MIDI Newbie Question

n-Track Studio Discussion Forum
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Quote (ddecjc @ Dec. 07 2005,08:12)
I guess that’s the real question… Do you have to add an instrument channel with an sfz- or sfplay-style plugin to play MIDI in nTrack?

I understand that this is necessary if I want to have a software solution for using soundfonts. The issue is whether or not you can play MIDI without adding instrument channels if I don’t care about using sounds other than what’s already in my sound card. In my case, I am currently unable to do that.

Is anyone else able to play this (or any other MIDI file) directly to through their MIDI device without adding an sfz (or other software-based) instrument channel? Phoo, when you played it, did you do it directly to your MIDI device?
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Is anyone else able to play this (or any other MIDI file) directly to through their MIDI device without adding an sfz (or other software-based) instrument channel? Phoo, when you played it, did you do it directly to your MIDI device?


You don’t need an instrument channel to play a MIDI file. You can load a midi file into n-track and play it back in your soundcard (providing it supports midi).

There seems to be a whole load of confusion with regard to MIDI. This will either help, or make things more confused…


Think of it like this… MIDI is just “electronic sheet music”. To play that sheet music you need an “instrument”.

Generally this “instrument” is one of the following:

a) A Vsti in n-track
b) A MIDI engine (instrument) built into my soundcard
c) An external MIDI device connected to the midi output of the soundcard. (eg a keyboard or drum machine)

In the “old days” it was easy to understand. Computers had very little to do with MIDI. You just connected up real bits of hardware (instruments, hardware sequencers) with MIDI cables and had the “sequencers” play the “instruments” using the “electronic sheet music” called midi.

Then along came computers. Instead of needing a hardware sequencer to play the MIDI file, the PC could act as a sequencer by running software. The MIDI instructions would have to get out of the PC somehow to a real instrument and this is where add-on MIDI cards came in. (Unless like me you had an Atari that had a built-in midi interface).

But, with PCs you needed an add-on card. This is where the term MPU401 came from - the defacto standard MIDI interface card was the Roland MPU-401 MIDIcard (an ISA card) that you could plug into your PC. It didn’t have any sounds built in - it just allowed a PC to be a sequencer and play external hardware MIDI instruments.

Then some clever someone made a soundcard with a MIDI “instrument” built into it. So now the “sequencer” on the PC could play a MIDI file without any additional external hardware. The early ones sounded dreadful as they used synthesised sounds.

Then later came soundcards that used samples or could load collections of samples (“soundfonts” as Creative called them) into them. Better sounds! Anyone remember the AWE32. One of the first cards that could load soundfonts IIRC.

The next generation was VSTi. Software “instruments” that can plug into a host like n-track. Mostly these are able to make a noise on their own (eg a piano VSTi), but there is a special category of VSTis that are soundfont players (eg SFZ). These are just instruments than can load/play a soundfont.

To add further confusion there are products like the “Microsoft Wavetable Software Synth”. These are like “soundcards” built from software. Avoid unless you can’t.

So, fundamentally you need a “sequencer” (eg n-track) to send MIDI commands (“electronic sheet music”), to a MIDI “instrument”. This “instrument” can either be a Vsti, a soundcard that has builtin instruments, or an external real instrument.

When n-track plays a MIDI file it will attempt to send it to whatever “instrument” the track is pointed to. This will either be a Vsti instrument or a MIDI device (configured in the preferences).

That’s enough for now…


Mark
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You state:
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go into Preferences > MIDI Settings and click on the MIDI Devices buttion.
- Then I select “SoundBlaster MIDI Synth” (or whatever it’s called).
- Then I save the settings.


and

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The plugin window appears, and, after a few seconds, without me having to load a soundfont or change any settings in the plugin, the VU meters on the tracks kick in and I hear the file playing.
- When I look back at the track properties, their output is still set to “SoundBlaster MIDI Synth” but the fact that I created the new instrument channel has somehow made them play.
- If I go back and remove the instrument channel, it goes back to not playing.


This is not how you send the output of a midi track to a device. Go to the track you are trying to play. Right click on the track. Go to “output to” and select your midi device from the list. If you have sent your track to a VSTi previously, but have since deleted the track, the track will send to nowhere. As soon as you add another VSTi, whatever it may be, it will send to that. I can tell that you most likely are experiencing this problem because of the fact that you say it plays without having send the output of the track to it, but that it plays automatically. That is indicitave of the situation I just described.

-fish

edit I see that you say the output is set to your midi synth. However, because of what is going on, I still am betting on it being what I described. Let’s bypass n-Track completely. Go to the original midi file if you have it (if not, then “export midi” under the file menu) and play it in Windows Media Player. If it plays on your soundcard, it’s a setting in your n-track file. In this situation, I would save yourself the headache and simply re-import the midi file into a fresh n-track file.
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oh, one more thing.

Microsoft’s “Midi Mapper” confuses things even more. Don’t use it. If you do then the “Midi mapper” device, will send the MIDI to whatever instrument/device the mapper “maps” to. This is changed in the Control Panel.

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Phoo, when you played it, did you do it directly to your MIDI device?

I played it with no problems to every MIDI device on the machine… Microsoft GS Synth, The C-Media MIDI synth on the motherboard, External MIDI out the Layla20 and External MIDI out the Gina24. The External MIDI sound module I have as a Yamaha SX-50 (?).

To play it all I had to do was make sure one of those devices was available by selecting them in n-Tracks MIDI preferences and that the tracks were outputing to the device I wanted.

The only thing I didn’t try was having them all selected in the preferences and sending each track to a different device, at the same time.

MIDI Mapper worked as well but I never use it. There is the potential for confusion and ocassional conflicts when (for example) MIDI Mapper and External Layla20 MIDI can’t be opened at the same time because MIDI Mapper is pointing to External Layla20 MIDI.
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Mark, thank you for the good, concise history lesson. It served to confirm everything I already thought I knew about how it works plus a bunch of history to go with it.

Based on everything you have said, I should have no problem opening nTrack, opening (or importing) a MIDI file, clicking “Play” and hearing the file play. However, in my case, as I have previously described, no sound comes from my speakers as nTrack moves through the timeline unless I first add a sfz or sfplay instrument channel.

At least I am now only confused about WHY my system won’t behave as it should and not about HOW it should be behaving.

If anyone has any ideas on how to try to solve this, I’d appreciate it.

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Quote (theinfamousfish @ Dec. 08 2005,08:47)
Let’s bypass n-Track completely. Go to the original midi file if you have it (if not, then “export midi” under the file menu) and play it in Windows Media Player. If it plays on your soundcard, it’s a setting in your n-track file. In this situation, I would save yourself the headache and simply re-import the midi file into a fresh n-track file.

Fish, I appreciate your time. I CAN play the file in Windows Media Player. I have started afresh in nTrack several times. I have even reinstalled sound card drivers, reinstalled nTrack, and reset nTrack settings to default multiple times. No matter what I do, the MIDI file does NOT play in nTrack (even when the timeline is moving through the song) unless I first insert a sfz or sfplay instrument channel. After I insert the new instrument channel, the file plays just fine even without me having to explicitly set each track to output to that new channel.
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You said the meters on the MIDI tracks don’t show any playback. You need to get the meters showing playback. Without playback there won’t be any sound. THAT is not a device selection problem.

Have you tried moving the volume sliders - clicking the mute and solo buttons - adjust the pan? When the meters show nothing is play nothing is playing.

Is note velocity scaled down in the tracks properties? What abvout the other track properties?

Inserting SFZ should not cause the meters to start working unless something else is is unmuting or SFZ is not responding to mute of MIDI volume, note velocity, or somthing like that. If that is the case you may hear something if SFZ doesn’t respond to velocity.

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The only thing I didn’t try was having them all selected in the preferences and sending each track to a different device, at the same time

Even that would work just fine.
The only thing you cannot do is send one MIDI stream to more than one device.
But you could improvise a work-around for that too, if needed.
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When the meters show nothing is play nothing is playing

Unless the meter is turned off.
Does the (midi-track) meter show anything when you (succesfully) play the track through a VSTi?
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Phoo makes a good point. If there is no action on the vu meters on the MIDI track itself, you won’t get any sound, no matter your MIDI setup. Figuring this out is step one.

If your MIDI meters are moving, you might also check to see if your on-board MIDI device is muted. Just double-click the little speaker in your task bar or click the soundcard mixer button in n-track to open your sound card’s mixer and make sure the SW Synth item is not muted or set to zero volume.

If none of that works and you really want to make sure you don’t have some left-over setting in n-Track that’s causing you problems, just uninstalling and reinstalling the app won’t wipe everything out. There are also keys in the registry (HKCU/Software/n-Track) that point to config files and such, config files in the n-Track installation directory (in Program Files) and an application data directory in Documents and Settings<your username here>\Application Data
-Track Studio that will have to be removed before you reinstall in order to ensure that you’re starting absolutely fresh.

DO NOT remove these items unless you know what you are doing. You will lose all of your n-Track settings and may have to re-enter your registration codes. If you touch anything else in these locations, you could cause significant harm to other software on your computer.

Before you go to that trouble, though, you really should figure out why your vu meters aren’t dancing as phoo suggests. I saw this question asked earlier in this thread, but I didn’t see a clear response.

James

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Quote (phoo @ Dec. 08 2005,10:59)
You said the meters on the MIDI tracks don’t show any playback. You need to get the meters showing playback. Without playback there won’t be any sound. THAT is not a device selection problem.

Have you tried moving the volume sliders - clicking the mute and solo buttons - adjust the pan? When the meters show nothing is play nothing is playing.

Is note velocity scaled down in the tracks properties? What abvout the other track properties?

Inserting SFZ should not cause the meters to start working unless something else is is unmuting or SFZ is not responding to mute of MIDI volume, note velocity, or somthing like that. If that is the case you may hear something if SFZ doesn’t respond to velocity.

I’ve done everything I can think of to figure this out, and I don’t know why they’re not moving. Nothing is muted in nTrack or in the Windows sound settings. I have tried massing with all the controls in the track mixer. No matter what I do, playing a MIDI file results in no VU meter activity (even though nTrack is moving through the timeline) until I add the sfz instrument channel. I went into the track properties for several of the tracks, and tried playing with stuff there, but no luck. Here is what the properties dialog looks like by default when I first open it:



I tried setting the Velocity+ setting to +127. I tried 0-General MIDI in the Bank setting. I tried every different setting in the Bank sel. method. Nothing I do seems to change it. As mentioned before, I tried all the different devices in my MIDI settings dialog.

And here’s another strange discovery… If I open a brand new nTrack file, add a blank MIDI channel, open piano roll, I can click on the piano keys on the left and hear all the notes, but, if I place any events on the roll and then try to play them back, most of the time I get nothing. Sometimes I hear the first note and then nothing after that. But the strange thing is that I hear the notes just fine when clicking on the piano keys real-time in the piano roll window.

I don’t know what else to try…
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Another thought:
It may possibly be so that you cannot use the Creative Synth at the same time you are using the Creative soundcard as output device for n-Track.
This could explain why you can play a MIDI file through Media Player just fine, while it won’t work with n-Track: n-Track and the synth are trying to use the same door to the analog world.

Some things to try:
- Play a MIDI-file with Media Player through the Creative Synth.
- Start n-Track while the file is playing. Do you get an error message saying n-Track couldn’t open an output device?
- If you didn’t get an error message, try playing a wav file with n-Track (through the Creative Soundcard) while the MIDI-file is still playing in Media player. What happens?
- Do you have some on-board audio on your system? If so, try selecting this interface in the n-Track Audio devices dialog (and de-select the Creative card). Try playing back your project now (Media Player is closed again). Does this work?

From your screenshot I noticed that there isn’t any vu-meter enabled and on screen that could tell you whether your midi track is playing anything or not.
Right-click the far left text label of your MIDI-track and select “Select left track bar elements”. Select “vu meter” from the pop up dialog.
Next play your project and see if the meter shows anything or not.

Right, that’ll keep you busy for a while :)
Let us know your findings. Good luck!

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Quote (hansje @ Dec. 09 2005,05:56)
From your screenshot I noticed that there isn’t any vu-meter enabled and on screen that could tell you whether your midi track is playing anything or not.
Right-click the far left text label of your MIDI-track and select “Select left track bar elements”. Select “vu meter” from the pop up dialog.
Next play your project and see if the meter shows anything or not.

I have just recently removed the per-track VU meters to save CPU cycles. However, I always bring up the track mixer window to verify meter activity when testing this whole MIDI issue, and I will continue to do so as I test the scenarios you outlined in the rest of your message. I’m almost certain that I have had the same problem when testing with all other available MIDI devices (not just the Creative Synth), but I will test the scenarios you suggested tonight when I get home just to be sure.

Thanks.
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Just looking at that picture, if I’m right you’ve got some midi volume evolutions going on there. I’m just wondering if that has something to do with the problem.

I used to have similar problem a while back. IIRC playing back a midi track with a volume evolution would cause the volume of my drum machine to reduce (to zero if the evolution went to zero). n-track sends a controller command to reduce the volume - it doesn’t reduce the volume by reducing the velocity in the NOTE ON command.

In my case, having played the track once the volume in my drum machine ended up at zero and subsequent playbacks would result in no sound regardless of the velocity in the NOTE ON command.

I’m not sure if it was a bug in my drum machine or in n-track.

Maybe this is related somehow.


Mark

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FYI…
i imported your midi file into ntrack 3.3 and it played right away through my soundcard synth (MS wavetable).
implication: file as is = ok

cliff

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Quote (Mark A @ Dec. 09 2005,08:07)
Just looking at that picture, if I'm right you've got some midi volume evolutions going on there. I'm just wondering if that has something to do with the problem.

I used to have similar problem a while back. IIRC playing back a midi track with a volume evolution would cause the volume of my drum machine to reduce (to zero if the evolution went to zero). n-track sends a controller command to reduce the volume - it doesn't reduce the volume by reducing the velocity in the NOTE ON command.

In my case, having played the track once the volume in my drum machine ended up at zero and subsequent playbacks would result in no sound regardless of the velocity in the NOTE ON command.

I'm not sure if it was a bug in my drum machine or in n-track.

Maybe this is related somehow.


Mark

Hmmm.... interesting concept. How did you end up resolving your problem?
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Just looking at that picture, if I’m right you’ve got some midi volume evolutions going on there. I’m just wondering if that has something to do with the problem.

Maybe that has something to do with Dave’s problem.
n-Tracks behaviour with volume evolutions in MIDI tracks is a bit off anyway.
If e.g. you use a volume evolution to reduce the volume in a MIDI track, this will not show in the track’s vu meter (which will still reflect the note’s original velocity), whereas in an audio track the vu meter reading does reflect the volume evolutions.
So you could have a muted midi track that still shows full volume on the vu.
But Dave’s problem is just the opposite of that, isn’t it?
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I just checked the issue Mark was referring to, but that one is solved (at least in v4.1) as n-Track sends the correct controller (#7) and value first thing when starting playback.

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Quote (hansje @ Dec. 09 2005,08:47)
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Just looking at that picture, if I’m right you’ve got some midi volume evolutions going on there. I’m just wondering if that has something to do with the problem.

Maybe that has something to do with Dave’s problem.
n-Tracks behaviour with volume evolutions in MIDI tracks is a bit off anyway.
If e.g. you use a volume evolution to reduce the volume in a MIDI track, this will not show in the track’s vu meter (which will still reflect the note’s original velocity), whereas in an audio track the vu meter reading does reflect the volume evolutions.
So you could have a muted midi track that still shows full volume on the vu.
But Dave’s problem is just the opposite of that, isn’t it?

You are correct. My problem is the opposite. There is MIDI data in several tracks and no muting that I can locate anywhere, but there is no VU meter activity. And, as I mentioned in a recent post, this behavior occurs also when I try to create my own MIDI tracks in a new file by manually placing events on the piano roll. However, as I also noted previously, I can hear the notes fine when I am clicking real-time on the piano keys in the piano roll. It’s only an issue when I try to play back MIDI data that exists in one or more tracks.