Piano-Roll notes visibly time-shifted, but MIDI events audibly in-sync

[UK_Andrew]

I'm currently migrating some very long-standing projects from my MacBook Pro system to my iMac system, entailing conversions from Logic Pro 8 to LPX 10.3. Apart from the issue documented below, my very complex LP8 projects survive this transition perfectly.

 

An issue I've noticed intermittently over ten years or so working with LP8 is occurring consistently with converted projects:

 

When any region on any external MIDI track is viewed in Piano Roll the playhead reaches the graphical representations of the notes about 20ms after the note-event has been triggered. The triggered (XP-60 patch) audio is IN SYNC (audibly) with both internal software instruments and audio tracks.

 

In other words, I can play everything (audio, software instrument, external MIDI) in-sync, but detailed Piano Roll editing for external MIDI regions is made difficult by visually out-of-sync note marks.

 

To troubleshoot: via Piano Roll, I've copied MIDI note events from software instrument tracks and 'pasted-at-original-position' to newly created and empty external MIDI tracks. The pasted notes play at the right time (audibly), and cursor pop-up info for any pasted note shows it as as being placed at the same time mark as the matching note on the software instrument track from which it was copied. But on the external MIDI track all the graphical note marks are 20ms (approx) ahead of the Piano Roll playhead.

 

The same projects opened under LP8 do not manifest this issue. Since there is obviously something in the LP8 project files that LPX is interpreting differently, I wonder if there is anything I could do to tidy those files up before I convert them.

 

Under LP8 I had to fix automation sync issues sometimes by launching separate Arrange views showing "overall" regions and "automation-only" regions, moving all of same up the project timeline by the same amount, snipping all at the same point (in different views) then moving them back to the start of the timeline. Or something horrible like that. This had to do with eradicating events placed in the "minus" zone, prior to zero in the timeline. Anyway, in LPX I can't find a way of opening a Main window that shows anything other than "overall" regions.

 

The projects I'm migrating are complex. Typically, they have 30 to 60 active mixer busses and routings that would take days each to rebuild. However, to reinforce: everything listenable is audibly in-sync. From experience I'm pretty sure that the issue is not to do with plug-in or Logic bus latency, or my monitoring set-up (budget Soundcraft hardware mixer via Total Mix app). I figured all that out long ago.

 

For all new work I will make new project templates under LPX, but that's not an option for my unfinished LP8 projects.

What I'm after is a way of restoring the Piano Roll synchronisation between visual note marks and actual MIDI events in all the regions sitting on external MIDI tracks.

 

Any ideas that might make an old man happy?

[Atlas007]

Speaking of latency, perhaps what you are dealing with, is related to different Plugin Latency Compensation preference settings in different Logic versions. Or maybe a MIDI Delay Sync different adjustment?

[UK_Andrew]

Thanks for your reply, Atlas007. I am famiiar with the panels you refer to.

However, as stated, nothing is out of sync on playback, including all audio, and MIDI events for both internal (software) and external instruments.

 

The issue in a nutshell: the graphical representations of MIDI events on the Piano Roll for all external MIDI tracks are shifted by a consistent amount to the right of the playhead. 

 

It's possible to mess about with delays of various kinds in order to work out what the graphical shift amounts to in time. In correction to my first post, it's actually about 10ms. Again, this is not a delay in the triggering of, say, a note, just the time it takes the playhead to reach the note mark on the Piano Roll after the note has sounded. The error is only in the way things are shown on the Piano Roll.

 

The issue is not covered in any official Logic Pro documetation that I've come across. I believe it's an anomaly buried in the application build, brought out by unpredicted user behaviour. My guess is that it has to do with the fact that although Logic made it possible to create a project with "before zero" space on the timeline, the application could not properly manage events placed in that space, causing odd things to happen if the user ever moved the start-point of the project back to zero at any time after the project was first saved.

[KC]

I just had this same issue. Going to the Plug-In Latency Prefs->General and switching the Plug-In Latency Compensation to All did the trick for me. Now everything is lined up as expected.

 

(I know it's a year old thread, but it was helpful to me today)