Timing? Forget Timing!

[joykrash]

Citizenz of Medway City..... i have been thinking about Mac muzik making for a while and i have started saving to move over to that platform after bout 7 yearz of making muzik with PC.. (and mainly Cubase SX/VST) firstly i have 2 say that miditiming on PC is generally weak.. on most appz.. Cub/Ableton/Reason all except for FLstudio really but that has a few limitationz also.. (i may need 2 read tha manual more! = btw excellent, funky swing-quantize in FLstudio)

On PC in my exp.. (mainly cubase SX) gettin tha funk meanz using a combination of diff softwarez, Flstudio VST'd in2 SX for drumz, Reatkor Exported Loopz in CubSX, Ableton Arpeggiator rewired with Cub SX etc.. coupla that with micro-surgery on tha Cubase Audio partz.. (moving thingz around by tickz 2 get some funk in there) etc. this 2 me seemz a big pain in tha ass!!! i just wanna record my shit.. i can play funky!!!

regarding timing.. tha audio interface seemz 2 make a difference, i am on my 3rd soundcard now. and i have used 3 Diff interfacez.. (SBLIVE with KXdriver/RME Multiface/LynxOne = current) i've also built quite a few PC'z.. along tha way.. and i also own a laptop with Echo Indigo and have tried various comboz with that also.. same verdict 2bh..

Recently i've been working with a friend on Logic 7/Mac and i really like the midi-timing and a lot of other thingz also.. (tha swing quantize/sidechain/fx/Delay Designer/synthz) i'm sold and i'm moving to Applemac!!!

i'm wondering what everyone else thinkz about pc midi-timing and also tha swing quantize feel of PC sequencerz i general, i say quantize as well coz this is possibly a saving grace when the good timing u put into a sequencer iz sent back 2 u.. not so funky/in tha pocket! (technical term

So what does everyone think? any tight timing experiencez? good? bad? (Atari Amiga/MPC userz need not apply!) this weekend i've gone over 2 Logic 5.5 coz the swing quantize in that feelz funky/human etc... the timing i have with it on PC is OK.. ish.. (AMT8 via serial & Remote25 via MIDI not USB!)

slightly on/off point i have collected gearlistz of famous house producerz over tha yearz.. and of tha 60 producers in tha listz i have only 4 use PC.. and those pc userz also tend 2 use beatmaking software/hardware combination for their stuff.. (E.G. Guy Gerber = MPC/Machinedrum, Deadmau5 = FLstudio/Guru, Danny J Lewis = Guru, Medway = SX/Flstudio and MPC?? !!! confirmation here or have u jumped ship?!)

i personally wonder if this is becuase it'z v.difficult to get decent midi-timing on PC with XP and CubSX/Ableton/Reason (OS stability i dont think is an issue here.. XP is pretty solid General OS with probably not v.good Audiosubsystem!!! Applemacz DO krash sometimez!!! maybe better integrated audiosubsystem??)

I have a coupla friendz who use PCI M-audio stuff on their pc'z and i built a machine for my lil bro with M-Audio card also. M-Audio soundquality is pretty low.. but they're stable and midi timing iz kinda useable..to OK in my exp!!! YMMV!!

Mr Medway.... u have a foot in both campz i believe!!! what are your findingz?? Which sequencers do you think have tha best midi-timing for recording riddimz?? which is tha best feel swing-quantize.

have u any conclusionz on best audio interface for sequencer/platform etc??? i've heard tha focusrite range are ok (midtimingwise)

are there any userz on tha forum that have used Cubase/Ableton on Both PC and Mac? and can share some experience with timing and such??

Any userz gone from Logic 5.5 on PC 2 Logic on MAC??

Any forum memberz with Amiga 1200 Tight Midi-timing on PC?????

Your thoughtz Please!!!

Peace and House, JOykrash X

[admin]

Joy,

Over the years I've pretty much used every platform and program out there, and yes even the Amiga 500 (my first computer).

What we have to be clear about here though is what you mean when you say 'midi timing'. Today this means a few things and they all have their own reasons for being tight or not.

As a general rule when you are speaking of internal operation and not using a midi interface then there should be no differences. In some cases there are though but these are bugs relative to the piece of software and I wouldn't cast any opinions on Mac/PC as a whole.

Midi timing in todays world should be a non issue, back 'in the day' when we had a full song piping through a single midi cable to the sampler it was an issue (which lead me to try many different ways around this).

You mentioned moving parts around by ticks, well this is a great idea even if you seem to think its a pain. I say this because due to the fact that in most cases midi timing internally should be perfect, it's up to you to shift things a bit to make them groove.

I do get the impression though that perhaps your problem might be you are recording live and then the sequencer is not playing back what you felt you played. At the moment the only case I know where this would be a problem is with Cubase. There is an issue where the recorded notes will be placed earlier than recorded. There are work arounds though to solve it.

Ironically the only times I've had problems with timing recently is with two instances where you'd think otherwise. That is the MPC1000 and Guru. The Akai can't keep up with too many notes (although you really have to tax it to get this and the JJ Os seemed to make this better) and Guru had a problem with exporting Midi files to Cubase (might be fixed now).

One thing I have been doing recently is bouncing my drum parts to audio so I can visually inspect the transients. This is probably the 'safest' way to program as audio playback timing should be 100% in all DAWs. I know a lot of guys are working like this now (including Laidback Luke) and I like the directness of it.

As far as swing in different programs, well they are all doing the same thing. Eventually I'll do a little tutorial to illustrate this but it's nothing magical going on. I've got the Emagic presets from Notator SL in Cubase (Logic has them too). 16b and 16c are both useful.

As far as an audio interface affecting timing, this is not the case (unless you mean it has a Midi in and out).

In any case I've been using Pc/Cubase for about 4 years now and don't have any problems with timing (other than the record input bug which I have sorted). I will say though that overall I prefer Ableton for tweaking grooves to get them just right. The sidechain compressor has a good action as well.

Hope this helps...

[joykrash]

Hey! Tx 4 putting in your experience Meddaz.. i'm talking specifically about midi input of melody and rhythm.. Audio has always been excellent on all the pc appz and working with audio on SX is a good experience.. it'z when midi comez into tha equasion really.. which is anytime you dont want strictly no swing quantized objectz in ur arrange/trak.. i've done a fair bit of experimenting with diff interfacez/soundcardz and i have a coupla synthz also.. from which 2 input tha data.. currently i'm just using tha AMT8 2 channel in tha midi data from my Remote or Z1, my main point is as you say, playing in stuff, i play it in funky and tight and it'z played backed 2 me not so funky and tight, i've tried a few diff thingz in Cubase SX (jayz miditime & otherz) to try and test with mixed resultz, (emulated or Non) both of those didnt seem 2 be satisfactory really.. (1 waz behind and tha other didnt sound like i played it) u can use delay compensation or something i guess.. but i am really trying 2 avoid having to do tha same job twice really..

ie playing it in.. it'z not funky/tight. and so you then have 2 move midi around by x-amount of tickz.. to me i think it'z hindering the human aspect of making muzik which is after all tha only thing that is personal 2 all of us.... and a fun part of making tha muzik..

i'm aware there is a certain extra latency with FW interfacez, (IE my RME Multiface) that'z why i bought 2nd hand ?PCI Lynxone!! but i guess it dependz how tightly that is integrated within tha OS as that has to pass tha information over to tha sequencer app.. thingz for me seemed to be tightest with tha SBlive (and KX driverz) but the sound quality waz not so good... maybe i'm paranoid! i've just experienced better tighter playback of tha midi data i've played in with Mac'z tho my experience is limited 2 a coupla weeks working with Logic 7/G5 and macbook pro.. and as i say FLstudio seems to playback my data to me how i played it in.. but to me FLstudio seemz 2 sound better when you bus it thru Cubase etc.. maybe better audio engine.... ?????

there are quite a few variables in this equation i'm just trying to get more information and a general picture of anybody elsez experiences.. and also maybe i am going wrong somewhere and someone can point out to me what that is!!!! ...... as an example i mean when you're just auditioning a VST.. for instance and your playing it back and you've got your asio settingz on ur card quite tight (10ms ish) what you hear coming out of tha speakers is fine rhythmically.. it'z when you play it back that itz not so fine rhythmically.. and i've found this in most appz... on PC.. cept for FLstudio.. i dont know what it meanz but that'z my impression.. !!! there is also the other variable for me of diff OS (XP/2k) etc. i'm just thinking that maybe midi/audio are integrated in Tiger and Leo at a lower level, therefore get a higher priority and are more accurate.. and that'z why i'm thinking of moving platform.. Plus Logic seemz 2 have featurez lately which i like better.....

tha more information we get i guess tha more educated we can be on tha matter... tho you seem 2 have been through all of them..!! so maybe just me.. ! right now i dont have a Mac.. but i will post my thoughtz once i've got one and done some reasonably thorough testing!!!

BTW what is tha cubase record input bug? is this to do with emulated/non emulated portz? i am on vrs 3.11 and it seemed tha same in vrs 2 and 1.. i wont be moving to Cub 4....... i've had enough of Windows for midi-sequencing.. PC'z will be demoted 2 softsynth and editing dutiez....!! An Atari is coming my way this weekend.. i will set that up at some stage and scope that out!! Waiting for an Amiga 1200 to come up.. within my budget!!

PEACE! JOy X

[sven hauck]

Hi Joykrash, I've worked with Ableton Live on my Mac and on my PC and as far as driving a VSTi with recorded or drawn in midi, I noticed no difference between either platform.

The following is from the Mac developer site:

"MIDI capabilities are also at the core of the Mac OS X music and audio architecture, providing representations of the complexities of MIDI devices to applications, and a very precise and low-latency MIDI I/O service. The CoreMIDI framework also provides virtual sources and destinations allowing you to route MIDI data between applications..."

That to me says, we made midi better and you'll really notice a difference when you tax the system by routing it to multiple applications. I wonder though whether a up to spec PC can't handle basic midi duties just as well as the Mac. I'm inclined to think it can.

However, when using either platform and driving my Virus TI with it, I have the same issue as you, where the riff was funky and the subsequent playback was funkless, so I have to nudge the notes a bit. I think this could be due to the midi controller (as alluded to in another thread, think Jesse said that a standard controller that sends data over midi adds maybe 1 to 2 ms). I'm getting a USB keyboard soon and will test to see if there is a difference. System latency is set to 7ms, btw.

[admin]

Joy,

Ok I think I have figured out the problem. This is something I had noticed myself not too long ago but shrugged it off. I have to admit I'm generally a input quantize guy (old mpc habit) so this doesn't affect me too much .

Basically what happens with latency and midi is this:

Say you've got your latency at 10ms. So the notes you play on the midi keyboard incur 10ms of delay before you hear them (this is assuming we're taking about a VST instrument, it does not apply to midi hardware the same way).

So what happens is that you will naturally play ahead of the beat by 10ms in order to keep the VST in time with the rest of the track. The problem is that once notes are in the sequencer they don't incur latency, as it can queue them in time. Since you recorded them 10ms early to compensate they will now be playing a bit ahead of the beat.

Just to illustrate this I recorded the click sound of cubase and loaded it into a VST sampler. I set my latency high and then recorded some midi triggering this click sample along with the click playing on the transport (this way I could hear when they were exactly on top of each other easily)

With the high latency my card was set to there was a big delay from when I heard the click sound after having pressed the keyboard. I had to get into the groove for a few measures in order to get the sampler click to play in time with the transport click. This meant I was playing the notes on my keyboard ahead of the beat. I then inspected the midi part at the points where I heard myself playing exactly on the beat. Sure enough they were recorded early, as I was compensating for the high latency.

On playback however these notes now sound out of time, even though they were dead on when I recorded them.

In other words what sounded perfect when playing live now sounded very off when being played back. Again this is because the latency you hear when recording midi is not present when playing back prerecorded midi.

The solution was then to use the track delay in cubase to offset them. This is fairly easy to do as it will be the time in ms that your latency is set to. What I'd suggest is you do this test once like me, with a click, something that's easy to hear the transients clearly. Once this value is found for the offset you can use it every time you record midi tracks, it can even be setup as part of your template, so you don't have to worry about it again.

[admin]

The following is from the Mac developer site:

"MIDI capabilities are also at the core of the Mac OS X music and audio architecture, providing representations of the complexities of MIDI devices to applications, and a very precise and low-latency MIDI I/O service. The CoreMIDI framework also provides virtual sources and destinations allowing you to route MIDI data between applications..."

That to me says, we made midi better and you'll really notice a difference when you tax the system by routing it to multiple applications. I wonder though whether a up to spec PC can't handle basic midi duties just as well as the Mac. I'm inclined to think it can.

However, when using either platform and driving my Virus TI with it, I have the same issue as you, where the riff was funky and the subsequent playback was funkless, so I have to nudge the notes a bit. I think this could be due to the midi controller (as alluded to in another thread, think Jesse said that a standard controller that sends data over midi adds maybe 1 to 2 ms). I'm getting a USB keyboard soon and will test to see if there is a difference. System latency is set to 7ms, btw.

Interesting about the CoreMIDI allowing communication of midi between different apps. Of course we've enjoyed this with Scope for awhile now

Midi itself is not taxing at all, the issue is giving it priority over the constant interrupts in a modern multitasking OS. Audio carries much more information and that is handled with buffering. I'd assume midi can be handled similarly. I think the problem is that audio drivers HAVE to work flawless otherwise you get clicks and pops and people wouldn't use them. Midi drivers probably get some slack as it's a bit harder to hear them not working properly and they seem to be less 'mission critical' especially since a lot of people use quantize which 'solves' the problem..

Steinberg had their Midex8 a while back, supposedly using buffering to solve this. Only problem is that it made timing worse as they never seemed to get the thing to work properly.

[sven hauck]

The solution was then to use the track delay in cubase to offset them. This is fairly easy to do as it will be the time in ms that your latency is set to. What I'd suggest is you do this test once like me, with a click, something that's easy to hear the transients clearly. Once this value is found for the offset you can use it every time you record midi tracks, it can even be setup as part of your template, so you don't have to worry about it again.

Brilliant, nice work man.

[joykrash]

Lol, !midex 8 = unsupported! thanks for tha info Mr Sven.. and Meddaz! u can trust Steinberg (NOT) u know the worse timing i had was with the not badged by Steinberg RME Multiface! and they were selling it too! that is criminal!!!! it'z rock solid in all other respectz and i will be recycling it into my Mac.. see how it iz... it'z a difficult thing to quantify sometimez tha midi thing.. u have so many variablez.. (usb/firewire/serial/interface/OS/application) i think sometimez audio companiez are slack as you say.. coz it'z a pain for consumerz 2 test scientifically.....

your idea on doing trakdelay soundz interesting/logical.. i shall def give that a go 2day see how we do in SX.. re-tha core midi routing thing.. midi-ox is good and free... Dont talk 2 me about creamware!! or rather do but i will have to put in a seperate post as it'z off topic... i think what Sven said is interesting about tha OS.. i mean tha Amiga series has apparently tha best midi-timing of all computerz.. and Atari are renowned.. the OS is key in tha integration and priority of process'z for audio.......

i have an Atari on tha way and looking out 4 an Amiga and will reveal tha resultz! at some stage!! Sequencer-funkcity!!! i'm doing a doubletake on FLstudio it now seemz 2 be quantizing stuff as i play it in... Doh!!! WTF! it alwayz soundz funky tho... have 2 do a bit more r&d here..!

thanks for you help and info Sven and Mway.. it'z all good 2 know, got sum new thingz 2 try now! hopefully this info will be useful for tha forum catz.. !!!

Peace & House, JOykrash X

[admin]

Good luck then. I can't actually remember how tight the amiga was. I do know the Atari is as that was used on most of my stuff on Hooj using Notator. I'm still amazed when I listen back to some of that stuff knowing the whole track was coming done a midi cable to just one sampler and it still sounds very tight.

I happily hand program drums now and offset, for me gets the best results. I'll be using this trick I just came up with in the future though.