You only need these modules and midi cable and the silentway plugin that unfortunately costs something :-(
The plugin coast €67.00 and you need ilok account no Dongle

 

Ha ok,the plugin is not free either!
Ok so 349€ +67€...
I already have iLok account,it's actually not a problem for me.

 

Unfortunately, the one month ago switched to ilok, so it is a bit expensive :-( I also think that the plugins also shit costs

 

Yes I suggested the USAMO in my first post.Do you know this thing,you use it??
My problem is that I want something that sync without midi jitter my hardware synths and is able to send midi notes and midi cc messages from Studio One.

 

Hi @Blue

This jitter problem you have.
when you tested did you record a repeating note pattern being sent from your daw to ONE of your synths then compare the deviation of the notes to its self?
ie slice the repeating pattern into equal parts and stack them in you arrange window and see something like this.


or where you comparing the deviation of all 3 synths to each other?

This is quite an important question as if you where comparing the synths to each other then that's not jitter
there for the problem that your dealing with is the latency of the midi controllers on each synth.
that problem is as old as midi as most synths have different latency.
this usually can be compensated with using track delay ect.. what ever its called in your daw and setting a template for your synths.

as for the USAMO the comment of "sample-accurately synced with your audio"
that may be true if your working with mono phonic synths but its false if you bring polyphony into the equation.
as any thing that uses midi on a single cable can NOT PLAY 2 NOTES AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME.

before there was sample accurate timing in soft synths if you had a double in your midi sequence say on a kick or a snare you would hear a flanging on that one hit but when sample accurate timing came along you also had to listen out for a volume increase.

this is because midi is a serial interface and it can not send 2 notes at the same time there sent one after each other.
also if you throw a lot of cc automation or NRPN data then your really going to kill the bandwidth.

due to this limitation that is part of the reason that midi channel 10 has note priority as people where expected to us that for drums for better timing and also if you where using a multitimbral synth it has priority over not stealing as if your kick misses a beat it is classed as being more noticeable than other instruments missing a note.

but if you have a multi port midi interface you can get 2 synths on separate cables to play notes at exactly the same time but this is down to the synths having the same latency in there midi hardware.

also daisy chaining several devices off one midi port introduces latency and that again is dependent on the synth that it is daisy chained off and cable lengths.


hiphop producers use to swear buy the groove that the mpc imparted on there music and part of that was the groove quantitation and part the fact that when they say placed a kick and a hat on the same beat ti didn't actual play at the exact same time.
which was a technique mentioned to me by some drummer one time.

due to most of this over time like a lot of old dnb producers i moved to working with audio in the arrange window of my daw for anything time critical or using software synths and samplers that where sample accurate.

hope this is useful and sorry for the long rambling and bad spelling.

 

My Alyseum AL-88c (midi to ethernet) midi interfaces seem to do the job well enough at non extreme tempos, while using COPPERLAN for custom routing. I use 1 midi device per each in/out (no daisy chaining), and it leaves the USB protocol out of the equation.

 

If I use my esxpert sleepers I can even play poly I still have a virus ti that only runs on midi connected to the expert slepers and all the chords etc arrive with the expert sleepers It solution works for me and that is the most important: - )

 

i didn't say you cant play poly i said you cant have 2 notes play at EXACTLY the same time.

meaning that the the synth gets 2 or more note on messages at EXACTLY the same time as there are sent one after the other.

that's just how midi works
its a serial interface not parallel you cant turn a switch on and off at the same time no mater how fast you do it.

midi has a maximum transmission rate of 3125 bytes per second

you need 3 bytes for a note on message
byte 1: noteon/channel number
byte 2: note number
byte 3: velocity

just sending note on messages there will be a delay of approx 0.96 Millisecond

haas effect states sounds with delays below 5 Milliseconds are perceived as one sound.

you can test it your self make a patch on the virus that as a strong transient and the duplicate it on to another channel part
set one to left out put only and the other to right.
send the same midi note on the two midi channels for the parts.
record audio, look at the left and right channels of the recorded audio.
one will be slightly delayed to the other.
also midi channel message uses the same number of bits regardless so the change in the midi channel is irrelevant.

 

Last edited: Sep 2, 2019

What I can do is that I use the virus via normal midi and the Microbrute all about the Expert Sleepers module at the same time it must be mentioned that every Midi device gets its own Midi channel which can also be set in the hardware as well as in the plugin. In the plugin you can then also separately swing and delay set. Which also works with the E-RM

 

im glad your happy with your setup.
but my post was not directed at you or questioning what you can do.

it was merely to state a few points/facts about midi and to gather some information from Blue as to his problem.
as when you start talking about jitter you have to go down to a granulized realm and be quite precise about what the person is experiencing and relating in there information.

if you go on gearslutz there is a mirrid of posts from people talking about midi jitter and a lot will state wonderful boxes to cure it.
when all the person needed was to turn system time stamp on in there daw settings and it was not midi jitter a all.

i only mentioned the USAMO has it uses marketing hype of sample accurate timing.
i also mentioned using track delay in daw as a reference to the e-rm multiclock and what its doing.

im sorry if you felt my post was an attack on you and your chosen gear.

 

Oh I did not want it to work as I felt attacked ... I just wanted to show how I do it because I've thought that we write past each other Many just know the E-rm and wanted to show my way do

 

I guess I'll start doing my own jitter measurements soon, on Win, Mac, iOS and some hardware sequencers (Rm1x, XP80, Triton, K2500).
I'm really curious about the results, given that a current iPad plus sequencer software is about the same price as these insane hardware workarounds. Latency caused by the MIDI protocol (several milliseconds) is one thing but jitter and unreliable timing is unbearable.

This problem is stone-old however.
Roland for example has a history of equipping their multi-timbral synths with weak CPUs and the more notes you add, the more delay between notes you get - far more audible than the delay imposed by the serial MIDI protocol itself, offering a usable polyphony that is usually much lower than the promised 64 or 128 notes.
So even with a perfect MIDI timing you would get jitter in the audio.

 

Yes I did that.I sent one midi event of some notes,duplicated i.e 8 times,to ONE of my synths.I recorded the audio.Since then I compared the timing difference on the grid between the midi notes and the recorded audio.

I noted that,the 3 synths are never equally delayed if i record one same midi event.But as you say,this problem is another question,it's no jitter related.

Thanks for your clarifications about midi restrictions,you're helpful.I didn't know that.

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2019

And if you record in audio some midi notes sent from your DAW via the Expert Sleepers,is the audio recorded "sample-acurate" as they claim on their website ?

 

hay Blue could you make a quick project with the synth you think is the worst culprit with a few bars recorded for me to have a look at if you dont mind.

also you say your sample buffer is at 48 on the rme ucx ?
i thought lowest setting on that was 64 samples.

 

also @Blue have you tried enabling or disabling DirectMusic MIDI under global setting on your rme ucx.

as under studio one i don't see any options to enable use system timestamp which can greatly help usb midi devices.

if you record midi from any of the synths dose it clump up.


just found it "Ignore MIDI timestamps (use system clock instead)"have you got that ticked under advanced otions
audio tab

at the bottom

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2019

So the midi sample is sent out exactly to your hardware synths! What's stopping the recording of latency from the audio buffer but that is so small important is that it sounds Tigth and it does so definitive!

 

We also like to do a Skype / Teamviewer Anydesk session then I'll show you that!

 

Its minimum buffer is 48 samples .

You're talking about the "WDM" option?I've tried to set "0" but it doesn't improve anything.Most of time I set "0" instead of "1" like on this screenshot above.

Yes I've tried do enable or disable this option but no noticeable improvement unfortunately.

Look these few notes I've recorded for you:


When zoomed out like on this picture you just see the latency,but have a look when zoomed to sample resolution:

Here the fist midi note is aligned with the audio because I've moved the 1 bar audio clip.

But if I align the first midi note,look at the second midi note:

I show you on the screenshot where the audio should be on the grid (arrow on the right).
And in this little demo the jitter is not strong because I have just one midi track and one audio track.In my projects with 30 tracks or more the jitter is way more pronouced,sometimes more than 120 samples between few notes in one bar.It's too much and audible.

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2019

EXACTLY . In fact, in past I wanted to test my SY99 to see if there was a priviledged hardware connection with its internal oscillators, setting highest polyphony (it seems to me it was 16), and pushing with my forearm the keyboard.
What I got was a perfect GLISSANDO, not a chord of any sort, the evidence that was just a master keyboard sending midi to its internal voices.
Moreover, the midi card was detecting a constant flow of bytes even if nothing was acting. I discovered it was the Active sense, basically a useless check that midi devices are connected.

I found midi latency + os latency a problem while playing virtual pianos live, I'll probably open a new thread about that.