Phantom midi playing

[David Pollock]

You'll see in this screenshot that there is no midi on this first track--and neither do I see any events in the event viewer--and yet this instrument is playing at this point in the project. Soloing and muting verifies it is this track. I think I did have something there at one point, but I deleted it. The only way to avoid it at this point is to mute the track, but I would like to delete it completely. What's going on here??

[57Gregy]

Ensure that all tracks are using different channels?

[scook]

Often unexpected MIDI playback is the result of a plug-in with "Enable MIDI Output" selected on one or more tracks  and the input on the track with the mystery playback set to "All Inputs - Omni"

By default, synth plug-ins capable of sending MIDI data have "Enable MIDI Output" selected. This setting is on the VST drop down in the plug-in standard header.

Deselecting "Enable MIDI Output" when not needed and avoiding "All Inputs" input settings fixes this problem.

[bitflipper]

"Soloing and muting verifies it is this track."

Are you saying that the empty portion produces an output even when it is soloed? If so, is this a separate instrument or one of several tracks routed to a common multi-timbral instrument, e.g. Kontakt with more than one instrument loaded? Can you correlate the phantom notes to any notes in any other track?

It would help if we had more information about the project, what instruments are being used, and how the routing is set up. Whenever I've confronted such mysteries, it's always turned out to be a routing problem. That can include how MIDI tracks are routed to synths, how audio is routed internally within a multi-timbral synth, or inconsistent MIDI channel assignments. Symptoms can be varied and weird, e.g. the wrong voice sounding, a silent instrument, keyswitches or CCs being ignored.

[David Pollock]

Thanks all. It is an input issue, I think.  Input was set to All inputs instead of my particular midi controller. As I discovered, when any track with all inputs is selected, it picks up input from somewhere; where exactly I don't understand since it is not playing every midi note from every other track. So that's still a mystery to me. I also felt fairly sure I had all tracks set for my midi control omni input, and that seems to have changed. But in any case, I solved it for now though I would love to understand this better if someone feels compelled to educate me. 

[Jim Fogle]

@David Pollock,

Select a track.  Open the Track Inspector view.   Select the MIDI tab.  The track MIDI inputs and outputs are located in the bottom, left section labeled In/Out.  They can be viewed and changed from this location.

You likely find one track where the input or output are not set as you desire.

[David Pollock]

Thanks Jim, but that's what I was looking at when I found the All Inputs setting. I still don't understand what happened nor why an All Input channel would be receiving input from just some other tracks but not all.