Is it just me?
I bought the slim phatty a few weeks ago and immediately encountered midi problems. First I thought this had something to do with the electrical in my house. But now I´m really starting to wonder…
When I connect USB midi to my DAW (logic 9) a low note starts playing and won´t stop. Reading various forums it seemed there is some conflicts with using USB midi. So I set up traditional midi connections. For a while everything works great and I finally get to tweak the sounds, and all my irritation turns into primal joy in a heartbeat. Sounds wonderful
But then I change to another song I´m working on in Logic and suddenly the SP doesn´t recognize midi any more. Then, to top it all off, when I turn various knobs on the SP it starts transmitting info to logic - like “start recording”, “change to mixer window” etc. This, despite not having midi out on the SP connected! In other words the SP is somehow transmitting midi messages to my DAW backwards through the SPs midi inn cable. How is this even possible?
I have the newest SP software update, by the way. And it just seems to me that in 2011 these kinds of problems shouldn´t be happening, especially when a central idea behind these synths is to bridge the gap between analog and digital. Maybe it´s just me, and I hope so. But any light that can be shed on this issue - by someone who actually knows what they´re talking about (and by that, I mean someone who has experienced similar problems - not “oh, have you checked what midi channel you´re using?” - will be greatly appreciated.
I’ve got about as complex a midi setup as you can have (within reason). Which is to say that I have 8 ‘legacy’ (din only) devices in addition to a Taurus III, Novation SK MKII, MP-201, Korg Radias, and M-Audio iControl talking Midi across USB. Up until a few weeks ago, I was leveraging the midi bridging capabilities of all of the USB devices as make-shift interfaces with a few thru boxes, and the Mac MidiMapper app. But now I have a MOTU Timepiece AV in the middle of it all and have been transforming all of my Midimapper routing filters, and splits. In short, I’ve seen it all.
But I don’t have a Slim Phatty.
My Little Phatty tribute has had it’s share of LFO sync issues and other anomalies as functionality has been added across the years. But the Slim takes on a new role in being able to send Midi clock which I would assume is useful in driving other devices synced to Arp or LFO (inside the Phatty). With that must come some amount of MMC (midi time code) but I can’t say.
I also don’t know what Logic is ‘listening’ to in your particular setup. The Phatty, if appropriately configured will send Midi cc’s (and the aforementioned MMC) when you press buttons, tweak pots, etc. And I can tell you for sure that my Logic setup (which is 8 [old]) cannot properly interpret 14 bit Midi CC (or at least I haven’t spent enough time on it). It’s quite possible that pressing one of Phatty’s buttons, if both pieces of software are setup right will bring certain windows fwd, etc.
So your question is a good ‘open letter’ question and I’m looking fwd to seeing how others respond.
During the interim, it’s worth taking baby steps in reproducing various 'tweak’s while recording, then double clicking on the recorded streams to see what was captured (as it sounds that you have already done), and comparing that to the Logic settings (which I’m sure are more sophisticated than my copy) along side the Phatty capabilities and midi map as documented in the back of the manual.
You know? That may have something to do with it. I´ve been soft-synth-ing for the the past couple of years (guitar is my main instrument, I´m initially not a synth-tweaking fanatic and the slim phatty-purchase was sort of my coming back to real synths. So I can´t really compare SP-behavior to that of other hardware synths of the day. But up until 5-6 years ago I used to have a bunch of synths hooked up to both Logic and Cubase, daisy chained etc and can´t remember having any problems of this kind - beyond the obvious (forgot to choose the right midi channel, the occasional note hang etc..)
So, if Logic could be involved here, please enlighten us, Logic users.
I thought I replied to this one, but must have forgotten to submit…
I think you may be right. I read somewhere I while back about some Logic issues regarding external midi gear. It would be interesting if some Logic users that have encountered similar weirdness could share some info. I have no idea where to even start to solve this problem, though I will try out the theories mentioned on the link above. All I know is it´s driving me crazy, and it´s making it impossible to start recording an album I´m supposed to complete by summer.
If any techno-savvy entrepreneurs out there need a good business idea, here it is: Become an online studio-fix-it consultant. Those of us who don´t have masters degrees in studio technology would willingly pay to get one-to-one help by people that know their sh** and can quickly find solutions to all matters regarding midi, software-problems etc.
and the slim phatty-purchase was sort of my coming back to real synths. So I can´t really compare SP-behavior to that of other hardware synths of the day. But up until 5-6 years ago I used to have a bunch of synths hooked up to both Logic and Cubase, daisy chained etc and can´t remember having any problems of this kind - beyond the obvious (forgot to choose the right midi channel, the occasional note hang etc..)