midi notes keep hanging

[Rude Talk]

I've only recently acuired a usb multi midi out thingie to hook up all my gear to Ableton.

But sometimes when playing a song and stopping it, a synth keeps playing a note forever. It's not allways the same synth. So I'm guessing the problem is with ableton. And I would guess it's because the gear does not receive a midi note off message??? I have little knowledge about midi tbh.

Any way to resolve this? Stopping the sequence when no notes are playing is not an option. With arpeggio's or a lot going on this is impossible or would hurt my work flow.

Problem is I really can't stop the sound. Playing the sequence again so it would receive some note off messages does not help, the note keeps playing. I have to reboot the synth when it happens.

Any suggestions?

[Demokid]

Which version of Ableton are you using? We tried to use Ableton 7 as our back track control our sizers in real time, changing sounds and stuff... Didn't work for us... Ableton 7 MIDI implementation where to unstable. We threw it out and bought an Alesis HD24 for the back track

I guess they fixed this in later versions. It might be you "multi midi out thingie"... Try using another MIDI interface.

Best regards
Demokid

[dan p]

Originally Posted by Rude Talk

I've only recently acuired a usb multi midi out thingie to hook up all my gear to Ableton.

But sometimes when playing a song and stopping it, a synth keeps playing a note forever. It's not allways the same synth. So I'm guessing the problem is with ableton. And I would guess it's because the gear does not receive a midi note off message??? I have little knowledge about midi tbh.

Any way to resolve this? Stopping the sequence when no notes are playing is not an option. With arpeggio's or a lot going on this is impossible or would hurt my work flow.

Problem is I really can't stop the sound. Playing the sequence again so it would receive some note off messages does not help, the note keeps playing. I have to reboot the synth when it happens.

Any suggestions?

Change the patch on the stuck midi channel to any other patch and then back to the one you want to use.



Dan P

[Xero]

my midi interface (amt8) has a "panic button" which is explicitly for dealing with stuck notes caused by various things....might want to see if you can find a software version of this, it probably just sends "note off's" across every channel...

[ParadoxStudios]

I'd say it's either you have your synth in an arp with heavy decay or reverb or possibly you have your notes in legato.

[mildheadwound]

It might be a midi feedback loop. I was getting that sometimes, when i used Live7, with midi coming in and out of the same converter. My clock would periodically bug out as well. Just make sure there's no midi, that is leaving Live, going to a midi thru, and then coming back in.

[Robobaby]

Lots of reasons that this could be happening. As mentioned above it could be a MIDI feedback loop or a log jam (sending a buttload of MIDI messages to a synth at once which makes it cry. Some synths deal with it better than others).

Need more details about your setup and how its connected. Sometimes its as simple as turning off local control if you use a synth keyboard as your controller. Other times its more complicated but you can diagnose a loop or a logjam with MIDI OX and looking at the event logs.

If the problem is 'unfixable' by conventional means then you can use data maps/scripts in MIDI OX to fire under certain circumstances where you get a stuck note. For instance, you look for cc#123 (all notes off) messages in the event log. This sort of thing gets sent when you press stop on the transport in your DAW. If it doesn't send this message or its not firing properly you can setup a datamap so that if cc#123 is sent then fire cc#123 again. Or you could script it so MIDI OX injects cc#123 message itself when cc#123 is sent by your DAW.

You can even do funky shit like assign a knob or button to send all note off messages thereby creating a panic button. Continuously sending all notes off using a knob can result in some bizaare (read: AWESOME) behaviour if you twiddle that sucker quickly when stuff is playing.

MIDI OX is god.

Note that if you have a really long MIDI thru chain you will probably get dodgy stuff like stuck/hanging notes from time to time.

[dwbkeys]

Rude,
Is there any possibility your synth is a Novation?

I actually have two Novation synths and both glitch up (held notes and missing notes) when sequenced from Ableton. When I used all the same gear (Ableton 8 plus M-Audio Fastrak Pro) to sequence my M1 it was fine.

I really want to lay down loops in ableton that I can tweak on the external synths. Anyone have a solution?

BTW. Different patches are all the same issue, Panic button will not be helpful in a live situation (One held note could be ear splitting when clashing with another...), Not using Midi-Thru at all. Issue still occurs with all effects off and decay/release all the way down.

Also, Does anyone know if Ableton has a "midi log". Its got the piano roll for notes and velocity but I don't see where I could examine program change, control change and note-off events...

I'm down to use something like this Midi Ox if necessary but these channel numbers and such are a bit mystifying. (Recommend a book/site to get more confortable with Midi?)

Thanks alot.

[modularjack]

Try sending an all notes off message. My controller has a dedicated panic button for this, but if I am reading the midi spec right here (MIDI Message Table 1) you just need to send a CC 123 message with a value of 0 and it should stop all notes. Maybe set yourself up a panic button in ableton with a midi clip that just sends that message, trigger it when you get stuck notes.

[Rude Talk]

@dwbkeys no, it happens to my moog sometimes, starting the clip again resolves this. But when it happens to my Nord rack, it needs to be turned off to make it stop

[controlvoltage]

Originally Posted by dwbkeys

Also, Does anyone know if Ableton has a "midi log". Its got the piano roll for notes and velocity but I don't see where I could examine program change, control change and note-off events...

Sadly there's not a Cakewalk or Visual Studio (RIP best sequencer ever) - style Event List in Live, that I am aware of.

However, if you haven't found it, on any MIDI clip in the piano-roll type view, down by the tempo and loop marker info there's a little button labeled "E" for Envelopes. You can click that guy and use the envelopes window to program in any MIDI CCs that Live supports... perhaps the "all notes off" CC can be automated into a clip this way...

also not sure if Live has a panic button. I'll ask my Live guru buddy and get back to you.

-Amos

[Robobaby]

Use MIDI OX for a full event log. It will show you the entire input and the entire output, every message, every timestamp, everything:



A good modern MIDI synth won't shit itself when you log jam it with MIDI but I've owned and used a few modern synths that did not cope with being flooded with MIDI messages. Its more common on old synths with bad/partial MIDI implementation and its a pain in the hole.

I'm rebuilding my own MIDI rig at the moment and you'll note that FL Studio is not sending aftertouch in the above screenshot even though its getting aftertouch messages from my controller. Still need to work out a few kinks before its back the way it was. I only have one filter working and tested right now with the aftertouch problem so once the aftertouch is sorted its time to move on to each of the other 3 filters, one at a time.

[giorgio]

hitting stop a few times sends a "panic" from live if i'm not mistaken.

[Robobaby]

Not necessarily. It depends on what messages your DAW sends when you hit stop and how jammed up it is. If it doesn't work you can always hook up MIDI OX event port to the main out port and inject an all notes off message. Just bind it to a hotkey and you have an instant panic switch.

I use the event port to inject messages one at a time to find out if the synth handles it correctly. If it works, great. If it doesn't you ID a problem message that you can discard or transform into another message. That or you can transform its behaviour so it does work properly.

Its tedious shit but you only have to do it once and if done properly, means you will never have problems with live MIDI.

[controlvoltage]

It's a bug/missing feature in Live - my buddy who works for Ableton just confirmed this.

Live does not send an "all notes off" when you stop the transport in the middle of sustained notes. Therefore, natürlich, you get this problem.

He writes:
"Sustain pedal tap on/off of course is the panic button. Total ghetto!!! grr.."

so, hope that helps?

[modularjack]

I'm really not sure how midiox is really needed in this situation unless it's to try and do it to a pile of midi output ports all at once... You just need a simple midi clip to send one simple CC message and it should kill all the notes on that midi port. I would test the CC message first and see if it fixes the stuck note(s) on the problem synth. If it works then just keep that midi clip in your project. I don't see how this would not be usable in a live performance environment either... And any midi controller keyboard worth its salt can be configured to send that from one of it's assignable buttons or knobs or something. Stuck midi notes are a common problem that was already solved by the specification for midi having this CC message... So why reinvent the wheel?

[giorgio]

i'm not sure i understand this:

Originally Posted by controlvoltage

He writes:
"Sustain pedal tap on/off of course is the panic button. Total ghetto!!! grr.."

can you explain?? thx

[controlvoltage]

Originally Posted by giorgio

i'm not sure i understand this:



can you explain?? thx

no I don't get that bit myself. I'll have to ask him about it...

[Robobaby]

He means that you have a pedal controller plugged in. You have it send MIDI CC#123 and/or CC#121 on all relevant MIDI channels. I don't know how you do that in Ableton.

It is however easy to do in MIDI OX. You just plug in a pedal controller. In MIDI OX you draw a line from the pedal input port to your main output port (whatever your DAW is outputting MIDI to).

Then you open data mapping, choose your trigger input message (sent by footpedal), choose your output as CC#123 to set all notes off or CC#121 to reset all controllers. Clone it for all 16 channels and maybe put a 1ms delay between each one if your synths are liable to shit themselves when they have to eat loads of MIDI all at once. Save this datamap as footpanic.oxm.

Click the little square on the line you drew earlier in the port routing screen and choose footpanic.oxm. Voila. Your footpedal now shuts off all notes or resets all controllers when activated. Everyone who asks "how do I do x with MIDI?" should be running MIDI OX all the time.

This is just an automatic, foot activated panic switch. It doesn't solve the underlying cause of why your synths are hanging notes. That could be any number of reasons...

[sach160]

When I demoed kontakt over a year ago I had this issue when recording with a sustain pedal, - when you stop the transport half way through a part which has a sustain pedal, the patch keeps playing. I reported it to Kontakt who know about the bug and having checked recently, they still haven't repaired it. Disappointing as I wanted to buy kontakt.

[sftd]

Please test your MIDI cables for shorts.


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