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Hexfix93 Author

Level 1

0 points

The daw war is over. midi timing! woooooo!

Midi jitter on external midi, sequencing synths and drums in real time from the computer. This is a big deal to those of us who like to sequence live and mix analog for better sound quality and tight notation. Logic 8 is the winner. Logic 8 with amt8 on osx is 1ms of midi jitter! this is as tight as notator on the atari st, which to this date held the record for tight midi on a computer. now logic 8 ties this record! KUDOS TO YOU APPLE AND EMAGIC! YOU HAVE WON THE MIDI WAR. AMT8 interface was used in my test. I triggered a high hat on my dr 880 drum machine, recorded it in, wrote down all the peak transients and subtracted the differences. yup 1 ms of jitter! so drums and bass lines can finally sound tight in real time thanks to apple and logic 8. I am so happy. i bought this software. logic 8 express! it has answered all my midi prayers! finally a daw that does it all, sounds great, and is feature laden. beats out all daws now. easily the king! i bet removing the dongle had a big impact of the midi timing. i cannot thank you enough, this has been a huge hassle for me over the last 10 years. i have pulled out hair, gone insane, gotten banned off the steinberg forums, and turned many against me because of this. its over. when i tested logic 7 with the amt8, i got 3 ms of jitter on osx. so logic 8 is even better!

PC MIDI: cubase sx with many interfaces including the midex8 on 4 different pcs i tested all were from 13 to 20 ms of midi jitter. Saw studio was 7 ms of midi jitter. Sonar 6 was 14 ms of midi jitter. Logic 5.5.1 with amt on xp(which was never stable) was 3ms of jitter but completely un usable because midi would just stop working, then you would have to reload logic and it would work for 5 minutes the quit again. so this is irrelevant.

Let me break down the daws for you in other ways. Saw has the best sound and worst interface with crap midi, sonar 6 has crap midi, second best sound and crap interface, cubase has crap sound and crap midi with an awesome interface. that is the pc side of things. on the Mac logic 7 had good midi, and decent sound, with an ok to decent interface. Now, logic 8 has a great interface, the best midi ever on a modern computer, and the sound quality is up there with sonar and samplitude. sonar had awesome time streching, now so does logic 8, cubase has awesome audio editing, but so does logic 8 now, 7 was no where close to cubase in audio editing, but now, its as good. finally logic 8 delivers on all fronts where all daws have failed before. LOGIC 8 express is 199! BUY IT NOW! Logic 8 studio is 499. BUY ONE OF THEM! cheaper than the competition, and way better in all regards! + NO MORE DONGLE!!!!!!! AWESOME!

taken from my web site here:

http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/gear.htm

macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Sep 20, 2007 6:38 PM

50 replies

Sep 22, 2007 7:37 AM in response to iSchwartz

Hi iSchwartz,

you are absolutely right about me having to get my facts straight... As I wrote this I just could not remember whether it was 10.000 or 40.000 per bar... That is why I wrote it like I did... Either way - it's more than 3840. And that was my point... I will (once I get in the studio) check the actual resolution and then I'll report back...

Whether you believe it or not I have been doing a lot of tests concerning this topic...

Here's one thing I've done to check it

make a midi track and an audio track - set the midi track to quantize OFF. In my case the midi track was triggering an external KORG Trition with a piano... I armed both the audio and the midi track and hit record and played a fairly complicated piano line... I played on top of a beat to have the timing...

After the recording I phase reverted the audio piano track and hit play - the two did NOT cancel out all the time... This way you can easily test the "difference" without recording the midi data's elec. impulses.

And iS -

this is what I wrote in the post about the time stretch algos...

I find it to sound a whole lot better than in L7... Actually - that feature was one of the first things I checked after having installed L8... I tried it on various material and was pretty amazed by it... So IMO - quality has definitely improved.

i said I checked it - not tested it... When I read above statement it is clearly subjective and not objective - I even END the line with *In My opinion*

No matter when I post here - you are always out to get me.... I feel much obliged that I am taking up so much of your time.... Get a life - will 'ya

Sep 22, 2007 7:55 AM in response to SteveDjokes

Hi Steve,
a mate (bassist) has just got the MPC-4000.
WOW.
and it's so quick.
you are right about that feel thing.
the slight tempo flux does the trick.
and the sound quality is excellent.
DR9.

Sep 22, 2007 8:00 AM in response to David Robinson9

If only it had the visual programming that Logic has - After having spent some days with the MP' one really start appreciating the Mouse Graphical Interface 🙂

Sep 22, 2007 8:02 AM in response to Hexfix93

hi guys,
as someone stated, double the tempi in logic if accurate score is not an issue.
a lot of mine is doubled, resulting in tempi of 400bpm+.
it works but on my old thing logic barely holds it together.
one piece was originally 125bpm, so i quadrupled it to 500.
logic(or my mac) didn't like it much, but for playing parts in live it does feel better.
DR9.

Sep 22, 2007 9:17 AM in response to David Robinson9

OK, by doubling or quadrupling your tempo you have logic's quantization error down to less than 1/4 of a milisecond - but how do you get your keyboard, interface, usb port, etc. to work with less than a milisecond or two (or 17) of jitter?

If you are hearing timing discrepancies it is not because of 960 ppq. Even 480 ppq exceeds the capabilities of hardware. At 96 ppq the old MPC was useless for unquantized stuff, but then nobody was using it to record Chopin. It sounded tight when quantized because of hardware.

Sep 22, 2007 10:04 AM in response to Charlie the Tuna

mr tuna,
i'm only talkin' 'bout VI's, samplers, etc, nothing external.
best,
DR9.

Sep 22, 2007 10:23 AM in response to David Robinson9

Keyboard? Drum pads? I might be missing the point - I thought this was about having it come back the way it got played in. Anyway, that's all I'm referring to. As far as really tight sounding quantized stuff - NOT the way it was played in - I suppose 24 ppq is enough for 64th note triplets, and 96 ppq is overkill.

iSchwartz

Level 5

4,321 points

Sep 22, 2007 10:37 AM in response to SteveDjokes

Steve wrote:

Trust me, I don't spend time searching out your posts and then feeling obliged to criticize them. I know BS when I see it. In my opinion you have a huge credibility gap bo overcome here. Oh, and the old trick of trying hiding behind BS by stating that what you said was "opinion"? That's the oldest excuse in the book.

No matter when I post here - you are always out to get me.... I feel much obliged that I am taking up so much of your time.... Get a life - will 'ya

If only that were true, I'd have to agree with you. But since it's not I'll just LOL. Remember, Steve, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people are out to get you...

😉

the MPC 4000 has either 10000 or 40000 ticks within one bar (If I remember correctly 10000 ticks is the quarter bar max reso with no quantize)

Well, there it is... quoted verbatim. Which is it? 10,000 ticks? Or 40,000 ticks? If you were experimenting it's unlikely that you'd forget those numbers.

I do enjoy discussing technical topics such as this. But I prefer to do it with people who actually know what they're talking about.

Sep 22, 2007 10:59 AM in response to iSchwartz

I dont have nothing to overcome here judge iS... I post what I post and that's it... Keep bashing me iS... Keep defending your forum Life... I wonder how you can even claim to know Logic... All you do is spend time here. 5700 posts in 2 years... Wow - considering first reading the posts - then deciding what you wanna respond to then write the posts - I'd say about 10 minutes(Probably a whole lot more) per act... Should equal about 57.000 minutes - and that in two years.. Hehe - You spend more time here than with Logic. I wouldnt even wonder if you got paid for it.

Now - get a life and quit responding to my "Non creditable" posts.. Make your life easier cuz I dont really care what you think - to me you are absolutely nothing but a cyber duck cruising for a little something that no one gives you in real life

And since you are so addicted to what I say - You may quote me on that.

PS - the way you started to explain your self in "StudioEngineer's" thread about his first L8 experience when he asked you to stop the non topic yada yada really showed how much of a percentage this forum takes out of your "real" life....

Sep 22, 2007 1:15 PM in response to SteveDjokes

STEVE!!! You are wrong! The MPC 4000 midi resolution is exactly the same as Logic's. It is 960 ppq. If the MPC4000 had a higher MIDI resolution than software I would have bought one instead of logic. Look under the technical description in the sequencer section on this page: http://www.samedaymusic.com/product--AKAMPC4000PLUS

You will see the following information:

Sequencer
Maximum events: 300,000 notes (equivalent)

------>Resolution: 960 pulses per 1/4-note (ppq)

Sequences: 128

Tracks per sequence: 128

MIDI output channels: 64 (16 channels x 4 output ports)

Song mode: 128 songs, 250 steps per song

Drum pads: 16 (velocity and pressure sensitive)

Drum pads banks: 6

Sync modes: MTC, MIDI clock, SMPTE

Exactly the same as Logic, there is no disputing that now.

Sep 22, 2007 4:35 PM in response to The Discordian

you are right...

I've just gotten off my MPC--- It has the exactly the same resolution as Logic... 3840 when set to NO quantize... I must have gotten confused by something o remembering wrong... Sorry 😟

To everyone reading what I wrote in my previous posts in this thread please disregard the part about how many ticks/pulses the MPC has.... It was wrong information...

The part about the tempo change is true, however....

timkertoy

Level 2

231 points

Sep 22, 2007 4:42 PM in response to Hexfix93

Until Logic's plugin delay compensation (PDC) takes MIDI into account, there's certainly nothing to cheer about. Add a limiter to your master output and 'poof', midi timing goes out the window.

Did they fix that one yet? Not that I've heard...

dougieb

Level 1

13 points

Sep 22, 2007 9:17 PM in response to Rob Persaud

Agreed... DP and a MOTU interface is much tighter. Of course now it's a LOT more expensive as well. 😉

Logic... Midi king? (LOL) Um... okay.

Sep 23, 2007 3:57 AM in response to timkertoy

I agree that the midi should be integrated in the PDC - at least a an option. PT has that. Anyway - I think this issue is then rather a PDC thing than a midi thing.

Targon

Level 1

74 points

Sep 23, 2007 3:02 PM in response to Hexfix93

With all the riff raff and whoohar banging on about Midi Timing and PDC with VI's and Audio Plugs, can someone tell me for sure what the Midi timing is like on a external Midi sampler/synth "Audio" in Logic 8 is completely Disabled?

This can be achieved with the following preferences

Preferences>Audio>Devices>CoreAudio/DAE/DirectTDM Uncheck Enable

The daw war is over. midi timing! woooooo!