Weird MIDI issue that is driving me nuts

[Serenade314]

Just got a new M2 Mac Pro (Ventura) with the latest version of LPX and I am setting up my new template.

Logic is receiving MIDI via my Roland keyboard, all fine and dandy. And out of nowhere virtual instruments don't receive MIDI anymore. I can see and confirm that MIDI is coming into LPX (Transport shows incoming MIDI as expected), and I can still record/performance-capture just fine, and playback of the recorded/captured regions also work as expected, but direct MIDI input via keyboard is met with silence.

I tried backtracking to find a bug, or wrong routing/setting. I ended up erasing a bunch of random tracks and folders and that solved it twice now... until it happened again. Saved files are just corrupted to the point where I just had to start over.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Atlas007]

Make sure that MIDI Channel and port correspond between your keyboard and your plugin. Could you specify which virtual instrument is causing issue? If that is a 3rd party plugin, did you register it with the vendor since you are using it in your new Mac?

 

[Serenade314]

THanks for your reply.

>>Make sure that MIDI Channel and port correspond between your keyboard and your plugin.

They do

>>Could you specify which virtual instrument is causing issue?

Any VI (Logic's Synths, Kontakt etc.)

>>If that is a 3rd party plugin, did you register it with the vendor since you are using it in your new Mac?

All registered and working. 

The issue is hard to explain, so here is a DropBox link to a screen recording I made:

https://www.dropbox.com/t/NLLqCnO3MGSAXKlA

 

[Atlas007]

In your Environment's Physical Input object, what is Logic Pro Virtual?

[David Nahmani]

I watched the video, I wish we could see your inspector, but in the inspector it doesn't look like there's an instrument routed to Stereo Out or a bus ...? 

[rAC]

Does the Roland have a device driver or is it class compliant? If its the former is it updated for Ventura?

[polanoid]

Can you post an example project in which this happens? Or at least not crop the video so that all interesting information is invisible 😉?

[Serenade314]

Thanks for your engagement

>> In your Environment's Physical Input object, what is Logic Pro Virtual?

This was created automatically by Logic. 

>> I watched the video, I wish we could see your inspector, but in the inspector it doesn't look like there's an instrument routed to Stereo Out or a bus ...? 

The stems are connected to sub-mix stems, but arrive in the main SUM, and eventually Stereo OUT The issue still occurs, even if the instrument track is routed directly to the Stereo OUT.

>> Does the Roland have a device driver or is it class compliant? If its the former is it updated for Ventura?

The Roland is connected to a mio MIDI box which is up to date.

>> Can you post an example project in which this happens? Or at least not crop the video so that all interesting information is invisible 😉?

Yes. Here is the Dropbox link to the project:

https://www.dropbox.com/t/5E1rqsdUaLBSffqY

The Alchemy instrument is routed to Stereo Out. I can't hear anything when I play UNLESS I erase some AUDIO tracks up top. (STEM TRACKS 1-15)

  

[polanoid]

6 hours ago, Serenade314 said:

Here is the Dropbox link to the project:

Wow that's some complex routing going on there!

6 hours ago, Serenade314 said:

The Alchemy instrument is routed to Stereo Out.

Quite an understatement 🙂 had to note that down myself to understand it:

Alchemy -> Bus 1 -> Bus 105 (via Send for whatever reason) -> Bus 126 (again via Send) -> Bus 129 -> Bus 130 -> Bus 254 -> Bus 132 (and 131 via Send) -> Stereo Out

Nevertheless that doesn't seem to be the issue, directly routing Alchemy to Stereo Out doesn't change the behaviour. I will investigate further, stay tuned.

[polanoid]

Fascinating. Deleting all WW Stem tracks except 1 and all BRS Stem tracks cures the problem. Still investigating...

[polanoid]

Ah! Found it! The issue is the number of simultaneously Input-Monitoring enabled tracks. Seems like Logic cannot input monitor more than 31 audio tracks and have a software instrument track in live mode for whatever reason (this might be a bug so I recommend to report it to Apple). So disable Input monitoring for 15 of your input monitoring enabled tracks and your issue is fixed.

[Serenade314]

 

>>Quite an understatement 🙂 had to note that down myself to understand it:

Alchemy -> Bus 1 -> Bus 105 (via Send for whatever reason) -> Bus 126 (again via Send) -> Bus 129 -> Bus 130 -> Bus 254 -> Bus 132 (and 131 via Send) -> Stereo Out

 

HAHA! Yup, it's kinda like top-down mixing:

WW/BR/STR/PERC Instrument -> Submix Stem (Film stem, or naked stem without reverb for mixing engineer) + Reverb -> WWs (TV stems with Reverb mixed in, for when less delivery stems are requested) -> Orchestra subgroup stem (for striped recording or when orchestrators need orchestra parts without Synth mixed in) -> SUM for mastering and printing of stereo demo -> stereo out.

The bus send option doesn't seem to make a difference though. In my first version I did the same thing by routing the bus through the output

>> Ah! Found it! The issue is the number of simultaneously Input-Monitoring enabled tracks. Seems like Logic cannot input monitor more than 31 audio tracks and have a software instrument track in live mode for whatever reason (this might be a bug so I recommend to report it to Apple).

WOW! That's amazing that you were able to pin it down to that. It is a bit surprising though. In my last template on my Intel Mac and LPX 10.7 I was able to have 94 tracks in input monitoring with a similar layout and no such problem...

Can anyone confirm this happening on your system as well, or is this a corrupted file? My plan is to start another template from scratch and see if I run into the same problem again.

[polanoid]

16 minutes ago, Serenade314 said:

Can anyone confirm this happening on your system as well, or is this a corrupted file?

this happens for all projects, I already tried. seems to be a new behavior in 10.7.8 or so.

[rAC]

@polanoid would you care to share how you got to your conclusion? I’m interested in the methodology as it could be helpful in other situations.

[Serenade314]

>> this happens for all projects, I already tried. seems to be a new behavior in 10.7.8 or so.

Darn that sucks! I left a bug report with Apple. Will have to look into making monitoring only duplicates of everything before routing them to stems I suppose. Thanks again for checking this.

[polanoid]

4 minutes ago, rAC said:

@polanoid would you care to share how you got to your conclusion? I’m interested in the methodology as it could be helpful in other situations.

Generally I try to strip down a complex project to see if that changes something in the behaviour, and if it does - as deleting tracks did for this specific case - find out which object does make the difference. Best to use bisection - delete one half of the objects, then undo and delete the other half, to see which half made the difference, operate on the remaining half only and so on (this means you will find the culprit in 1000 objects in just 10 steps).

In this special case it was several different objects which made the difference, so I checked what they had in common and found they were all input monitoring enabled. That quickly leads to the conclusion that it's the number of input monitoring enabled objects that causes the issue.

Oh, and please call me Sherlock from now on...

[rAC]

Thanks @polanoid