Midi routing to what ever instrument track is selected (??)

[Scott Kendrick]

I don't even know how to describe the problem properly, it's so strange. Let me start by saying I lost my hard drive so I had to rebuild my entire setup from scratch. Best I can tell everything is back in place where it should be but I'm having a weird issue with one of the projects I was working on.  I have multiple drum instruments (different tracks), synths, etc. I have a drum machine loop, then I've got real drums playing through Superior Drummer 3. Both on totally separate tracks, each has a totally different midi track that drives it. If I have the drum machine track selected in track view, everything plays fine. But while it's playing, if I just go and select the superior drummer track, for some reason the midi from the drum machine now starts playing through superior drummer. I didn't change inputs our outputs or anything... just highlighted the track. It doesn't only happen with the SD3 track. If I select other synth midi tracks in track view - same weirdness. 

Any ideas what might be happening here? Some wires getting crossed somewhere, maybe a setting associated with track view? Really strange.

Any help greatly appreciated

[scook]

When MIDI data shows up unexpectedly on a track it is often due to the track having its input set to "All Inputs > Omni" and "Enable MIDI Output" selected on a plug-in driven by another track.

By default, synth plug-ins capable of sending MIDI data have "Enable MIDI Output" selected.

The "Enable MIDI Output" option is found in the VST2/3 drop down in the plug-in standard header

and in the Insert Soft Synth Options dialog.

 

 

[Scott Kendrick]

Thanks for the quick reply - I'll take a look at that, but I think it might have been "Auto Thru" that caused it. I've never seen it, not sure I understand it but Auto Thru was enabled on most/all the midi tracks. Not sure why you'd use that. Does it make sense Auto Thru could cause this behavior and when might one use that?

[scook]

Prior to 2021.01, having input echo set to None and Always Echo Current MIDI Track and the plug-ins with "Enable MIDI Output" selected was even more of a problem. 

Starting with 2021.01, if there are any plug-ins with "Enable MIDI Output" selected instead in the project of automatically switching MIDI and instrument tracks to "All Inputs > Omni" the input "All External Inputs > MIDI Omni" is selected. 

Input echo on its own does not cause the problem, it depends on the input setting. Input echo simply causes whatever data is at the track input to be played as if it were a MIDI clip in the track. 

[Scott Kendrick]

This cropped up again so it caused me to revisit in.  If I have an instrument driven by midi, what should the Input be for the midi track? What I found is several of my instruments has a particular instrument as their input on the midi track causing these unexpected notes to play. If I set the input to None it seems to solve the issue, but is that the right thing. 

[John Vere]

Yes. Input is generally going to be a hardware connection. You would only need input to record new midi data from hardware or the virtual keyboard. Or you could be inputting from a sequencer or drum machine. 

Last option is to internally patch the output of another instrument. 

Most cases the instrument or midi track is best set on None. 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Cactus Music

[Scott Kendrick]

This is really troubling.. my project keeps reverting inputs back to All External, and it does it while or before exporting audio, so this random cymbal crashes and other instruments playing when they're not supposed to... I go through each instrument, set midi input to none, and just keeps happening. I will delete a couple instrument files that I'm not using and see if it helps.. seems like some kind of bug or maybe a corrupt file or something but right now I can't finish my project.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Scott Kendrick

[John Vere]

So have you tried disabling midi outputs on all your VST’s?  
That’s the only way any stray midi data would find it’s way back into a project. 
I personally have never had this happen and I’m not sure about the inputs reverting to all but there was talk of this before so you might be right about a bug. 
Possibly the reason I’ve never had a Midi Loopback is all my Midi Outputs in preferences are always disabled. 
And I don’t think any of the synths I use have Midi outputs enabled. 
 

[David Baay]

13 hours ago, Scott Kendrick said:

I go through each instrument, set midi input to none, and just keeps happening.

If you have Always Echo Current MIDI Track enabled n preferences, you can't permanently set track inputs to None. CW will automatically set a focused track to All Inputs - Omni because it can't 'Always Echo' nothing.

The preferred approach is to set the track inputs to a hardware MIDI controller port so there will be nothing to echo when you're not actually performing on the controller.  If you don't have a physical MIDI Input from a controller that's always available, you can set them to the Virtual Controller.

If all else fails, disable Always Echo... and manually enable MIDI Input Echo only when needed. I typically take the belt an suspenders approach, and do both - assign specific input port (and channel) to every MIDI/Instrument track and disable Always Echo.

[Scott Kendrick]

Thanks for both these suggestions - I will run through each track again, and try the suggested settings. While the Inputs continue to revert, after restarting, I have been able to get successful outputs from my project with out the random instruments playing. In part this may be because I've frozen a few of the midi instruments.