Logic pro 9 on Mavericks - "error syncing MIDI"

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Level 1

8 points

Logic pro 9 on Mavericks - "error syncing MIDI"

I know you guys have seen this one before and this IS NOT a broken record question as I have found NO info online about why/how this could even be happening.

I ran into a problem last night where I was getting the ever so common "error syncing midi" dialog. Logic was knocking down the sample rate down to the mid 1000's in some cases, and wouldn't even playback the audio at this low of a sample rate. The interesting thing is I am using the built-in audio for my input and output, have nothing plugged into my mac at all, not even a back up drive, just my ilok. *NOTE I had my MicroKorg plugged in while I was making the song and there were no issues. When I turned off my Korg, bumped the buffer to 1024 to begin mixing what I had recorded, I couldn't even get 20 sec of playback with out getting either an "error syncing MIDI" or a "system overload message" even with no other applications running, I wiped my mac clean last Friday and I have been very careful to not downloading anything malicious (I have only downloaded purchased synthesizers, I'm past the days of going to piratebay for my plug ins) so I know there is nothing running in the background eating my memory or causing problems (I have 16 gig ram in 2011 MacBook pro running Mavericks).
I am using a lot of live volume and send volume automation. There are 3 instrument tracks and a handful of buses (less than ten) I have T-racks on the output, on inst. tracks I have Antares warm tube and choir, L1-Ultramaximizer, TrueVerb, H-Delay, Waves Q EQ plugins, Eventide Blackhole reverb and 1 more, forget what it is. Using iZotope Iris(1) to play the sample, NI Massive for the bass and IL Toxic Biohazard for the synth line.

Again this all worked fine when I was recording with my MicroKorg. As soon as I bumped the buffer up from 64 to 1024 to begin mixing, things went nuts... even with my MicroKorg turned off and no other applications running on my Mac except Logic. How is there an internal midi sync error when there is no midi device/usb interface being used (and off by thousands of samples)? How, with 16 gigs of ram, in basically a freshly wiped hard drive, can the system not handle 3 tracks 5 buses and a handful of plug ins? I have made much much much larger sessions and never had this issue, even on my infested, clunky, slow, old mac using every cracked plug in you could name. Makes absolutely no sense. I turned my computer off last night and will check it again when I get home from work.
thanks

Alex

Logic Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), Logic 9.1.8

Posted on Apr 28, 2016 7:27 AM

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Answer 1

Eriksimon

Level 6

15,416 points

Apr 28, 2016 7:59 AM in response to DRONED.

tl;dr. Sorry. I've seen too many people being angry with software, and I've been angry with software, and it is really silly to get all worked up about what is basically just a super sophisticated yet still very stupid tool.

However, a MIDI sync error is rarely in conjunction with an external (hardware) synth, in most cases it is a software synth. Of Logics' own, only Alchemy can trigger that. Other candidates are multilayered synths such as Albino or Lush-101 or Diva, but also multitimbral instruments such as Kontakt or Omnisphere. This error simply means that the synth is to heavily utilized and can't keep up with playback. I do admit that the message can be confusing, but it says "external" because strictly speaking any software instrument is an "external" program.

The first step that might help is to not have its' track selected during playback - have an audio track selected instead. If that doesn't work, you could freeze the track. If you are still editing and recording (so both these sol;utions are not an option), you should try to find a "light" or "low quality" setting on the synth. Or disable secondary layers.

Ah, I just read the synths that you use. Any of these might trigger the error, but the biggest suspect in my book is Massive. Toxic B. could also be a culprit, as could any of the Waves plugins.

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Answer 2

DRONED. Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 28, 2016 8:31 AM in response to Eriksimon

Thanks for the response.

Could it have anything to do with Iris as it is a sampler? wav samples triggered by midi may not be communicating with the project's sample rate of 44.1?? If so why would that be an issue during playback and not recording? - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul12/articles/izotope-iris.htm

I don't understand how my computer cant keep up with 44.1 when mixing on a 1024 buffer size, but I can record fine on a 64 buffer with all the plug ins running. I do remember turning every single plug-in off and it would still read 2200ish samples and pop up with the midi error. How does a higher buffer cause this issue as opposed to the smallest buffer?

I have more than enough ram to run logic smoothly - it worked great, no issues for 5 years until 2-3 weeks ago (then I wiped my computer to start over). I've never had a problem that came out of nowhere like this and remained this consistent. Usually from my past 5 years of experience using Logic 9, all the problems like this seem to fix themselves.

I'll turn on my Mac after work and see if a restart corrected the playback issues. and update you, thanks for your help

alex

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Answer 3

DRONED. Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 28, 2016 8:34 AM in response to DRONED.

I will also try the "create audio track and have it selected during playback" I've never heard of that little trick before

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Answer 4

DRONED. Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 28, 2016 5:02 PM in response to DRONED.

THe project is still dropping the sample rate, im not even charging my computer and nothing is plugged in, selecting an audio track while playing back

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Answer 5

Eriksimon

Level 6

15,416 points

Apr 29, 2016 2:28 AM in response to DRONED.

Well, try to figure out which synth is the worst offender, and disable layers on it or set it to a lower resolution, or bounce it in place (BIP) to audio.

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