[sdiy] Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..
jpdesroc at oricom.ca
jpdesroc at oricom.ca
Sat Nov 8 18:48:17 CET 2025
I'm thinking about a slipery paper behaviour getting worst at the end of a song.
My machine has 2 paper spools:
The top one is the 'giving' spool where I install a roll to be played.
The second bottom one is the 'receiving' spool which pulls down the paper and accumulates it on its shaft.
The first 'giving' spool is the one that needs special adjustments around its mechanics.
Let me explain:
This spool has a small felt break that is applied on its shaft (only in playback mode) To create a paper 'tension' to keep the paper firmly on the reading brass bar and help the 'receiving' spool to accumulate a spool of 'correctly pressed' paper while on playback.
The problem is that the 'giving spool' also needs to be constantly adjusted in its left/right position to keep 'alignment' of all the paper holes according to the brass bar reader. Hope I'm clear enough here..
This adjustment is made with a stepper motor arm that push or pull the giving spool to keep it at the good position.
But that's where the problem arises.
Adjusting the felt break to tight keeps the left/right adjustment from being freely done.
The shaft sticks on the felt and the stepper arm cannot do it's job .
But loosing that breaks helps the left/right adjustment to be light and easy but doing so that brings the paper tension too loose and the receiving spool accumulates a 'not enough pressed' paper
-> And that loose paper accumulation shows slippery behaviours
specially at the end of the roll when the receiving spool pulls the paper but the paper sometimes does not move but it's inner layers do.
Feeding a constant fast MIDI notes stream in my Sonar from my modular sequencer
did not cause any lags in the MIDI recordings !
So... the lags in the MIDI recordings seems to be caused by the paper slips at the song end's and create small lags that can be heard.
Thanks anyway for your interest to reply my questionings..
De : grant musictechnologiesgroup.com <grant at musictechnologiesgroup.com>
Envoyé : 8 novembre 2025 11:55
À : jpdesroc at oricom.ca; 'H.Sergio Alves' <theatomlabspt at gmail.com>
Cc : 'SYNTH DIY' <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Objet : RE: [sdiy] [Polluriel détecté] Re: Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..
Maybe it’s not MIDI. Maybe it’s malformed (serial) data or noise that some MIDI receivers just toss and others get corrupted by. I would use one of those cheap logic analyzers or a scope to see what’s really on the wires.
GB
From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> > On Behalf Of Jean-Pierre Desrochers via Synth-diy
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2025 11:52 AM
To: 'H.Sergio Alves' <theatomlabspt at gmail.com <mailto:theatomlabspt at gmail.com> >
Cc: 'SYNTH DIY' <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org> >
Subject: Re: [sdiy] [Polluriel détecté] Re: Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..
Here is a very small MIDI-OX snapshot of what my player send as MIDI datas..
And at the end All Notes Off message when I stop my motors..
00021F06 2 -- 91 27 7F 2 Eb 2 Note On
00021F07 2 -- 91 4B 7F 2 Eb 5 Note On
00021F0B 2 -- 91 1B 7F 2 Eb 1 Note On
00021F0C 2 -- 91 57 7F 2 Eb 6 Note On
00021F10 2 -- 91 3B 7F 2 B 3 Note On
00021F31 2 -- 91 4E 7F 2 F# 5 Note On
00021F33 2 -- 91 5F 7F 2 B 6 Note On
00021F6A 2 -- 81 47 7F 2 B 4 Note Off
00021F95 2 -- 91 5A 7F 2 F# 6 Note On
00021FBB 2 -- 91 3F 7F 2 Eb 4 Note On
00021FF3 2 -- 81 3B 7F 2 B 3 Note Off
00021FFF 2 -- 81 57 7F 2 Eb 6 Note Off
00022000 2 -- 81 5F 7F 2 B 6 Note Off
00022003 2 -- 81 53 7F 2 B 5 Note Off
0002202A 2 -- 91 57 7F 2 Eb 6 Note On
00022051 2 -- 91 42 7F 2 F# 4 Note On
00022078 2 -- 81 4E 7F 2 F# 5 Note Off
00022087 2 -- 81 5A 7F 2 F# 6 Note Off
0002208B 2 -- 81 3F 7F 2 Eb 4 Note Off
0002208C 2 -- 81 4B 7F 2 Eb 5 Note Off
000220B0 2 -- 91 47 7F 2 B 4 Note On
000220CF 2 -- 81 1B 7F 2 Eb 1 Note Off
000220D0 2 -- 81 27 7F 2 Eb 2 Note Off
00022106 2 -- 81 42 7F 2 F# 4 Note Off
00022117 2 -- 81 57 7F 2 Eb 6 Note Off
00022140 2 -- 91 36 7F 2 F# 3 Note On
0002214A 2 -- 91 3F 7F 2 Eb 4 Note On
0002214B 2 -- 91 4B 7F 2 Eb 5 Note On
0002214C 2 -- 91 57 7F 2 Eb 6 Note On
00022150 2 -- 91 17 7F 2 B 0 Note On
00022151 2 -- 91 3B 7F 2 B 3 Note On
00022158 2 -- 91 23 7F 2 B 1 Note On
00022164 2 -- 91 53 7F 2 B 5 Note On
0002216D 2 -- 91 5A 7F 2 F# 6 Note On
00022173 2 -- 91 5F 7F 2 B 6 Note On
0002217A 2 -- 91 4E 7F 2 F# 5 Note On
000221A9 2 -- 81 47 7F 2 B 4 Note Off
00022316 2 -- 81 4E 7F 2 F# 5 Note Off
0002231F 2 -- 81 36 7F 2 F# 3 Note Off
00022326 2 -- 81 5A 7F 2 F# 6 Note Off
0002232B 2 -- 81 23 7F 2 B 1 Note Off
0002232C 2 -- 81 3B 7F 2 B 3 Note Off
0002232D 2 -- 81 3F 7F 2 Eb 4 Note Off
0002232E 2 -- 81 4B 7F 2 Eb 5 Note Off
00022330 2 -- 81 57 7F 2 Eb 6 Note Off
00022331 2 -- 81 5F 7F 2 B 6 Note Off
00022335 2 -- 81 17 7F 2 B 0 Note Off
00022336 2 -- 81 53 7F 2 B 5 Note Off
00022380 2 -- B1 7B 00 2 --- CC: All Notes Off
De : H.Sergio Alves <theatomlabspt at gmail.com <mailto:theatomlabspt at gmail.com> >
Envoyé : 30 octobre 2025 14:23
À : jpdesroc at oricom.ca <mailto:jpdesroc at oricom.ca>
Cc : John Speth <johnspeth at yahoo.com <mailto:johnspeth at yahoo.com> >; SYNTH DIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org> >
Objet : Re: [sdiy] [Polluriel détecté] Re: Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..
Have you tried midi ox to monitor what’s being sent?
On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 at 18:20, Jean-Pierre Desrochers via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org> > wrote:
My program only outputs the following MIDI datas:
NOTE ON (paper hole detected)
NOTE OFF (paper hole finished)
ALL NOTES OFF (when rewinding my paper rolls only. Never else)
So there is no ‘big’ MIDI traffic involved here to the Sonar MIDI input.
But the number of voices can go up to around 20 in some parts
of songs but rarely. Mostly around 10-15 notes played at the same time.
Mike Briant asked:
>> What else is on the USB connectors of the PC ? Anything else taking lots of bandwidth (a USB3->HDMI display for example ?)
I use a 5 pins DIN MIDI connector to my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 USB device.
No other USB devices used on my PC during MIDI recordings.
I tried using only Notes and remove System Exclusive from the
‘authorized’ record datas.
It improved the recorded datas but still some lags inserted
here and there..
De : Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> > De la part de John Speth via Synth-diy
Envoyé : 30 octobre 2025 11:03
À : SYNTH DIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org> >
Objet : Re: [sdiy] [Polluriel détecté] Re: Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..
>> Do the hesitations happen in the same way each time when you start playback?
Yes. Same way, same places. The lags are recorded on the MIDI track.
"The lags are recorded on the MIDI track."??? Does that mean the gaps are in your recorded event list? If so, that's not a playback problem. That's a recording problem. Your filter is set to record note on/off and sysex. Does your event list only contain note on/off and sysex? If you change your filter to not record sysex, do you still have valid test conditions for you to see the problem? IOW, if you don't record sysex, will playback be silent because sysex was needed? Disable sysex recording as a test. There's no lasting harm in doing so I assume.
I think the next step is to monitor MIDI data with a MIDI monitor during recording. There might be some sort of MIDI data clogging up the MIDI stream. MIDI is capacity limited. So, for example, if sysex is constantly being pumped along with note on/off, you could plausibly see hesitations. Monitor in both directions (if you're using both directions).
I recently had a Cakewalk experience that showed a bug regarding .MID files. I took an interest in the "Situation" by Yazoo MIDI file. When I loaded it into free Sonar, I had many problems running it (problems I don't remember). I tried two other .MID files and never had the same problems. I concluded that the Yazoo .MID file contained something that corrupted Cakewalk. I tried the same exercise with Bandlab and noted the same problem. I concluded that there is some sort of bug associated with some .MID files in Cakewalk and that the this mysterious bug has been around for a while. I would try a different sequencer. You should be able to find at least a few free ones, including online sequencers. The bottom line is: CW has bugs and it probably always will.
If you haven't done so yet, install and use MIDI-OX. It's a swiss army knife tool for MIDI. It has a MIDI monitor and will let you confirm your MIDI data that you record has no hesitations by taking Sonar out of the picture.
JJS
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