Midi region won't play after assigning a new instrument

Hey all,

 

I've had this weird issue regarding midi playback for a very long time (in Logic 8 AND 9), and could not find a workaround/solution.

 

Whenever I import a midi from sibelius, or any midi whatsoever, it automatically assigns instruments. This is fine, but when I try to assign a different soundset (ie: EWQL Symphonic Orchestra instruments), the midi region will no longer play. The output is fine, I can still play notes and hear them, but the midi regions themselves do not. The track is not muted, nor are the individual notes.

 

What I have been doing is manually replacing the notes on each midi track, because that seems to fix the problem. But as you can tell, it's extremely tedious.

 

Can anyone help?

-Cheers

I have had this behavior as well, but for me - it is not only related to changing a midi instrument after importing midi. It happens for some other reasons that I have yet to figure out.

 

For some reason, I get midi regions that do not play back. Their notes are not muted, the regions are not muted - they do play back on other instrument tracks, and the instrument on their track plays through a midi keyboard.

 

It's very frustrating, and sad to see it is not fixed in L9

Open up your MIDI region in the Event List and see what data is there. Maybe there is a MIDI Channel change, or SYSEX event, or some other data that gets interpreted incorrectly by Logic.

 

Just a stab in the dark as I don't think I've ever imported MIDI into Logic.

I had a look in the event list and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I also moved notes around to see if re-positioning them worked. It didn't.

 

The last time it happened to me (yesterday) I had opened an older project to check some stuff and two of the regions would not playback. I had not imported any midi into this track, but I did change the instrument that was to play back the midi. Strangely - only two midi regions on that track would not play back, but other regions on that same track worked fine.

 

Now originally those regions were imported (together in fact) from another song in Logic, but they were working at the time of import. Just not yesterday when I re-opened the song a month later and changed the instrument on their track.

 

S.

Hi,

it's happened to me for the first time using a template.

My temporary workaround: assign a key commanto to "New Track with Same Channel Strip/Channel" -> create new track -> copy Midi Regions on it-> now the Midi Regions Plays

Hi,

it's happened to me for the first time using a template.

My temporary workaround: assign a key commanto to "New Track with Same Channel Strip/Channel" -> create new track -> copy Midi Regions on it-> now the Midi Regions Plays

 

Reported this bug in a new thread. I do what you say here as workaround, but even that new channel would stop playing after a while.

 

How do you report this to Apple?

How do you report this to Apple?

 

http://www.apple.com/feedback/logicpro.html

 

J.

This has happened to me as well on certain Logic 8 sessions (I'm still on Logic 8 . Sometimes a newly recorded midi region is not playing in playback (but I can trigger the notes in the piano roll and hear them).

 

I've found that if I save the session, and re-open it, the midi region in question opens up as muted (it was not saved as muted of course). When I un-muted it it plays fine.

 

Jon

we have found a solution to this problem in Logic Pro 9,

 

after you import midi - go to settings - Midi - Input Filter - and tick System Exclusive .

 

Once that is ticked, you can change the instrument - and you will still hear the midi notes.

 

Make sure you tick it before changing the instrument or it wont work.

 

regards

sina.

Unfortunately, even that last method does not work for me, as I have the exact same issue mentioned in this thread. I have Logic Pro 9, and a very powerful Macbook Pro, yet Logic is the only program that continually gives me unexpected trouble. I changed those MIDI settings, loaded a new instrument, and even rebooted Logic, but nothing will make my first track play. All others seem to work just fine. For whatever reason, I got it to work yesterday by changing the instrument from the one I wanted to use, but that, obviously, is not a good solution.

Has ANYONE found a solution to this yet?

 

None of the temporary "fixes" (i.e. duplicating track, closing and re-opening, etc.) have worked for me, so I'm SOL in regards to being able to import any of my dozens of midi files into Logic without having to re-play everything from scratch.

 

The weird thing about it is the midi output works when I use certain plug-ins (namely the built in Logic ones, but also some third party ones) but don't work for most others (i.e. the ones I spent the majority of my money on!).

 

If anyone knows of any way around this, PLEASE let me know. I would really appreciate it.

 

Also, is there a way to record a soft synth's midi into a new midi track? I'm thinking this might be another work around. For example, I can use a VST that actually plays back the midi, and then create a new track with the actual VST I want to use, and record the output (in midi format) of the pattern.

 

I THINK Cakewalk has this feature (although I'm not sure if this is intended to produce a midi file or an audio file): http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation/default.aspx?Doc=SONAR%20X2&Lang=EN&Req=SoftSynths.19.html

The weird thing about it is the midi output works when I use certain plug-ins (namely the built in Logic ones, but also some third party ones) but don't work for most others (i.e. the ones I spent the majority of my money on!).

 

It sounds like a MIDI channel mismatch. In other words, the MIDI channel number used by the imported files is different to the MIDI channel your instruments are configured to respond to. Try setting the MIDI channel for all events on the imported files to MIDI channel 1 (the event list is a good place to do this).

 

J.

Thanks for the reply.

 

Given that certain instruments do work with the track, how could it be a MIDI channel mismatch? I'm not following. It's the same instruments every single import midi file that do/do not work. Also, one specific instrument fades in and out, only playing about half the notes in the midi track.

Given that certain instruments do work with the track, how could it be a MIDI channel mismatch? I'm not following.

 

Simple. Some instruments respond to data on any MIDI channel, others to data on a specific MIDI channel.

 

J.

Did you check for a MIDI channel mismatch? It's easy to have this happen, especially when there are Multi-instruments involved. If you've changed an instrument in your multi-instrument, the new instrument could have the wrong MIIDI channel assignment.

 

A single Logic Midi instrument will play back a MIDI file no matter what channel the notes within that file are set to. But this doesn't work with Multi-Instruments which is why checking the MIDI channel on both the region's notes (via event editor) and on the instrument itself is a good thing to do.

 

The fading in/out notes on one instrument sounds like a performance/instrument mismatch. In other words, the instrument might not have a fast enough attack to be able to audibly play all the notes. If you click on the non-playing notes in the piano roll, do you hear them then?

It's actually the SAME EXACT problem in the original post (OP). I've done quite a bit of research (prior to posting) on the topic, and have not been able to find a solution yet. The description in the OP best describes the issue I have.

airyak, make a copy of your logic project, delete all the tracks that are not concerned so you only leave the track that has the issue. In the Finder, control-click that file and compress it, then attach the .zip file to this thread. That way we can have a look at it.

Given that certain instruments do work with the track, how could it be a MIDI channel mismatch? I'm not following.

 

Simple. Some instruments respond to data on any MIDI channel, others to data on a specific MIDI channel.

 

J.

 

Did you check for a MIDI channel mismatch? It's easy to have this happen, especially when there are Multi-instruments involved. If you've changed an instrument in your multi-instrument, the new instrument could have the wrong MIIDI channel assignment.

 

A single Logic Midi instrument will play back a MIDI file no matter what channel the notes within that file are set to. But this doesn't work with Multi-Instruments which is why checking the MIDI channel on both the region's notes (via event editor) and on the instrument itself is a good thing to do.

 

The fading in/out notes on one instrument sounds like a performance/instrument mismatch. In other words, the instrument might not have a fast enough attack to be able to audibly play all the notes. If you click on the non-playing notes in the piano roll, do you hear them then?

 

Thanks for the responses. I'm hoping this is the cause.

 

Can someone please give me specifics on how to check/change instrument channel? I've checked the even list (which I'm guessing shows the MIDI channel), and it is showing channel 7. However, I'm unable to find which channel the actual input is playing from.

 

I've found something on the side toolbar that looks like this

 

Core Audio: Inst 1

MIDI Channel: All

Freeze Mode: Pre Fader

Transposition:

Velocity:

 

Not sure if this is where I'm supposed to make the change, but I changed "All" to "7", and that did not fix the problem.

 

Thoughts?

Can someone please give me specifics on how to check/change instrument channel?

 

It depends on the instrument...but you'd need to change it right on the instrument's interface. If you don't know where to change the MIDI channel on the instrument, the easiest way is to change all events in the region to channel 1 using the event list (select the region, press the E key on your computer keyboard).

 

J.

Sweet. Thanks a lot man.

You're welcome. Does that mean the problem's solved then?

 

J.

You're welcome. Does that mean the problem's solved then?

 

J.

 

Yes! I've literally been freaking out all week. My only issue now is actually finding out how to set the channels in my software instruments (I was able to test it with one instrument that I did know how to set the channel, that's how I know it works), but I can definitely find out on my own when I have the time (or use your other method of changing the event list channel).

 

Thanks again.

 

By the way, I'm convinced that is the same issue the OP was going through as well (but this solution was never presented in this thread until now). Hopefully he found out what was going on either way, because this issue seemed to be a head scratcher (there are about 5-6 unsolved cases online on other forums, etc.) for those of us who aren't smart on MIDI!

By the way, I'm convinced that is the same issue the OP was going through as well (but this solution was never presented in this thread until now).

 

airyak13, I apologize. I realize now that for some reason I thought this was the thread about instruments going mute after moving regions!

 

If i move a region all other regions wont play!

 

I don't know how this happened, but I've edited some of our posts to avoid confusion.

 

Glad to hear the problem is solved!

 

Cheers,

 

J.

this fix saved my life

Could someone show in detail maybe with a screenshot how to change the midi channel in the event list?

cant seem to find it. THank you

Could someone show in detail maybe with a screenshot how to change the midi channel in the event list?

cant seem to find it. THank you

It's not in the event list - I answered your question there: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=104939&p=781468#p781468