to do that. Does that ring any bells?

 

In the meantime, I'll look into the other things you guys have mentioned. If anything I've posted above gives you guys any more ideas, I'm all ears. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply.
 

-Danny

[scook]

14 minutes ago, Danny Danzi said:

2. It only happens if I stop the project in between and work on different sections. As long as I press play and let it go from start to finish, the issue never happens. As soon as I  set up a loop to work on back up vocals or something, the cymbals will stay choked eventually and even if I remove the loop mode, rewind and start from the top, the notes are muted. It's only one of the crash cymbals and the ride. What the ride has to do with it, I have no idea...other than it's a 3 way ride with bell, edge and bow. Whatever is happening, it seems to disrupt it when you stop in the middle of the song and work on isolated areas.

Have you played around with the MIDI Event Chase settings?

[Danny]

5 hours ago, scook said:

Have you played around with the MIDI Event Chase settings?

I have, but I'd be lying to you if I told you I knew what to touch on that. LOL! Here's an update of another symptom.

Ok, I mentioned once the project drops the midi cymbals that I have to reopen to make it stop. That is not the case. So here's the scenario..

 

I'm working in a project and stop and start a few times somewhere in the middle. The cymbals drop out. However, if I just take the time line and move it to the end of the project (like say the last 4 measures) and press play while allowing the project to finish and stop, upon rewinding, all the cymbals are back. Weird!

 

RBH: drum note durations are exactly a 16th note long other than some of my really fast ghost note trips on my kick and snare. All the other notes are the same even on cymbals.

-Danny

Edited January 30, 2019 by Danny Danzi
Spelling