Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

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Dreamland
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Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:06 pm

Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

Post by Dreamland »

Hello,
I am running Drumagog (latest version 5) under Cubase 6 / 64 bit and Windows 7 / 64 bit. I would like to record the MIDI out from Drumagog onto a MIDI track. I can set the input of this MIDI track to the MIDI output of Drumagog. But when I try to record, nothing appears on the MIDI track. If I set the MIDI output of Drumagog to an external MIDI port, everything works as expected. Am I missing something?

Another question: As far as I know, Drumagog still is a 32 bit plugin, which must be bridged unter 64 bit hosts. Will there be a 64 bit version of Drumgog in the near future?

Thanks,
Hans-Hermann Gross
Chris M
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Re: Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

Post by Chris M »

Hello-

It sounds like you have the right idea--some things to check would be to make sure the MIDI out is checked in the Drumagog settings page, and that the track you are sending to is a MIDI track and not an audio track.

Cubase is one of the only programs that allows you to do this directly--most other programs require that you use a loopback (essentially a virtual MIDI cable) since they don't support MIDI out from an internal plugin, so using a program like MIDI Yoke could be an acceptable workaround.

Our developers have the 64-bit versions on the roadmap. We've been waiting for more across the board support from the most popular DAW makers before releasing all-new versions because we want to be able to release all of the 64-bit versions at once, and not piecemeal.

For a non-RAM hungry plugin like Drumagog, 64-bit won't make a very big difference in performance. We'll add support for completeness' sake, but users won't see much improvement with 64-bit, simply because it's more CPU intensive than RAM.

Chris
WaveMachine Labs
Dreamland
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Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:06 pm

Re: Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

Post by Dreamland »

Hello Chris,
thanks for answering.
Yes, I made sure that MIDI out is checked (it works with an external MIDI device) and yes, I try to send the data to a MIDI track. So the problem must lie elsewhere.
I could imagine that the problem lies in the bridging process. I will try the same procedure on an 32bit machine an see, if the problem disappears there.
This might be the reason why a 64bit plugin makes sense, just to avoid the bridging problems. The Cubase internal bridge is known for problems with some plugins, and even jBridge sometimes has problems. Can you give a rough idea about when Drumagog will be 64bit ready?
Thanks,
Hermann
Chris M
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Re: Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

Post by Chris M »

Hello,

As an experiment, instead of using the built-in Cubase MIDI option, try using a freeware program called LoopBe (found here: http://nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html).

After installing this, set Drumagog's MIDI out to LoopBe and Cubase's MIDI in to LoopBe, and see if that fixes the issue.

Unfortunately, we don't have an exact timeline of when Drumagog will be 64-bit. We're currently waiting for more of the major DAWs to support 64-bit so that we can do our rewrites all at the same time.

Chris
WaveMachine Labs
Dreamland
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Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:06 pm

Re: Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

Post by Dreamland »

Hello,
I tried LoopBe and that solved the problem. I am now able to record the MIDI out from Drumagog to a MIDI track. So far, so good.
But now there is another problem. The MIDI events that Drumagog writes to the MIDI track are not time aligned with the audio track, which Drumagog works on. Interesting enough, the MIDI data that I find on the MIDI track, is about 80ms too EARLY! I have played with the parameters in Drumagog (real time, 40ms, 80ms) but that did not change much.
Do you have any idea why this happens?
Thanks,
Hans-Hermann
Matt W
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Re: Record MIDI out under Cubase 6 / 64 bit

Post by Matt W »

There can be some rather strange things that happen, latency-wise, when routing MIDI out of an audio plugin and back in to a MIDI track when using delay compensation. It gets delayed a little bit because of your soundcard's buffer, but then also because Drumagog has 80 ms of latency Cubase will correct that by moving the track 80 ms earlier, automatically. Unfortunately that also shifts the MIDI data earlier, and can cause what you're seeing.

It won't really matter, though, since it will be consistent, and just needs a quick nudge to line up properly. I like to zoom way in with both the original audio track and the new MIDI track, zoom in down to the sample level, and nudge the MIDI track so the first hit lines up with the audio. All the other hits should then line up, too.

This is just one of the reasons we added Plugin Hosting in version 5, to try and skip all this MIDI mucking about with virtual MIDI loopbacks, and buffers, and latency, when someone just wants to trigger a VSTi.
Matthew Werner
WaveMachine Labs, Inc.
www.drumagog.com
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