PAS 16 "dropping" MIDI control messages?
Michael L. Murphy
Midisoft "Recording Session" sequencer, Windows 3.1+DOS.
I've been having problems with "stuck notes" on my synth (i.e., when
a MIDI note on message is transmitted, but no MIDI note off message is
sent later...) The problems are not limited to the sequencer software
I'm using, even Windows' Media Player will occasionally get a note
"stuck". For that matter, it's not limited to Windows 3.1 - under
DOS, using the MPU-401 emulation ability of the PAS16 and playing
X-Wing, I'll get stuck notes. Note that it doesn't happen very often -
But almost every other time I play a really complex MIDI file, I end
up with a stuck note at the end.
It's frustrating me to no end - I'll do anything to make the stuck notes
stop. I called Media Vision and spent a good half hour on the phone with
one of their tech support guys: "Try T:1 on the mvsound.sys driver.
No? Well, let's try T:0... Try turning off the MPU-401 driver...
Try a different IRQ... try a different DMA... Turn off Soundblaster
support..." All to no avail. I even tried fooling with the ISA bus
speed in my BIOS, but it didn't help.
What must I do?!? Is it just that the MIDI interface on the PAS-16
sucks? I'm even willing to buy a real Roland MPU-401 card if it will
make the problem go away, but will it? Please help me - send me e-mail
and tell me what to do!
(And now, the BONUS QUESTION...)
Just for curiosity, I tried to hook up my old PSR-500's MIDI out to my
new PSR-510's MIDI in, and then banged away on the PSR-500 - not a
single dropped or stuck note, no matter how many I played. However, if
I held a note on the PSR-500's keyboard, and then disconnected the
cable, the PSR-510 *stopped playing the note*!!! How is this possible
- isn't a MIDI off message necessary??? There's obviously something
weird going on here - it I unplug the MIDI out from my computer to the
PSR-510, the keyboard will just keep on playing whatever notes it
happens to be playing at the time - somebody tell me how the two
keyboards are communicating differently from the keyboard and the
computer!
Paul Race
>Just for curiosity, I tried to hook up my old PSR-500's MIDI out to my
>new PSR-510's MIDI in.
Just out of curiousity, could you post a review of your Yamaha 510? A lot of
people who would have bought the PSR500 held off because it wasn't GM. Could
you tell us about yours, where you got it, how much you paid, how you would
compare it to a PSR-500, does it use AWM or AWMII sounds, and so on? Thanks
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul....@DaytonOH.ncr.com
My employer is not responsible for my opinions. As a matter
of fact, they probably don't even know I get this newsgroup
and they'd stop me if they found out.
---------------------------------------------------------------
| Paul Race Corporate Customer Services, NCR SDC-2 Dayton |
| NCR: 622-1665 <Paul....@DaytonOH.ncr.com> |
| (513) 445-1665 <ncrcom!whq-top!pdr> |
| FAX: 445-7196 |
---------------------------------------------------------------
Michael L. Murphy
>Just out of curiousity, could you post a review of your Yamaha 510? A lot of
>people who would have bought the PSR500 held off because it wasn't GM. Could
>you tell us about yours, where you got it, how much you paid, how you would
>compare it to a PSR-500, does it use AWM or AWMII sounds, and so on? Thanks
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>Paul....@DaytonOH.ncr.com
PSR-510 - "No sir, I didn't like it".
I'm returning my PSR-510 today (I bought it from Service Merchandise
for $520). I'm not at all satisfied with the quality of the
instrument.
Compared with the PSR-500, the sounds are much worse. The piano
sound, for example, is tinny and buzzy, where the piano on the PSR-500
is clear and resonant; and the orchestra hit is flat and "fuzzy", not
at all like the deeper, more bassy hit on the PSR-500. Although there are
more voices, and more percussion sounds, than the PSR-500, none of them
are really high quality. The built-in speakers are not as good as the
PSR-500's (where the PSR-500 uses 6W speakers, the PSR-510 only has 4W
speakers (I think), and the difference is clearly audible even at
lower volumes.
The key action is lousy, and is, again, *worse* than the PSR-500. You
feel a definite "thunk" every time you press a key, and the keys have
no "weight" at all (not that I expected that much, but they just feel
very "plastic" and light - I suspect that "thunk" at the bottom of the
keypress has a lot to do with this perception. I don't feel this nearly
as much on the PSR-500).
It just feels like it was an instrument designed in a hurry to catch up
with the General MIDI "wave" that is sweeping the market, and that not
much attention was paid to detail or quality. As a matter of fact, one
of the white keys (A2, I believe) stopped working completely just last
night, just 2 days after I brought it home, which convinced me that
"this is not a keyboard designed with quality in mind" and fueled my
decision to return it.
In its favor, however, it has more reverb (DSP) effects than the
PSR-500, like a studio "plate" reverb and an echo reverb, and it has
"effects" that can be added to voices, like a "trill" between two
keys... The dial control for selecting voices (and other numeric
values) is easy to use. The built-in "sequencer" (song memory) is much
more complex than the PSR-500's and allows quantization, and entry of
note timings and gates "by hand". It's got 6 demos instead of 3 and
the demos show how the PSR-510 can vary tempos (rubato) during a
sequence, and also show off the GM sound effects like helicopter and
gunshot. The MIDI implementation is better and each channel can be put
separately in 4 "modes": multi-voice mode, "remote control" mode,
"chord" mode (controlling the auto accompaniment) or "bass" mode (same
thing, bass note for auto accompaniment). It was all these new features
that convinced me to buy it, and I thought "It'll probably sound better
when I get it home and hook it up to my own speakers" - wrong...
In short, it is very feature-laden, but it doesn't feel or sound like a
high-quality keyboard. I'm going to keep looking.
Can anyone recommend a keyboard with:
o 61-88 touch-sensitive (maybe even pressure sensitive) keys,
that aren't plastic-y feeling (maybe weighted keys? But
weighted keys are not a necessity)
o General MIDI (or a GM superset) capability
o good, fat, *realistic* sounds (this is most important, I think -
I want my piano sound to sound like a *piano*, not a synth!)
o Auto accompaniment system (with some decent rhythm patterns)
Built in speakers, sampling ability, sound "editing", and some sort of
song memory are all not necessary but would be nice extras. I want to
spend < $1000 dollars, please! (Actually, I'd like to spend as little
as possible :) but I know that quality costs bucks, so I'm willing to
shell out $500-$800, and if I fall in love with it, maybe, maybe I'll
spend up to $1000.)
Would I be better off going with a separate sound module and keyboard?
Where can I shop in Champaign/Urbana for a keyboard? I get the feeling
that the department stores just won't cut it.
And does anyone want to buy my PSR-500 so I can afford this new keyboard? :)
I'm asking for $325, it's only 9 months old and I like how it sounds and
feels (it's just not GM!). You'll like it too! Send me e-mail!
Royce Lithgo
>Hi. My setup: PAS16 + MidiMate, Yamaha PSR-510 General MIDI synth,
>Midisoft "Recording Session" sequencer, Windows 3.1+DOS.
>I've been having problems with "stuck notes" on my synth (i.e., when
>a MIDI note on message is transmitted, but no MIDI note off message is
>sent later...) The problems are not limited to the sequencer software
>I'm using, even Windows' Media Player will occasionally get a note
>"stuck". For that matter, it's not limited to Windows 3.1 - under
>DOS, using the MPU-401 emulation ability of the PAS16 and playing
>X-Wing, I'll get stuck notes. Note that it doesn't happen very often -
>But almost every other time I play a really complex MIDI file, I end
>up with a stuck note at the end.
>It's frustrating me to no end - I'll do anything to make the stuck notes
>stop. I called Media Vision and spent a good half hour on the phone with
>one of their tech support guys: "Try T:1 on the mvsound.sys driver.
>No? Well, let's try T:0... Try turning off the MPU-401 driver...
>Try a different IRQ... try a different DMA... Turn off Soundblaster
>support..." All to no avail. I even tried fooling with the ISA bus
>speed in my BIOS, but it didn't help.
>What must I do?!? Is it just that the MIDI interface on the PAS-16
>sucks? I'm even willing to buy a real Roland MPU-401 card if it will
>make the problem go away, but will it? Please help me - send me e-mail
>and tell me what to do!
I remember some discussion about this. I think there is indeed a problem
with the MPU-401 emulation on the PAS16 (I too get stuck notes on X-wing
using the midimate and mt-32). I have considered buying a proper MPU-401
but it is too expensive. As to whether this will fix the problem I guess
it would, but don't buy one cause I said so. Why don't you see if someone
will let you try it out before you buy!
Royce.
Michael L. Murphy
great deal of information on my two questions that I feel I should share
with the net.
>Me: (mur...@symcom.math.uiuc.edu)
>I've been having problems with "stuck notes" on my synth (i.e., when
>a MIDI note on message is transmitted, but no MIDI note off message is
>sent later...) The problems are not limited to the sequencer software
>I'm using, even Windows' Media Player will occasionally get a note
>"stuck". For that matter, it's not limited to Windows 3.1 - under
>DOS, using the MPU-401 emulation ability of the PAS16 and playing
>X-Wing, I'll get stuck notes. Note that it doesn't happen very often -
>But almost every other time I play a really complex MIDI file, I end
>up with a stuck note at the end.
Answer: After many hours on the phone with Media Vision, I talked
with one of the "experts" in MIDI there. He said that it was a known
problem that the PAS-16 would occasionally drop MIDI messages when
dealing with a large amount of data (in the same way that a 16450
UART will overflow its 1-character buffer if an interrupt is missed,
occasionally the PAS-16 will drop MIDI control messages). He said the
problem will be fixed in the PAStudio XL, to be released in January,
but the question is whether I want to pay hundreds of dollars more
for a wavetable synthesis card when 1) I plan to have an external synth
2) I've been burned once by this company before.... Hmmmm.
I am now attempting to get a refund on my PAS-16, I think I'll purchase
just a plain MIDI card (from Roland or another company that's going to
give me quality), and maybe later, a cheaper card that just does
good CD-quality sampling/simple FM synthesis like a Logitech Soundman.
I was even able to figure out my second question (or at least come
up with a working theory!)
Me again: (mur...@symcom.math.uiuc.edu)
>(And now, the BONUS QUESTION...)
>
>Just for curiosity, I tried to hook up my old PSR-500's MIDI out to my
>new PSR-510's MIDI in, and then banged away on the PSR-500 - not a
>single dropped or stuck note, no matter how many I played. However, if
>I held a note on the PSR-500's keyboard, and then disconnected the
>cable, the PSR-510 *stopped playing the note*!!! How is this possible
>- isn't a MIDI off message necessary??? There's obviously something
>weird going on here - it I unplug the MIDI out from my computer to the
>PSR-510, the keyboard will just keep on playing whatever notes it
>happens to be playing at the time - somebody tell me how the two
>keyboards are communicating differently from the keyboard and the
>computer!
I think I finally figured out what's going on here. I remembered reading
that some synths transmit "active sensing" messages via MIDI, and if a sense
message isn't received, the synth resets itself. Here it is, in
the file "/pub/MIDI/DOC/midiprimer" on ftp.cs.ruu.nl:
> The USENET MIDI Primer
> Bob McQueer
> [...]
>
> The active sensing byte is to be sent every 300 ms. or more often,
> if it is used. Its purpose is to implement a timeout mechanism
> for a receiver to revert to a default state. A receiver is to
> operate normally if it never gets one of these, activating the
> timeout mechanism from the receipt of the first one.
>
> >>
> My impression is that active sensing is largely unused.
> <<
But apparently, the PSR-500 and PSR-510 *do* use active sensing bytes.
This is my guess, can anyone verify this? This would actually be a
great idea if all synths/sequencers sent this, it would prevent a lot
of stuck notes when cable are unplugged/moved or synths are turned off!
Adam Mirowski
: [...] He said the
: problem will be fixed in the PAStudio XL, to be released in January,
: but the question is whether I want to pay hundreds of dollars more
: for a wavetable synthesis card when 1) I plan to have an external synth
: 2) I've been burned once by this company before.... Hmmmm.
:
: I am now attempting to get a refund on my PAS-16, I think I'll purchase
: just a plain MIDI card (from Roland or another company that's going to
: give me quality),
The "plain MIDI card" might not be a good purchase anymore,
especially with regard to multitasking operating systems.
The Roland, I believe, is unable to deliver a high-speed
timer interrupt needed for real-time background MIDI playback,
and also doesn't have FIFOs on input/output of MIDI data.
I would LOVE to be wrong on this...
: and maybe later, a cheaper card that just does
: good CD-quality sampling/simple FM synthesis like a Logitech Soundman.
Which is basically a PAS16 without SCSI support... :-)
Logitech is an OEM for Mediavision.
: >Just for curiosity, I tried to hook up my old PSR-500's MIDI out to my
: >new PSR-510's MIDI in, and then banged away on the PSR-500 - not a
: >single dropped or stuck note, no matter how many I played. However, if
: >I held a note on the PSR-500's keyboard, and then disconnected the
: >cable, the PSR-510 *stopped playing the note*!! [...]
: > if I unplug the MIDI out from my computer to the
: >PSR-510, the keyboard will just keep on playing whatever notes it
: >happens to be playing at the time - somebody tell me how the two
: >keyboards are communicating differently from the keyboard and the
: >computer!
:
: I think I finally figured out what's going on here. I remembered reading
: that some synths transmit "active sensing" messages via MIDI, and if a sense
: message isn't received, the synth resets itself.
That is my opinion too. The PSR-500 probably delivers
a constant Active Sensing flow on MIDI-OUT, while the
MIDI interface in your computer doesn't.
--
Adam Mirowski, m...@chorus.fr (FRANCE), tel. +33 (1) 30-64-82-00 or 74
Chorus systemes, 6, av.Gustave Eiffel, 78182 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines CEDEX