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iOS MIDI real-time recording issue
I've spent almost all night troubleshooting this issue I've been having recently with real-time recording from any MIDI keyboard controller to any iOS MIDI sequencing app using any MIDI interface (at least all the ones that I own). The simplest test is to disconnect everything. Then connect my microKEY Air through wireless bluetooth to my iPad mini 4 running iOS 10.3.3, start Genome, enable real-time recording and play a few notes. What is actually recorded is not what I played. It adds notes and extends the lengths of some of the notes. Does anybody else have this issue? I don't know what else it could be. Like I said, I've tried several MIDI interfaces with several MIDI controllers (wired ones too) and several iOS MIDI sequencer apps (with and without quantizing) and the results are the same. It's like the iPad has a mind of its own and is embellishing my playing! After performing this test with everything unplugged, It has to be the OS, right?
Thanks,
chisel316
Comments
Could you have got a midi loop, somewhere creating delayed and mixed up note on, off data?
Thanks for the reply. I did suspect this at first. I also thought it could be caused by having the USB power plugged in, so I unplugged everything from the iPad, connected the keyboard through bluetooth and used the built-in synth in Genome. I also disabled all MIDI in/out ports in Genome except the bluetooth keyboard. I don't know what else it could be.
Here's a video demonstration:
What is your audio buffer set at ? A higher number of samples directly affects midi latency. Change it to 128 samples and try again. Also. Disable quantise. What I see in the video looks like auto quantised midi.
There are two options for audio buffer in Genome: low and med. I tried both and neither fix the issue. I don't see any option for enabling/disabling record quantize. Even if it was locked into a quantize mode, I wouldn't expect some notes played staccato to be recorded legato. It's just bizarre.
I'm still having this weird MIDI timing issue when recording in real-time. The latest is with BM3. I got it all setup to control my external synths and was getting excited to finally have an iOS MIDI sequencer that I can use, but when I tried real-time recording from my keyboard, it didn't record exactly what I played. Interestingly, it also missed the first note. I ended up getting out my old, trusty MPC 1000 to take over MIDI sequencer duties until I get this issue sorted out. I still think it's a lower-level iOS issue since it happens with all the apps and hardware that I use.
Was quantise on again ? BeatMaker 3 tends to quantise each notes end as well according to the quantise setting. So it can in fact record a staccato as a legato if you played very fast. Disable it and try again.
Quantize is off and still doesn't record the first note. Actually, I have it locked to two bars and it's putting the first note at the end of the 2nd bar extending the recording into three bars! This should not be happening in 2017. I remember having these kind of issues years ago when I first started using software sequencers, but since then all of them have long been fixed. I'm just going to stick with my rock solid MPC until I can figure this out. Thanks again for your help, though. It's much appreciated.
whats your sample rate at ?
I had this same problem in Genome a few months ago. It seemed like a MIDI loop issue. I'm sorry to say I don't remember what fixed it, but it did sort out eventually. I think I turned off "ECHO" on the General Settings page... or something like that.
My sample rate is 128. I can reproduce this issue with all the MIDI sequencers I own for iOS using all the MIDI controllers I have and all the MIDI interfaces I have including MIDI over bluetooth regardless of what the quantize is set to and what the sample rate is set to. It happens across the board. That's why I think it's a lower level issue. I was hoping it would be as simple as a MIDI loop, but I unplugged everything except for a single MIDI keyboard plugged directly into the iPad through the CCK (watch the video above) and used a built-in sound to remove as many variables as I could. What I don't understand about BM3 is that how come if I lock my recording to two bars, it records into the third bar? How come it's not smart enough to know that if I play the first note a few milliseconds early that it should snap it to the first bar and not add it to the end of the last bar? I have twenty year old hardware sequencers that don't have this issue. Why is it still present in a brand new app? Meanwhile, the MPC plays beautifully with using the iOS apps as sound modules. I setup each instrument in Gadget to receive on a separate MIDI channel and it blends in well with all my hardware synths. Plus, AUM with AU effects makes for a perfect software mixer/effects chain and MIDIFlow does an excellent job at virtually routing all my MIDI data while using the Launch Control XL knobs as a front-end. So, I'll just stick with using the iPad for the mixer/routing/sound module duties and keep the sequencing in hardware where I don't have all these issues. Thanks again for your help. Hopefully one day it will all start working again! Maybe in iOS 11?
Peace \/
chisel316
After months of MIDI issues and gradually migrating to an all-hardware setup, I finally figured out the root cause of all my MIDI glitches and it's definitely disappointing. It's AUM. The only app that I always have running. The heart of my entire setup. I was working in Gadget last night and since I didn't need my hardware synths I exited AUM. Then as time went by, I realized that I wasn't having any MIDI issues. No glitches, no hangs, no stuck notes, no lock ups. So I launched AUM and loaded Gadget as an IAA and within minutes, I started getting MIDI hangs. I have a very complex AUM preset, so it could've been caused by a number of different things at that point. So, I started a new AUM preset with only one track for Gadget and within minutes it started glitching. Now I need to figure out what to do from here.
Do you have Gadget running in simple or advanced midi mode? If simple mode then maybe try switching to advanced, and set Gadget to receive only from one source and channel. Also, are you sending clock to Gadget? If so then try disabling it and relying on link you need Gadget to sync.
Thanks for the reply. I have Gadget in advanced MIDI mode receiving on specific channels that I'm sending from my hardware sequencer. Gadget is in Link mode. I use MIDI link sync to convert MIDI clock to Link. That works very well. I'm trying out other audio mixer apps like BM3 to see if they exhibit the same issues. I haven't had any success with MIDI on the iPad. That's why I ended up getting a hardware sequencer. The iPad is great for looping audio and adding effects, but not very solid for MIDI. At least not for me.
Lots of troubleshooting ahead.
Please report any possible bugs to me! I've never heard of any similar issues with MIDI in AUM so I'm not so sure it's in AUM actually. Are you routing the MIDI thru AUM only, or directly in the other apps? If routed in AUM, did you use virtual midi or direct IAA midi to hosted IAA node(s)? Have you seen the same problem when hosting any other sequencer than Gadget?
Looking at your video, it seems like you're controlling gadget with your MIDI keyboard, and that it does play exactly what you're playing, but then its sequencer is messing up the recording. If that's the case, then how could this possibly be anything else than a bug in Gadget?
@chisel316 You said you use MIDI link sync to convert MIDI clock to Link. Could you try not using midi clock as sync source?
Thanks for all the replies.
@j_liljedahl I'm actually using Genome in that video. i can reproduce this issue with all of my MIDI apps, using all of my MIDI keyboards with more than one MIDI interface. Maybe I was too quick to think that AUM is the issue. It's just that I always have AUM loaded and the other night when I exited it and just had Gadget running standalone, the issue went away. Now that I think about it, I don't think I even had AUM loaded when I made that video with Genome. I was using the internal synth. Please disregard my post. For the record, AUM is the best app I've ever used!
@Korakios Thanks for the suggestion. I can reproduce the issue without using the MIDI clock as the sync source. In the video, I only have a MIDI keyboard plugged directly into the CCK.
@tja I don't think I was using AUM when I made that video with Genome. That's why I think this is an underlying issue with iOS at least on my system. I've since upgraded to 11.0.3 and still have the issue so maybe I should change the title.
I feel that there's something wrong with my iPad that is causing these MIDI timing issues. No matter what app I use to record MIDI, or what keyboard I use to play in the MIDI data, or what MIDI interface I use to attach the keyboard to the iPad, it never records exactly what I play. I've been slowly migrating my setup to all hardware because of this issue. For example, I'm using a Korg microKEY AIR to control my hardware sequencer. I was using Midiflow to route the MIDI from the keyboard to the sequencer because the microKEY is USB only. The keyboard would sporadically stop sending notes for a few seconds and would feel sluggish when playing notes. It was getting really annoying. I thought there was an issue with the keyboard, but then remembered my iOS MIDI timing issue so I bought a Kenton USB MIDI host box to connect the keyboard directly to the sequencer and the problem disappeared. The keyboard is now extremely responsive and there are no dropped notes.
Well, I spent the whole night working on a project in Auria Pro and I didn't have a single MIDI hiccup. I used a hardware MIDI sequencer to sequence my external synths and instruments in Gadget without any issues. As soon as I started working with the same project in AUM, the MIDI drops out sporadically. I'm still not sure what's causing the issue, but it seems to only happen when I have AUM loaded. Unfortunately, I'd prefer to use AUM. I couldn't get any of my AU effects to work as sends in Auria Pro for some strange reason.
@chisel316 I think you should contact @j_liljedahl and give him more details .
Will try tomorrow to verify .
Did you try the simple uninstall/re-install fix for AUM? Sounds like you might be having unique issues with AUM, since @tja could not manage to reproduce the errors, but it seems like you are having AUM problems from what you previously stated.
Will I lose all my saves? I have 30 versions of my mix preset that I've been perfecting for a long time. I'd hate to lose it, but maybe starting from scratch is the answer. Thanks.
Be careful. I had AUM set to iCloud save which should have kept my saves intact, but when I deleted and re-installed AUM, my presets were gone. My recordings were there, but they are probably in the AudioShare save area I am guessing. Hope this saves you from any lost work, I didn't have anything important since I just finally got AUM a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe try asking a more experienced member for advice, or consult the dev @j_liljedahl.
Yep, that did the trick. I deleted AUM and then reinstalled it. I then created my mix preset from scratch including the controller mappings. Then I worked on my latest project which uses hardware and Gadget together. Not a single MIDI drop all night! I'm so happy it's finally working again. Thanks!
Glad you got it sorted! Unfortunately a typical iOS hiccup, I have no explanation of why a re-install would solve the issue.
Regarding the iCloud document save option. I just found this option myself, it's there by mistake! I never asked it to show this option, and iCloud save is not implemented. I must investigate why it choose to show this option, but it's probably because I enabled Files app access to AUMs Documents folder. (that's one way you could backup individual projects by the way, you can also long-press a session in AUM's files menu and export it there).