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Ancient Midi Conundrum

Are there any experts on old midi devices out there?

I was recently given a Roland D-10 synth and although the in-built sounds are quite nice but rather dated I thought I could use it as a midi controller to get access to the huge variety of sounds available in iOS apps. It has more full size keys than any of my current midi controllers as well.

So, I tried connecting the DIN style midi out to my iPad using iRig Midi 2 and also invested in a DIN to USB midi cable. All was apparently well, with either of those methods of connection until I actually started to record in Cubasis. Most of the time it works fine and I get a faithful reproduction of midi notes on playback but I get occasional clipped notes where the notes appear to get cut off.

I thought I could easily edit those in the Cubasis midi editor, by deleting them and drawing new notes in or copying and pasting notes that sounded OK in their place. But, strangely, even newly pasted or drawn notes exhibit the same cutoff behaviour - even if I extend their length manually! The only solution I have found is to re-record sections with such notes using my Korg Microkey 25 on a different midi track!

Someone suggested I use Midi Wrench to examine the mid stream coming into the iPad and there I think I may have found a possible cause of the issue. As soon as I plug in the DIN cable into the D-10 a constant stream of midi data arrives into the iPad - mainly TR Clock and Active Sensing events. They are generated every 350ms or so and I think they could overpower the midi buffer or collide with midi note data causing the cutoffs.

Some research shows that the Active Sensing was common in early Roland and Yamaha midi devices and acts as a kind of midi handshake to show the device is still accessible and would allow any midi notes to be turned off, preventing stuck notes, in the event of the midi cable coming unplugged.

My question is: How can I disable the Active Sensing being sent from the D-10? I know it can be disabled in some more modern devices but I have a suspicion that it is not possible to disable this in a D-10 - unless anyone knows different? :smile:

Comments

  • If you're technically proficient I'd suggest StreamByter AUv3 or even better get the MidiFire package which not only has the MIDI Wrench observation skills but also the ability to identify MIDI traffic and filter it out or modify it. It could prove useful mapping some D-10 controls to other purposes like splitting the keyboard up to drive 2 or more Apps on independent MIDI streams or layering them with two copies of the same events.

    It's a hacker's dream tool box (in the programmer sense not the general term for a cyber criminal). Tho' I guess you could use it to steal MIDI music too.

  • I had this weird behaviour when using cheap chinese DIN to USB midi cables!

  • @rs2000 said:
    I had this weird behaviour when using cheap chinese DIN to USB midi cables!

    Same here, its a gamble using them. I have two exact same midi-usb dongles(got for 50c each), one of them has this behavior all the time(and is unusable because of it), another one only rarely with really high midi traffic going through it

  • Thanks @McDtracy @rs2000 and @ToMess The cables could be the problem. The DiN to USB was mid range price wise but I didn’t notice its country of manufacture. The DIN to DIN cables is one I was given with the D-10 so don’t know about that. I will try a different midi DIN cable first as I still have some from back in the old days.

  • Congrats on getting a D-10 - I used to have one in the 80s and it was a terrific keyboard. I know that doesn’t help your midi issue, I hope you get it sorted.

  • If the new notes have the same cut off, then it sounds like you may have erroneous NOTE OFF messages already recorded into the section ?
    You could check this using one of the MIDI monitor tools, but don't think you will be able to remove them very easily.....This is where something Like the Cubase List editor would be good, where you can list all the midi messages in a sequence and edit them individually in that list, I don't think there is an iOS equivalent of that List Editor.

    This could be caused by the cheap cable...I have a couple and where they seem fine for notes they cannot handle CC's or clock very well. But could equally be caused by the D-10 itself, you will need to do some monitoring using both the USB and the DIN to DIN in order to track it down.

  • Thanks @PhilW

    Yes @AndyPlankton the List editor is something I miss from the desktop Cubase too. However, I will definitely try different cables and do what monitoring I can. Cheers.

  • @AndyPlankton said:
    If the new notes have the same cut off, then it sounds like you may have erroneous NOTE OFF messages already recorded into the section ?
    You could check this using one of the MIDI monitor tools, but don't think you will be able to remove them very easily.....This is where something Like the Cubase List editor would be good, where you can list all the midi messages in a sequence and edit them individually in that list, I don't think there is an iOS equivalent of that List Editor.

    This could be caused by the cheap cable...I have a couple and where they seem fine for notes they cannot handle CC's or clock very well. But could equally be caused by the D-10 itself, you will need to do some monitoring using both the USB and the DIN to DIN in order to track it down.

    This. If it's happening even after manually editing the notes, something else is up. Hopefully a new cable sorts it.

  • edited August 2018

    Ancient?
    Ancient! Be kind to those of us that remember when those were in stores.

  • @Multicellular : I mean ancient in a 'IT' sense :smile:
    I also remember them in stores and even early Texas Instruments, Yamaha MSX and Amstrad MIDI interfaces and Roland MT-32 :smiley:

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