crash in section Midi

[Arjan]

We are able to reproduce the problem, exclusively with the MID file you sent to us.
We will try to find a protection against such midi code sequence (this is not easy because this MID file is not really "standard").

Any luck with this yet? I'm attaching a new .mid file to this message that should represent a more regular use case which causes ControlBoard.exe to crash. At least it does so with the Lightshow that included in my Private Message that I sent to you on the 10th.

I'm still somewhat hindered by lack of a simple but decent MIDI sequencer and I'm not sure if this recording is 100% faithful to what I actually 'played' but it does trigger the crash and it should be nowhere near as crazy as the previous .MID file that I included in my original bug report. In regular use it takes very little on my system to get ControlBoard to crash. In fact it will not run stable for longer than 2 or 3 minutes (usually not even that) if 3d View is enabled. Without 3d View enabled there appears to be no problem.

P.S. I'm not sure the Upload attachment feature is working properly. I'll send you a PM with a download link to the file.
P.P.S. You may have to play this new file several times to trigger the crash

[razortongue1]

I had my control board crash too from using midi at a live show after spending hours setting up this program and figuring everything out to work together and to get the live drums and a midi pedal board to trigger all the lights by the band. I hope this wont be a usual occorance. If they can update the show xpress software that would be great.

The program is great but does need a few tweeks and extra buttons.

Let me know if anyone has solved this problem. Im also having some midi latency issues if anyone has any advice. Thanks for your time and effort to help me.

RazoR
www.youtube.com/nassauchainsaw

[Arjan]

I had my control board crash too from using midi at a live show

Just wondering, did you have the 3d View on (even if just in the background) when it crashed? With 3d View on it's very unstable for me, I don't think I've had any crashes with 3d View off (3d window not open and 3d View button disabled in Live window).

Im also having some midi latency issues if anyone has any advice.

How much latency are we talking about? How are you combining the MIDI data from the midi pedal and your drum triggers (and what are you using to convert your drum triggers to midi)?

[razortongue1]

Hey i am using the midi out of my d-drum modual, then out of the modual, i go into the midi in of the beringer midi pedal board fcb1010 and then out of the behringer into the edirol midi to usb interface and then into my computer. I am using the 512plus to come out of my computer to the dmx lights. The latency time seems to be a few mili secs enough where i hit the button on the modual (not the actual drum trigger to elimate the trigger as the problem they have test buttons for each channel) then a split sec later i see the light. i am not sure if its because i am going into the midi pedal first, before going into the ederol. Do you know any other ways that might help with the latency issue? Thanks for trying to help me.

[razortongue1]

i may have had that 3d button presses i dont use the 3d screen so i will make sure its not pressed. Thanks for that pointer!

[Arjan]

Hey i am using the midi out of my d-drum modual, then out of the modual, i go into the midi in of the beringer midi pedal board fcb1010 and then out of the behringer into the edirol midi to usb interface and then into my computer. I am using the 512plus to come out of my computer to the dmx lights. The latency time seems to be a few mili secs enough where i hit the button on the modual (not the actual drum trigger to elimate the trigger as the problem they have test buttons for each channel) then a split sec later i see the light. i am not sure if its because i am going into the midi pedal first, before going into the ederol. Do you know any other ways that might help with the latency issue? Thanks for trying to help me.

Every MIDI merge will add some small amount of latency which can accumulate to become noticeable. If your FCB1010 merges the MIDI IN with its own data to MIDI OUT it is merging and adding latency (actually even a hardware non-merging MIDI-THRU port adds a tiny bit of latency but that's really tiny). Your computer's USB MIDI INPU also adds a bit of latency. I'm pretty sure that ShowXpress will also add a bit of latency as it received MIDI and responds to it at the next DMX frame. Your fixture adds a tiny bit of latency too as it microprocessor receives the DMX data and acts upon it.

You'll need to eliminate each element that introduces latency one by one to find the biggest contributor. If it turn out for example that your FCB1010 adds signifcant latency perhaps you could use a UBS MIDI interface with multiple inputs and do the merging in the PC. Or perhaps your USB MIDI interface adds a lot of latency of its own and a different USB MIDI interface might improve matters.

I would eliminate the FCB1010 first as that is most easy to do, just take it out of the loop and plug-inthe d-drum directly into your PC.

[razortongue1]

Yes that was exactly what i was gonna try, i will do it in a few days, all our gear is still in the van from a show last week & we have another on Friday. Any other ideas on a better midi to usb interface? But there is no setting on my PC that will help with the latency right? I know in programs like Reason there was a buffer setting sort of fader that helped me with latency issues when triggering samples thru midi and my computer running reason in the past. But i dont think my audio card in my laptop has anything like that to help with midi latency. Thanks again for all your help it is apreciated!

[Arjan]

Yes that was exactly what i was gonna try, i will do it in a few days, all our gear is still in the van from a show last week & we have another on Friday. Any other ideas on a better midi to usb interface?

I have had good experience with Roland (=Edirol=Cakewalk) MIDI interfaces. Right now I'm using two Cakewalk UM-3G. A lot of people seem to like the MOTU Midi Express 128 but I had serious problems with it on my WIndows XP Atom based Netbook. The drivers seem to be some kind of multi-layered affair (no less than 3 drivers had to be installed just for MIDI) and I was having trouble with stuck notes etc. I suspect these may have been some sort of legacy compatibility layers to get the thing to work on Windows XP. It may work fine on Windows 7 or perhaps all it needed was a faster computer. The UM-3G's have been performing flawlessly on the very same system though and before that I was using an Edirol UM-2ex on it without any problem whatsoever. It's too bad because the Motu would have been a much nicer solution for my 19" rack.

But there is no setting on my PC that will help with the latency right?

Probably not.

I know in programs like Reason there was a buffer setting sort of fader that helped me with latency issues when triggering samples thru midi and my computer running reason in the past. But i dont think my audio card in my laptop has anything like that to help with midi latency.

Correct. There is no optimal buffer size to set for MIDI, the amount of data is really small and it can be sent basically whenever it's ready and available, the PC does not have to guarantee or be guaranteed a steady stream of data like with audio which must be sent, say, 44100 times per second. Nothing bad happens if you simply stop sending MIDI data for a few milliseconds, you just get a 'delay', not pops and cracks like with audio.

Just be methodical when trying to find the largest contributor to the latency you are experiencing. Keep in mind that with all 512 channels used DMX gets updated about 40 times per second max so with a fully populated universe (or even if you just use DMX channel 1 and 512) you will incurr an average latency of 1/80 second wich will vary between near zero and 1/40 second. This is because the MIDI input and DMX output are not synced together so when ShowXpress receives your MIDI command it must wait until the DMX channel it affect gets its turn for updating. Depending on how ShowXpress and/or their interface works DMX may get updated more often than 40 times per second if they skip the unused channel numbers at the end of the range.

Thanks again for all your help it is apreciated!

You're welcome!

[Arjan]

Support,

Could you please look into this ControlBoard crashing problem some time soon? It's next to impossible to use the software when it's constantly crashing and I'm really not doing anything weird. The MIDI file I sent you is just a surefire way to trigger the problem but I assure you it is happening almost constantly even when sending much more normal MIDI streams.

Again I'll be more than happy to help in any way that I can. If needed I can give you remote access to my Netbook that is running your software so you can see for yourself what is happening or perhaps do some remote debugging or something like that. But I really, really need this to be fixed.

Thanks,
Arjan

[support]

We do not have anymore the computer where we were able to reproduce the problem.
And now, we can not reproduce the problem again (no crash with your midi file on the other computers).

If possible, please send us other midi files which crash ControlBoard to.
We need to be able to reproduce the problem again.