[sdiy] Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..

[Mike Bryant]

What else is on the USB connectors of the PC ?   Anything else taking lots of bandwidth (a USB3->HDMI display for example ?)


________________________________
From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of Jean-Pierre Desrochers via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Sent: 29 October 2025 16:37
To: Synth-diy at synth-diy.org <Synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Subject: [sdiy] Reliable MIDI recording app for PC.. Or my Sonar X3 Pro DAW is not set correctly..


Hi lists,



A while ago I built a MIDI piano roll player
that can read old piano rolls and play them through its dedicated MIDI out.

The unit has 2 parallel MIDI outputs.

The first MIDI output is wired to a small Yamaha P50m MIDI piano module with speakers.

The second MIDI output is sending the same signal
to my Sonar X3 Pro DAW to record all the played MIDI notes
so I can save the song in a .MID file. Fine.



Here is my problem:

When I listen and look at a fast playing piano roll
I can see all the notes on the paper roll are correctly playing
on the Yamaha module with no lags.
That means that my player CPU is doing its job correctly
and the MIDI output is reliable.

But after recording a roll in my DAW and playing it back
using a piano plugin and noticed intermittent lags
recorded in the MIDI track.
I use a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 USB audio device with MIDI.

It’s connected in a USB3 connector on my PC.

And the settings in my Sonar X3 Pro are set to ASIO USB.



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I thought this could be caused by some kind of timing precision
or ‘Snap’ option selected that should not be..

The set timing was at ¼ in my last MIDI recordings

And maybe should be much higher (like 1/32 Triplet) ?

[cid:image003.png at 01DC48D0.CEFBFB10]



I don’t know what to do with this issue..



I was thinking of using a separate app that would be easy and reliable
outside my Sonar.. But I think it’s not the way I should take.

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