Volume Surge in DP 5.13 in Tiger

[dynamix]

Man, I never experienced this, but 6 seconds into the track from anywhere I start there is a momentary surge in the MIDI instrument volume. Cripes, so annoying, I cloned the chunk and the new chunk seemed OK but the second I started editing the MIDI data it was right back. Gasp, this is hugely rotten, thought I was loosing my mind for a moment here, then i do a search on the forum and find its been a long running problem, great... Guess I gotta just keep going and writing this score as I'm on deadline, hopefully it will sort itself out.

Frodo, are you out there? Any work-arounds for this madness?

[Frodo]

I thought I heard my name from across the shire!!

Magic Dave is spearheading this issue right now. It seems that after several years of this being reported, MOTU has finally acknowledged the problem and are looking into it.

Here's one of the most recent threads about it-- among at least a dozen:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =1&t=31819

There's not a whole lot you can do, but to restart the computer until it happens again.

I'm just amazed that you had this happen just six seconds into the track!!

[dynamix]

Thanks Frodo,

Yea this is definitely a repeatable issue. Even restarting won't make it stop. Unfortunately, it also was occurring on one of my least loved compositions for this project and so, listening over and over looking for some accidentally placed automation, urrgh... Then I realized, this is occuring in a bit of a random fashion, then, started noticing yes, start anywhere within a particular section with repeating modulation swells for the GPO strings, I erased the strings and suddently everything else simmered down... But there is nothing within those tracks that would seem to effect the volume of the instruments on other channels, and certainly not even themselves in the frequency with which they're happening, so, mystery.

I did just add a new Virtual Instrument in the day or hours before this began. I'm going to remove all its components and see if it doesn't make the problem go away...

This piece has always been a particularly quiet passage barely tickling the yellow LEDs on my MOTU 896, but suddenly to see it peak into the red, well, that never happened before... Hopefully a few more experiments will get me out of this thing and back to the real work at hand.

[Frodo]

One thing you might try to is to make a Chunk of the project or a clipping-- then start with a fresh template.

It's always possible that your DP Preferences have gotten corrupted. Trash that file and reboot:
User Library>Preferences>Digital Performer> *preferences*

These are only some stop-gaps that may offer little more than temporary relief, if the help at all. But because MOTU is now working on the surge issue, it's at least "acknowledged" bug. Until they nail down the specific vulnerability that makes this happen on some machines and not others, there's really not a whole lot more you can do to stop it. I've even unstinalled and reinstalled DP from the ground up-- cloning/wiping the drive, tossing out any plist files related to DP and MOTU, etc.... repair permissons, DiskWarrior.... hmm.

Hang in there, mate. Fortunately, it hasn't effected bounces but there's no doubt that random surges are not what you want to hear while you're with a client or are trying to mix.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

So I guess this means the Volume Surge is working?

[dynamix]

Thanks Frodo,

I will try this stuff, but have to resist my control freak, OCD "gosh I can't go on until I solve this thing" and move on least I miss my deadline.

This is happening on my MacBook Pro listed in my profile.

I would like to also add that as a part of this, suddenly notes are acting "sticky" slurring or moments of silence with a burst of notes all at once... But it doesn't happen so much as to stop me from working and its not nearly as annoying as the volume surge.

I did clone the offending volume surge chunk and it seemed to solve the problem. I played the copy back multiple times with no surge, but then after graphically moving the velocity on two notes within a track, suddenly all the tracks were doing this weird surge thing again...

One thing I'm suspicious of, I have two tracks going to the same channel each has alternating modulation control and alternating notes. I don't think the information really overlaps, but I'm going to try to merge them and see what happens... When I delete the note and controller info from both those tracks, suddenly everything simmers down and the surges heard across all the other remaining instruments disappear... When I bring this note and controller information back with an undo command, the surge returns for everything. I'm wondering if a merge will help... I alternated on two tracks to make it easier to draw the modulation (in GPO its used for expression volume)

Just before all this happened I had installed a new fifteen foot firewire cable to a second external audio drive (daisy chained beyond my main external audio and sample library drive) which I have put the samples portion my brand new freshly installed 16GB Garritan Steinway on. I kept getting these "you have put your drive away improperly messages" from the drive. I had never used the firewire port on this particular drive and thought maybe the connection was a little tarnished. So I exercised the jack into the plug with the power turned off on both sides of the cable and when I restored the power, its been solid ever since. I'm wondering if somewhere, something hiccuped when the drive kept coming unmounted. I was in the process of trying to replace and old Kontakt piano with the new Garritan Steinway when all this began... I was wondering if 15 ft was too long for a firewire cable. Anyhow, I think I'm gonna hold off on switching pianos.

I think the next thing is to go to the gym and sweat out the trauma this crazy volume problem has been and return with a fresh head, so I can actually get something accomplished!

[dynamix]

Well I merged the alternating tracks playing to the same MIDI channel VI and it still was a problem, I froze that section and then deleted the actual MIDI information and well at least for the moment it seems under control... I'm moving on until this sucker rears its ugly head again. I dunno maybe all the MIDI controller data was scrambling this DP things wittle bwain...

[michkhol]

I thought I was having those volume surges yesterday until I found the reason. I forgot to disable the backup MIDI track and it was feeding the same Vienna Instrument as the track under question. I did change the velocity in couple of places and there were places where I had the surges. It is interesting how the VI behaves when it receives two identical MIDI messages with the same timestamp. It looks like it ignores one if they are completely identical but sees two if something (like velocity) is different.

FWIW

[dynamix]

I STAND CORRECTED, I thought I had two tracks feeding the same channel, but no, two tracks feeding two different channels to the Kontakt Player feeding two instances of the same instrument. So they were just the same VI doubled to play alternating parts to sound like one.

Sigh, I've got 4 Kontakt Players running, with about 24 instruments and one instrument in Kontakt itself and a few things in Mach Five.

Hmmm, I'm set to slave to external sync... Wonder if I have a double sync issue or sync feedback loop? I didn't intentionally set that...

4 Gigs of RAM in the laptop...

[dpdan]

Eric, imagine the crap you would be going through if you were using DP6 or 6.01....
forget editing any MIDI data without the $3,500.00 computer going into a seizure for 30 seconds every few minutes.
But it's random, sometimes you can work for a whole five minutes without it acting up. DP 5.13 is so great!

... DP6, so unacceptable for a professional app.

used to be anyway

[dynamix]

DAN YOU"VE VISITED ME IN MY PADDED CELL!!!

I think that part of my troubles might be due to a sync feedback loop, I musta not noticed I hit that on the numerical pad. Since shutting off, I've been psycho cursor intermittent bouncing note freak out free, haven't checked the chunk with the volume surge but will soon...

Whew, well, so glad I didn't buy that DP6 yet. I waited for months before installing version 5; I'll be waiting again for this one too! Just don't have time for this bleeding edge stuff.

Sorry you're suffering...

[dpdan]

Eric, you said... "sorry you're suffering"...

and I am, it is just so sad that DP 6 is so broken.

I can't edit velocities down to zero in the SE window, I am forced to use the event list, which is very inconvenient for my work style.
I am using a new 2 x 2.8 Quad-Core Intel Zeon Mac Pro and DP6.01 randomly totally freezes for thirty seconds at a time, no beach ball, just stops dead in it's tracks, (no pun intended) then it continues on whenever it feels like it.
Editing fades, and editing just about any kind of MIDI data will cause this.

Occasionally if this happens while it is in play mode, of course I get a major crash. Then the Mac is so polite and lets me know that Digital Performer has unexpectedly quit. Thanks DP.

Still way too many GUI issues to talk about.
Pitiful unprofessional "blue" meters, you wanna see some nice meters,.... look at DP5 or CueMIx.
Short track names abbreviated everywhere, geez!
Just so so so so disappointing, DP6 has taken all the wind out of my MOTU sails.
If Jim Cooper and Dave Roberts had only a small idea of how many people around the globe I help, and to tell people to stay away from DP6 for now, kills me.
DP 5.13 on this same computer runs the same projects absolutely FANTASTIC!
I'll shut up now,

dee pee Dan

[Tomas E]

My method to get rid of those MIDI surges is to paste a "fresh" controller #7 after every patch change. Maybe this is only working in 5.13/10.4.11, I don't know. I seem to be just about the only one satisfied with this method.

[Frodo]

Eric, you said... "sorry you're suffering"...

and I am, it is just so sad that DP 6 is so broken.

I can't edit velocities down to zero in the SE window, I am forced to use the event list, which is very inconvenient for my work style.

Dan-- have you tried accessing those parameters in the SE's upper frame where the numbers are displayed?

When you highlight an automation "dot", its parameters appear above in the area marked with the circled "E". On the far right side of that oval E segment, you will see the controller name and to its right, you will see the controller number. Click on that number and manually do your editing there.

It may not be a solution for graphically getting velocities down to zero, but you may find this a little more convenient than searching through the Edit List all the time.

[Tonio]

My method to get rid of those MIDI surges is to paste a "fresh" controller #7 after every patch change. Maybe this is only working in 5.13/10.4.11, I don't know. I seem to be just about the only one satisfied with this method.

+1 on DP6.01/ 10.5.3/MAC PRO

Though I don't change patches much. Normally less than 30 MIDI tracks.

T