Bank select causes play not to work

[Tinman]

I originally posted something under 'Drag move no playback' but this was not the cause. After a lot of fiddling around I found out that it is one of the synths I have connected that causes the fault.

The problem is that when I select a bank/patch in the far left MIDI  pane, the playback will not run. It hits one note then stops. Sometimes if I go to edit preferences, hit apply then close, it will work but not all the time. If I change the synth and do the same it usually works. However if I don't touch the MIDI pane and I put a bank/patch change in the track itself, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

The offending synth is an Arturia MatrixBrute connected via USB, which is the only synth that requires a bank select via controller 0

If this helps, the system I am using is :- Windows 10, 8G RAM, Soundblaster Audigy2 soundcard.

Devices connected :- Roland HP2700 piano (via the Audigy's MIDI), MOTU Express 128, Casio VZ1 and CZ101, Siel EX80, Yamaha TG55 and YS200, Roland D110, KAWAI K1, Ensoniq ESQ1 and the USB Arturia. None of the other synths cause this problem.

I'd love to know if I'm doing something wrong here with setting the Arturia up in Sonar, or whether its a quirk of the synth itself.

Any help would be greatly appreciated  

[David Baay]

16 minutes ago, Tinman said:

I'd love to know if I'm doing something wrong here with setting the Arturia up in Sonar, or whether its a quirk of the synth itself.

So you have an Instrument Definition for the Arturia assigned it to the hardware port with the Bank Select Method in the defininition is set to Controller 0 Only?  The only thing I can think is possibly Sonar is sending the Bank and Patch messages too quickly in succession for the Arturia to respond properly. What if you set only Bank from the track widget, leaving Patch set to None, and do the program/patch change in the track? Maybe try to confirm what's actually being sent using MIDI-OX or similar 3rd-party utility.

[Tinman]

David

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately neither MIDI OX or Pocket midi will open the usb port. However if I put a bank/patch change anywhere BUT 1.000 it works. If the patch is at the very beginning it stops working

[Tinman]

2 hours ago, Tinman said:

David

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately neither MIDI OX or Pocket midi will open the usb port. However if I put a bank/patch change anywhere BUT 1.000 it works. If the patch is at the very beginning it stops working

I 'think' I might have solved the problem. I forgot to mention the Arturia was plugged into a multi USB extension. I turned off all devices on it except the mouse and MOTU interface. Tried a couple of bank/patch and it appears to work albeit with a delay due to the Arturias non-instant patch change. Could it be as simple as too many USB devices on??

[Amberwolf]

There are some devices that simply don't work well on USB hubs, and have to be connected directly to a usb port on the host device to correctly function.   

Sometimes unplugging everyting else from a hub will make such a device work correctly, but sometimes the hub itself interferes.

Can be a timing issue, or a data buffering issue, etc.  For bus-powered devices without their own non-usb power source, it can just be insufficinet current available from the hub. 

Edited Sunday at 09:25 PM by Amberwolf

[Tinman]

22 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

There are some devices that simply don't work well on USB hubs, and have to be connected directly to a usb port on the host device to correctly function.   

Sometimes unplugging everyting else from a hub will make such a device work correctly, but sometimes the hub itself interferes.

Can be a timing issue, or a data buffering issue, etc.  For bus-powered devices without their own non-usb power source, it can just be insufficinet current available from the hub. 

Amberwolf,

Thanks for that little insight that I was totally not aware of. It now seems to work ok with only the mouse MOTU interface and the Arturia. What eventually pointed me in that direction was the fact that when it did it, I noticed that the output displays on the MOTU went lit sequentially from 1-8 and the I/O indicator dimmed. I am finding the Arturia has a few quirks. A big one is that if you connect the 5 pin DIN MIDI connectors it REALLY doesn`t like the MIDI. If you do a bank/patch via this method, it does something very odd - the OLED display that shows the custom mod routes reverts to an intialized voice and other things get weird. That could be the MOTU causing that. Also if you have MIDI and the USB port set (which you can do), everything locks up and crashes including the synth! Still a steep learning curve for me as its my first synth with a patchboard. Brute is the very apt name for this synth 🤣🤣.

Thanks again for the reply. Thanks as well to Jackson Sun but unfortunately your reply doesn't show up, and thanks as well to David Baay

 

[Amberwolf]

2 hours ago, Tinman said:

 What eventually pointed me in that direction was the fact that when it did it, I noticed that the output displays on the MOTU went lit sequentially from 1-8 and the I/O indicator dimmed.

That could mean the MOTU isn't getting enough power from the bus.  Does it have it's own wall-ac-outlet connection for power?  Or just the USB cable to power it?

 

2 hours ago, Tinman said:

I am finding the Arturia has a few quirks. A big one is that if you connect the 5 pin DIN MIDI connectors it REALLY doesn`t like the MIDI.

If you mean connecting those *plus* the USB via MIDI, that's not uncommon--devices with both options often can't have both connected, at least not to the same host, and if both are connected, sometimes both can't be used.  You'd have to check it's manual to be sure if tha'ts a problem with this one or not.   

 

Sometimes using both means the same data gets sent or received on both, and the buffers in the device or the host can't handle it.   

 

2 hours ago, Tinman said:

. Thanks as well to Jackson Sun but unfortunately your reply doesn't show up,

AFAICT they are an AI spambot.  There are a lot of those; they may or may not actually post spam links, but they fill forums and other sites with AI-generated garbage that sometimes looks relevant but doesn't say anything useful.  It's usually at best a summary of things already stated on the page they post on.  

[Amberwolf]

Wierd, it says my post must be approved by a moderator?  (but this one doesn't?)

 

No attachments, no links, no brand names other than those already quoted from the OP, so...dunno? 

Edited 21 hours ago by Amberwolf

[Bristol_Jonesey]

7 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

Wierd, it says my post must be approved by a moderator?  (but this one doesn't?)

 

No attachments, no links, no brand names other than those already quoted from the OP, so...dunno? 

That happened to me back in the summer.  It only ever happened the once.

[Tinman]

20 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

Wierd, it says my post must be approved by a moderator?  (but this one doesn't?)

 

No attachments, no links, no brand names other than those already quoted from the OP, so...dunno? 

It did that on my last post. To answer your question Amberwolf, the MOTU is USB powered only no provision for ac at all, so maybe with 8 synths connected via both in and out its maybe on its limit. I have transferred the Arturia to a single USB port on the computer, and will continue to test things out. Yes the Arturia can have BOTH MIDI and USB connected at the same time, but when I tried using it via the MOTU and weird things happened, the USB was disconnected. Why you would ever want or need USB + MIDI I don't know, but the Arturia will only connect to to its MIDI control software via USB as far as I have found out.

If anyone out there owns or has had a MatrixBrute, any tips or tricks on using it would be great. As I mentioned very steep learning curve as I am more used to synths with a small LCD/LED display and suitable software to make editing easier. I do own one truly analogue synth from 1982, but I ran out of audio inputs so its sitting idle for the time being.

Thanks again all for the tips and pointers to my problem 😁