mjwinkelman

Hello I'd like to report the problems I encounter while playing. I use a rather large soundfont, the wellknown Steinway Grand piano and have a master keyboard with sustain pedal. Usually the system is able to play the notes right but rather frequent problems occur.
The problems that occur are : the system sometimes doesn't react on the releasing of the sustain pedal and keeps sustaining the notes. After pressing the pedal and releasing it again the sustaining stops.Then sometimes the system doesn't react on the releasing of a key and keeps producing the sound of the note. After pressing the key again and releasing it again the note stops. The third problem is that sometimes when I press more keys at the same time the systems produces all the notes with a vibrato. The only way to get rid of this vibrato is a midi reset.
The fourth problem is that when pressing the low keys of the keyboard the system doesn't play them and I have to press that key several times before it is played.
I have the driver with version v3538i installed,I have an amd athlon xp 1800+ processor and 767 Mb ram and a Soundblaster Audigy SBO244. The system is Windows XP pro SP2. I have tested the master keyboard StudioLogic 990 with a normal midi sound synthesizer and it worked well. So I think the problem is not the keyboard.The problems also occurred with the previous driver versions v3534 and v3537.
The problems did also occur with the original soundblaster driver but with the kx driver they occur less frequent. The midi sequencer I use is the Jazz
midi sequencer. I hope someone can help me and has the solution.

miguel

I can't tell for sure but it could be your sequencer. Have you tried just playing a midi track from the sequencer, or saving a midi file then playing with a normal media player? What i'd try is to play using midiox instead of your sequencer, just to rule out any suquencer problem. Midiox is an application that just passes midi messages betweet midi sources/destinations (it can do transforms, filtering etc but it should not concern you for this test). Supposedly midiox has tight timing so if it still fails, then there's something to how the hardware is configured. Good luck.

http://www.midiox.com/

mjwinkelman

Miguel, Thanks for the advice.

The system doesn't have problems with playback of midi files.
I've installed MIDIOX but the problems remain the same. What I see is on the input monitor and output monitor of midiox that the midi commands are different when the system doesn't react on a key or pedal.

These are for instance : channel and key aftertouch , pitch bend, Program Change and the channel is sometimes changed.so it looks like that the handling of the midi input isn't right.

Maddogg6

Why did you need midi Ox? just for trouble shoot - or other reason?

How big is the SF2 file?
How big is the sample set for the instrument/patch that is giving problem?

Are you using a Software Synth / Soundfont player/ sampler DXi or VSTi? - or HARDWARE KX Synth 1/2 (KX Midi Synth1 & 2)?

Are you using KX UART for keyboard input?

mjwinkelman

I used Midiox just for problem shooting
I use the KX uart as input and the kX synth1 as output, the sf is the steinway grand of +/- 30 MB

miguel

Now this is strange, mjwinkelman. The fact that the midi commands get crazy when doing certain things looks like a driver problem. That's at least what I understand fromm your explanation. So I decided to take a look at kX's midi implementation chart (it's in the help file that comes with the drivers) and I see things like:

MIDI Controllers:
...
4 - foot [under development]


And other controllers too. Maybe it's this that corrupts other data when you press the pedal for example? I'm not sure, really.

Maddogg6

This is not usually mapped for 'Sustain' pedals - CC64 - as I recall is usually the sustain pedal... OP, please confirm this is the CC the sustain pedal produces for you, now that its brought up, there *could* be a different controller used.

64 - sustain
66 - sostenuto
67 - soft pedal implemented via Filter Cutoff:

I would imagine higher end midi controllers allow to change what CC is triggered by that physical foot switch.

In the mean time - I found a 30MB steinway grand here:
http://www.hum.aau.dk/~bovbjerg/piano4.html

I'll do some tests.

Maddogg6

I played around with 30MB sample set instrument . No problems..

It maybe a problem with your card model;
Have you played with the 'Synth Compatibilty' settings. Im not sure why they are there - but most likey it resolve issues for some.

Also, Ive heard of weird problems caused by some mobos/hardware combinations w/ overclocking - which is pretty common on Anthlon systems. If so, try disabeling over clocking/set to proper bus & CPU speed.

Also - try another large soundfont - its conceivable that file is corrupt.

Did you replace KX driver files - to fix the CH10 MIDI problem? - I seen a post where someone did this - and mentioned success - but I would NOT recommend mix-matching driver componants in this way.

Other than that - try: remove driver - run driver cleaner - re-install

- maybe try KX 3538h - which is what Im using
- 3538i - has other known problems - like ch10 midi drums NOT working. -

Maybe this is another problem with 3538i - just not noticed until now, as we MIDI types - prolly switched back to 3538h pretty quick after finding out CH 10 drums not working.

Edit:
Also ...

Are you using your MIDI controller to send out MULTPLE keys - on multiple Channels, I think it could be called 'LAYERS' on a controller - if so - its possible the AMMOUNT of midi data is overwhealming the UART... ?? just a thought.

Does this happen with MIDI playback - like in a midi file that demos the problem, you could post and I could check out?

Also - maybe, is it possible the host sw is set for an external timing device - like SMPTE or MIDI MMC.. ?? Are you using any other MIDI equipment at all... like a Effects Processor or synth module?

OR - look for 'keymaps' - Sonar for instance allows mapping NOTE KEYS to actions as keyboard shortcuts... ??

mjwinkelman

Well, my computer is n't overclocked or something.
I've tried another sf and had the same problems.
When I press the sustain pedal the controller is 64 so the 'foot' is not used
and also : the problem is that sometimes the synth doesn't react on pressing of a key or releasing of a key because it gets other commands like the channel aftertouch , program change etc.)
I also used the midiox option to use the computer keyboard as input to play the Steinway SF and it worked wel.So that limits the problem to the handling of the input of master keyboard.When I play when the keyboard is just turned on ,the problems are very frequent and later on they appear less frequent.

Maddogg6

Well, Im stumped if this is the case...

Other than setting controller to NOT SEND after touch - Id imagine this would be possible with your controller... see if its TOO much data too fast for the driver - if so maybe a buffer setting could be changed - sorry I dont have answer??

Hope you find out the problem.

Good luck..