Huge Continuous Controller latency

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Level 1

34 points

Huge Continuous Controller latency

I just bought an Arturia Keylab 88 and have been modifying my layout to coincide with all the controllers. One thing I noticed is that MainStage really starts freaking out with all the midi data if I start getting busy on even ONE controller. Looking through MIDI Monitor, it appears that the Keylab sends a lot finer grain of midi data from controllers than my old Alesis QS8. This is especially a problem the expression pedal which I typically have on CC4 (to avoid pre-existing CC11 settings) and use mainly for Wah leads. Suddenly, in the middle of a solo, things will just start feeling sluggish, the on-screen expression control gets farther and farther behind, and if I try to switch patches soon afterwards, it won't switch immediately. When I start using TWO controllers, like pitch and expression, everything just goes to ****.

I've tried everything from removing ALL on-screen controllers and just using routing assignments, and it STILL is completely screwed up. HELP!

MainStage, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Mar 15, 2016 4:15 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 16, 2016 9:03 AM in response to shattre

Does this happen when using the USB midi as well as the midi socket output? In other words, see if the other works any better...

Was thinking of buying one myself, interesting problem!

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Answer 2

shattre Author

Level 1

34 points

Mar 19, 2016 5:47 AM in response to shattre

The way the Keylab controllers are setup, any single controller can only send out one type of data at a time. You CAN set a controller to do any number of things from MIDI CC to MMC or patch changes, but each controller only has one setting. MIDI monitor isn't reporting any other type of data either. However, what I am finding is that the resolution and time grain for controller data is far higher than on my old board. On my Alesis QS8, if you rocked the foot pedal forward at a moderately quick rate, you maybe got 12 values between 0-127, with the Keylab, you get between 60-90. I believe MainStage is actually having some difficulty keeping up with this. It may be a slight bug in the 3D rendering of the on-screen control. I'll try replacing it with a slider and see whether that helps.

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Answer 3

shattre Author

Level 1

34 points

Mar 19, 2016 2:00 PM in response to shattre

Alright, I found a solution! This gets kind of technical, but just maybe it'll solve some problems down the line. For whatever reason, having high resolution data streams going to a lot of CSs seems to hit Mainstage's processing pretty hard. My new Keylab has MUCH higher resolution output of the foot controller than my old Alesis, or even higher resolution than it's own sliders, wheels and encoders (about 175% as much data is sent from the foot pedal than the mod wheel). So a patch with a combination of many instrument CSs (doesn't matter what kind or whether they're using the data), lots of data, and (get this) the number of controllers on the screen total, ends up impacting this latency problem.

THE SOLUTION:

The moment a controller is manually assigned to one or more destinations inside a patch (through the Screen Control Inspector) it immediately stops streaming to all non-asigned controllers. Therefor, all I need to do is assign the foot pedal to the specific CSs that use it, and everything else speeds up considerably.

Thank you all who've been following this. Maybe I'll write a report to Apple, could help to shed some light on some larger issues, as this seems like a very bizarre interaction between onscreen controllers and data handling. I mean, all things considered, MIDI data streams, even fairly hi resolution ones, are a pittance compared to todays most rudimentary number crunching, surprising that MS is struggling at all.

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