Old 04-07-2017, 03:32 PM   #1
levets
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Default Reaper drops a LOT of MIDI notes

I noticed this early on in my trial period - Reaper would drop a note here and there.

But I've created a file that has 4 tracks playing - Bass line, Kick and Snare, Ride, and Piano.

It's a 12 bar blues. The Bass is playing quarter notes, the Kick is on 1 and the and of 4 and 4, and the Snare is on 2 and 4, the Ride is in straight 8th notes, and the Piano is in 8th notes.

So it's not like it's uber dense or horribly rhythmically complex.

Yet it drops a note almost every time I play back this clip.

It's not in the clip - it happens randomly in different spots, and on different tracks (one time, the kick will drop a note, another time, the piano will drop a note, etc.)

It's not the synth because it has happened with another synth.

I suppose it could be the interface, but I don't know how to check.

The only thing that seems to be consistent is it seems to be on beat 1 that something gets dropped.

It's happened enough today that it's unacceptable, even for $60.00.

I'm going to export the file and try it in Cubase and see what happens.
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Old 04-07-2017, 03:46 PM   #2
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Is this MIDI sent to outboard gear or MIDI sent to VSTs? I've noticed it occasionally with MIDI sent to outboard, I'd also get hung notes from time to time, but adjusting latency settings fixed it to within acceptable margins (I've worked with MIDI since the 80s in a million different scenarios and Reaper's MIDI stability is not really much better or worse than average, but that's just my experience)
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Old 04-07-2017, 04:59 PM   #3
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never had a prob like that ... I wonder what your system is like.

IF reaper did that consistenly, given the vast number of people here using it for very complex MIDI, then the forum would be loaded with such reports...
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Old 04-07-2017, 05:15 PM   #4
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never had a prob like that ... I wonder what your system is like.

IF reaper did that consistenly, given the vast number of people here using it for very complex MIDI, then the forum would be loaded with such reports...
+1.

O.P., could it be that you're demanding more CPU use than your computer can provide? If so, you can freeze tracks to lighten the CPU demand.

By all means, try it in Cubase too; I've compared and always found Cubase to use CPU less efficiently, despite its costing 10 times more than Reaper. Cubase is unacceptable.
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Old 04-07-2017, 06:00 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by run_esc View Post
Is this MIDI sent to outboard gear or MIDI sent to VSTs? I've noticed it occasionally with MIDI sent to outboard, I'd also get hung notes from time to time, but adjusting latency settings fixed it to within acceptable margins (I've worked with MIDI since the 80s in a million different scenarios and Reaper's MIDI stability is not really much better or worse than average, but that's just my experience)
Which way to adjust latency settings - higher or lower?

I get some hung notes too but they're almost always when I'm doing something else like scrolling, zooming, selecting tracks and so on.

But the drop outs occur under just nothing but playback.

It could be CPU usage as others indicate but I'm running pretty lean and even turn off Airport and so on (internet connection and connected hard drives can bog things down).
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Old 04-07-2017, 07:29 PM   #6
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well you have not yet told us the system spec's...

cpu, ram, audio interface

one 'clue' seems to be airport... so I guess this is on a mac?
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Old 04-07-2017, 09:12 PM   #7
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Any midi effects running? I've had issues with a few effects that would erroneously send note off messages within a few midi tics of a note on. They happened so fast that the VSTi didn't have time to respond or ignored the note entry altogether (I.e. Dropped note).
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Old 04-07-2017, 09:24 PM   #8
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What kind of VSTi are you using? That sounds like samples that are not played because the computer don't have time to load them. It used to happen to me quite a bit at small buffer sizes with Kontakt and Vienna before I got a computer with an SSD.
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Old 04-07-2017, 10:37 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by levets View Post
But the drop outs occur under just nothing but playback.
As it's close to impossible that such a simple thing as a midi note "gets lost", we need to find out where exactly in the chain from the disk file to your ear the dropping happens.

E.g.:
You can use ReaControlMidi to monitor Midi events. in the track.

Renderíng to a file would work even if the computer is to slow to do the playback in realtime.

...

-Michael

Last edited by mschnell; 04-09-2017 at 12:39 AM.
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Old 04-07-2017, 11:07 PM   #10
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From an earlier levets post back in January, since he seems a little shy about giving any detail on his system in this thread:

Mac OS 10.6.8
Reaper 5.311/64
Tascam FW 1804

And he had an unanswered post about using a roland keyboard to produce arpeggios at the sdame time, so it looks like he may be using an external synth for at least part of the process?
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Old 04-08-2017, 01:42 AM   #11
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it looks like he may be using an external synth for at least part of the process?
Making it really unlikely that the DAW software introduces the problem.

-Michael
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Old 04-08-2017, 04:53 AM   #12
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You should say exactly which VSTIs you are using.
I tried a lot of the free Piano VSTs and most of them dropped notes on a piece that was played fast.
But that was the VST's fault, not Reaper's.
Some Piano libraries are up to 1Gb - could a large Piano library cause problems on an older computer ?
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Old 04-08-2017, 05:02 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
From an earlier levets post back in January, since he seems a little shy about giving any detail on his system in this thread:

Mac OS 10.6.8
Reaper 5.311/64
Tascam FW 1804

And he had an unanswered post about using a roland keyboard to produce arpeggios at the sdame time, so it looks like he may be using an external synth for at least part of the process?

OIC... thanks ... still we don't know what the hardware system is, ...right?
Is the cpu a 1.4 for example? Is the disk an SSD or a 5400 rpm hitachi?, etc.
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Old 04-08-2017, 05:04 AM   #14
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Yep, for example, Piano One drops some notes, if you play fast.
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Old 04-08-2017, 11:06 AM   #15
levets
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
From an earlier levets post back in January, since he seems a little shy about giving any detail on his system in this thread:

Mac OS 10.6.8
Reaper 5.311/64
Tascam FW 1804

And he had an unanswered post about using a roland keyboard to produce arpeggios at the sdame time, so it looks like he may be using an external synth for at least part of the process?
Yes, this is all correct. It's a late MacBook Pro - one of the last ones that were still able to move beyond 10.6.8 (but I haven't moved it up because other software couldn't be upgraded).

It's going out to a Roland FA-06 or other external synths - no VSTs.

I guess I should try with a VST to see if problem replicates there.

The only effect I've got running is RaaControlMIDI on each of 8 MIDI tracks set up so I can select patches and instruments.
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Old 04-08-2017, 11:11 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell View Post
Making it really unlikely that the DAW software introduces the problem.

-Michael
Can you expand on this please Michael.

I have more experiments I can do - I haven't had a chance to export yet and play in Cubase, but I can do that, and I can save the .mid file and load it directly into the Roland FA-06 and see if it plays back OK.

But again, it's not like I'm playing billions of notes - it's well below the polyphony of the synth and should be well within the threshold of the serial protocol.

I'm running it FW 400 (or possibly 800?) to the Computer from the interface, and standard MIDI cable from the interface to the Roland.

Maybe I'll also plug the Roland directly in the computer over USB and see if it has similar problems - if not, it may be the interface/driver.
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Old 04-08-2017, 12:58 PM   #17
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I use Reaper for live playing Piano with several VSTis to create the Audio. It never misses a midi event.

-Michael
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Old 04-08-2017, 03:49 PM   #18
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Try this:

1. Use ReaControlMIDI to log your MIDI track
2. Route the MIDI from your interface out to your interface in.
3. Use ReaControlMIDI to log the input

You can eliminate your synth as the culprit if the input differs from your output. That is, the problem probably is in your MIDI interface.
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Old 06-06-2018, 01:03 AM   #19
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I had similar problems with big name vstis and apparently solved them by increasing the NUMBER of buffers while keeping the overall buffer size relatively the same.

(ie 4x800 to 32x100)

might be worth a try.
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Old 08-03-2019, 04:46 AM   #20
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I had similar problems with big name vstis and apparently solved them by increasing the NUMBER of buffers while keeping the overall buffer size relatively the same.

(ie 4x800 to 32x100)

might be worth a try.
Sorry to revive old thread, but where is the setting for the NUMBER of buffers? I can't find that anywhere.

I have the same issue suddenly in the last few weeks. Piano One in particular, and even with a simple slow piano solo.

I have a lot of tempo changes if that matters (every bar, matched to a performance).

I think it's a fault with Piano One rather than Reaper. I found two different VSTis of Piano One. The first one I tried would miss the same note every single time I played a particular run of notes, so I ditched that one. But the other one worked. But now it's starting to miss notes in much simpler pieces.

Also, it misses notes when rendering. I can at least understand dropping notes live, although my machine should easily be able to handle it, but rendering? There's no excuse for that. It can take all the time it needs.
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Old 08-03-2019, 05:30 AM   #21
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Sorry to revive old thread, but where is the setting for the NUMBER of buffers? I can't find that anywhere.
I don't think it's available outside the Waveout or Directsound settings, won't be there for ASIO.
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Old 08-03-2019, 03:01 PM   #22
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Number of buffers:
Look in Reaper Preferences -> Audio -> Buffering -> Advanced Disk I/O Options
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Old 08-03-2019, 10:33 PM   #23
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Quote:
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Look in Reaper Preferences -> Audio -> Buffering -> Advanced Disk I/O Options
Ah thanks! I missed the Advanced button while scanning for text fields to type a number into.

However it doesn't help. I tried various values, higher and lower, with the same outcome. Usually there's about 1 note dropped somewhere in my 3 and a half minute piano solo, regardless of these settings.

But also, do buffer settings affect renders? Isn't that only for live playback? It renders at 22x realtime, so it's not exactly stressed.

I even noticed that it dropped the sustain peddle release event one time! So it's not just notes.

Seems like maybe the VSTi is reaching its polyphony limit when it shouldn't be. I have a lot of sustain peddle events, so I wondered if it's something to do with that? But the ons all seem properly matched with offs.

I tried adding a sustain-peddle-release event at the start of my track, and it did one render perfectly from what I could tell, but the next ones were bad again. One somehow had a base note holding on through several subsequent sustain peddle on-off cycles. What's going on? Each render has a different flaw.
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