iPad step sequencer timing and missed notes problems.

[DJRickDawson]

"the iRig MIDI out led only shows up when I actually get a trigger."

Wouldnt that be normal? Or dou you mean it should have shown more triggers but since Lemur dropped them they never get to the interface?

this is correct.^

I've been running on iOS 7.1 for a while now. (before I came back to trying lemur new features)

[electrofux]

What can i say, i made the irig midi test yesterday and everything is fine now.
I feel with you though, because i definitly had the same problems before. The only things i changed was updating IOS, Lemur Update and Reason Update.
Anyone of these must have brought the change.

[electrofux]

Ok more tests. The dropped notes problem is gone here.

I still have problems syncing any Ipad app to Reason because eventually they all drift away.

[Mia79]

Im having probs also.

Here using iConnectmidi4+, Lemur 5.03 drum sequencer on ipad2 ios 7 , and MPC1000.

Lemur as slave to MPC clock = Lemur momentarily loses sync often. (sounds like it speeds up/double triggers)

Lemur without sync = Lemur drops notes often.

Im using Latest IOS, Lemur ect...this doesnt seem right, especially missing notes under its internal clock?

[Mia79]

Right, well, I managed to find an app called "Midibus"!

A MIDI clock sync generator and monitor, monitor the MIDI clock signals of apps and devices (including MidiBus itself) and measure how accurate and stable they really are. You might be very surprised at the results.

I bought it and indeed was "very surprised".

According to Midibus when monitoring the signal from the MPC1000 through the iCM4 -:

Latency : 0.04 ms (+/-) 0.0%

BPM : reading fluctuates 117.2 - 125.2 (+/-) 1.6% !!OUCH!!

Watching the monitor it appears as though the clock sent has an alternating pattern of being sent late for three beats (reading shows 117-9) and then very early on the fourth (suddenly jumps to 125!)

This would suggest my beloved MPC1000 = dodgy midiclock

Can it be so?

This disagrees somewhat with the Lemur BPM read which appears to display a much more stable @ 119.8 - 120.1 max variation. Still the beahaviour would seem to agree with Midibus's reading - including the speeding up behaviour.

Do you know of another PC app that can analyse midiclock stability? It would be good to confirm this without the iCM4 and iPad being involved. Maybe Lemur syncs too accuratley to the dodgy clock of the MPC?

Playing a Piano Library with a USB midi keyboard through th iCM4 shows no issues - doesnt seem to affect the midi data in anyway going through, so i doubt it would be messing up the clock data.

Its not looking good for me is it? Anyone you know got an MPC1000 to test with Midibus? I thought their timing was supposed to be solid. :C

[Mia79]

After all of that, the problem seems to have stemmed from the iCM4+ device!

Early after installing it I disabled all the audio ports of the iCM4 since I did not intend to use them, only midi.

Everything seemed to be working ok apart from the problems with the sequencer not slaving well to external clock, even without sync it was having problems.

Days later I woke to find the iCM4's ports were missing from a project left open overnight. I was not able to get the PC to recognize the iCM4 at all, tried everything. Eventually found a blog where a user explained that this will happen if the audio ports are disabled. I presume that overnight my PC had powered off the USB port that the iCM4 was connected to (I had forgotten to disable this in device manger xp).

Re-enabling the audio ports using the iconfig app and the device was talking to the PC again, however since making this change the lemur sequencer has been working wonderfully without any stuttering! There is a very occasional micro glitch, but this is worlds apart from how it was before, now it is very very useable indeed!

I'm not 100% that this is the reason but nothing else has changed and it seems like more than a coincidence. Maybe midi sync has some sort of dependency on receiving time info from the audio related parts of the device? I have no idea but am very pleased with lemur now!

[electrofux]

Midi Clock drifting up and down is normal in some sense. But i think it is a bit high in Lemur. As i said in the other thread some problems are gone (like the missing notes) but the tightness is not really there in my setup. I am thinking about going the expert sleepers route or buy an inncerclock system device if they become more affordable (i am using Reason and they announced a plugin for Reason). But i am not 100% sure if a good chunk of the final Jitter is not caused by Lemur or the Ipad.

[DJRickDawson]

so i've changed (upgraded) my laptop now a core i7 with windows 8.1, and latest 64bit ableton 9 install...
moog app is stable, but lemur still isnt.
I have also added a Native Instruments Audio10 and used it for midi from / to the iRigMIDI.

[mat]

Hey Rick, Midi clock stability also depends where the clock is created, so what is your masterclock?
Most stable clocks often comes from external hardware rather than within the computer. (sounds a bit voodoo, I know) But even if you upgraded your laptop, high load - caused by sounds and fx - might cause irregularities on clock. During jams with friends some years ago we synced our laptops running Ableton via Midi. But none of us was able to send a stable master clock - whenever libraries were browsed the master got hickup. We used an external master and all slaved Ableton to that and everything was fine. just saying... although our laptops were ok and ableton is a good program, Midi clock accuracy is not guaranteed.

So I suggest to experiment a bit with clock source. (Our master was "Normaluhr" http://www.stekgreif.com/normaluhr:main?do=backlink...a special clock one of the guys created, but I see, such a clock is not a standard ) Maybe you got some hardware, or try different programs as clock source.
You can also try Sequencomat (a sequencer I created years ago in max), which can send a Midi beat clock. I use this clock as master in my setup with quite good results...but it really depends. Sequencomat: https://liine.net/en/community/user-library/view/88/, it works with free max runtime you might get at cycling74. I know - it is another program to install which makes setup a bit more clumsy, but regarding clock stability it can be worth it.

Not sure if that helps you or it fits to your setup. Just wanted to share that accuracy of Midi clock can be a common problem.....
all the best*mat