MIDI timing in Reaper

[Thepinkfreud]

So I've been evaluating reaper for a while now and honestly it's a great DAW. I've been lurking in these forums for a while and I gotta say the Reaper community is great. All the answers to my reaper related questions have been answered with the search engine so I never felt the need to register,hence my first post here.
I had to chime in and keep this thread alive. The main factor that keeps me from purchasing a license in reaper are these glaring MIDI Issues.
I bought a midi controller to input midi vst drums etc a while back and recently tried to integrate into my workflow and it's unusable with Reaper. The midi offset just simply doesn't work. I'm able to get low latency with my soundcard, down to 64 samples with a little tweaking yet still even after the latest update the midi that appears in the editor is not to the grid following the metronome as I played the notes. I've tried everything.

This is extremely disappointing considering these issues were present over 5 years ago in reaper according to these comments here. Having the ability to use MIDI in my workflow is important and it's not happening here.. As much as I love reaper I've lately started looking into the possibility of using other DAW's instead strictly because of these issues the Cockos team somehow continues to ignore. Yes, working MIDI IS important.
MIDI is reaper weakest link. Why would it not be a priority? What's more important at this point? Everything else works without a hitch. Users aren't asking for something spectacular, just something that works. I've spent waaay more time trying to make this work than the actual writing and playing. Half my away from playing time is spent researching ways around these issues, it's a shame. Not sure if this will ever get addressed at this point. Ruins a truly great program. Anyways, I want to say thanks to the community here for all your knowledge. I've learned a ton from this forum!! Joel

[ivansc]

Got to ask: What hardware setup are you using?
I have both a Korg Nanopad and a Roland TD8 e-kit running into an RME HDSP9652 pci interface. Computer is an older i7 4 core with 16gb of ram.
I run several different drum romplers from this setup and no longer have a significant difference between what I play and what gets recorded in MIDI.
Mind you I am running 32 to 44 ASIO buffer most of the time.
Reaper is reporting round-trip latency at about 2ms typically and when I actually play in time, the MIDI is recorded as near as dammit right on the grid.

What sort of numbers in ms are you talking about, that makes Reapers MIDI recording unusable for you? There may well be other factors at work here.

[Thepinkfreud]

It's just a focusite interface, nothing too spectacular but I suspect the issue might not be hardware related. I don't have any issues with audio. MIDI is a different story. Like I posted above my soundcard's latency is down to 2-3ms when I perform MIDI drums with my korg padkontrol. I manually change the buffer for this, as low as 64 samples if the project will allow it and set it higher for mixing. Now, although I'm not 100% positive of this and appreciate any input for a possible fix, the issue seems to stem from reapers inability to correct for latency after the fact. I can do a simple 1/8 note 4 on the floor bass drum kick that nails the metronome click and when I open the MIDI editor, some notes are on the beats but they gradually taper off incrementally. I then have to marque select them and shift then in time. Defeats the whole purpose of the controller. I might as well input to grid permanently. I've tried manually correcting by inputting the latency amounts but the problem persists unfortunately!

[mccrabney]

is your midi item in project or source timebase? i think that reaper defaults to the latter, which seems backwards to me. might be the cause of your problems.

[Jack Winter]

Originally Posted by Thepinkfreud

I can do a simple 1/8 note 4 on the floor bass drum kick that nails the metronome click and when I open the MIDI editor, some notes are on the beats but they gradually taper off incrementally. I then have to marque select them and shift then in time.

Sounds like a clock drifting. Windows has several midi timers and this has been a problem for ages.. Have you tried the different advanced midi event timestamp options available for each midi input?

[Thepinkfreud]

I didn't know about the MIDI timestamp advanced options honestly. This is good news because I'm chomping at the bit to either try and adjust something or throw the padkontrol out in traffic. I'd rather try the former first.
Where should I start? Preferences>

[Dstruct]

Options/Preferences/Audio/MIDI Devices - rightlick device - configure ...

[Thepinkfreud]

Thanks for everyone's help. So in the settings for MIDI configure input on my device "let reaper timestamp events" was selected. Now, I'm a bit out of my element here because I'm not sure what impact this has on my issue at hand. I've heard that some users have had success with the QPC option. Can anyone shed some light on the differences?

[Thepinkfreud]

Originally Posted by mccrabney

is your midi item in project or source timebase? i think that reaper defaults to the latter, which seems backwards to me. might be the cause of your problems.

I'm using the Padkontrol to send MIDI messages through the track MIDI input port controlling drum VST's. I would assume that's considered "in project"?

[EvilDragon]

4 years necrobump.

11 years passed since the thread was created. Basically when I joined this forum!

schwa/Justin - is it really that difficult to add a MIDI-thru mode, adjusted per MIDI device?

[beingmf]

@Thepinkfreud: Have you tried to un-tick Master/Parent send in the track channel routing window? Then send midi to a different track?

[EvilDragon]

He last posted 3 years ago, don't think he's around still. (Also shame that @ on this forum doesn't really notify the user...)

[beingmf]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

(Also shame that @ on this forum doesn't really notify the user...)

Absolutely - also the thread that you've just replied to (and you want to edit) won't show up under "New Posts". Just sayin'.

[EvilDragon]

True but it's back on page 1 in pre-release discussion subforum, which is good enough

[Kundalinguist]

The older this thread gets, the closer we are to the solution.

[ Hey Evil. ]

[Reno.thestraws]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

True but it's back on page 1 in pre-release discussion subforum, which is good enough

Bump for maintain on PAGE 1

[Kejnel]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

4 years necrobump.

11 years passed since the thread was created. Basically when I joined this forum!

schwa/Justin - is it really that difficult to add a MIDI-thru mode, adjusted per MIDI device?

2022 bump.

A very annoying issue that currently requires complicated workarounds.

[Kundalinguist]

Please note: When replying to the post of a forum member in this thread, it is best to check the obituaries in case that person is no longer with us. May they RIP.

[Sorry, couldn't resist. 2009 and all...]

However, I think that MIDI timing in Reaper is pretty reliable these days. For me, one of the things that made a difference was switching from my MIDI cables going into my Focusrite interface and using a USB connection instead via a Roland UM-ONE MkII. Cheap. But it made a huge difference when I was recently tracking an external hardware synth with a song I had written. Prior to the USB connector, I was getting jitter so bad that I couldn't even use the tracks; who wants to do that much wave form editing? Not me. Now, it's tight as a nun's ...um, well you get the idea.

[Kejnel]

To me it is unacceptable that the audio buffer still influences the midi timing even when attempting a mere midi thru with a midi controller.

I currently have to bypass Reaper with virtual midi cables in combination with Midi Ox to hear no midi delay with an external synth and also pass midi *to* Reaper in order record the midi performance... awful.

I need to use higher buffer settings because Reaper starts to pop and crackle on anything lower than 128 samples (while 128 and higher cause already an unacceptable midi delay for me).

[sockmonkey72]

Originally Posted by Kejnel

To me it is unacceptable that the audio buffer still influences the midi timing even when attempting a mere midi thru with a midi controller.

I currently have to bypass Reaper with virtual midi cables in combination with Midi Ox to hear no midi delay with an external synth and also pass midi *to* Reaper in order record the midi performance... awful.

I need to use higher buffer settings because Reaper starts to pop and crackle on anything lower than 128 samples (while 128 and higher cause already an unacceptable midi delay for me).

I don't think you'll find many DAWs which do this "acceptably". Imagine what happens behind the scenes:

- OS callback that MIDI events are available
- MIDI events collected for processing
- audio thread(s) is/are serviced, MIDI events dequeued and passed to output for each track

The only way to do this the way you're suggesting is for the sequencer to publish ports and channels which might be subject to additional processing, so that the OS MIDI callback can collect them, and pass everything else on directly. That would be annoying, especially considering the "normal" case of a MIDI input for all ports/channels. But not impossible.

But then there's the question of MIDI remote control of actions and parameters, which would also need to be collected and accounted for (and in the case of parameter remote control, executed at the correct sample time for the audio). As well as the new MIDI RR.

As well as the fact that if _some_ MIDI ports are processed, and others not, you'll get timing inconsistencies between different devices/ channels. Which would also be unacceptable.

All in all, I'd say that the REAPER solution is totally acceptable, and I think it's no different than any of the other DAWs I've used over the years. I use almost exclusively external MIDI in my studio, at least while tracking, and I have rarely noticed any severe problems.

Which isn't to say that you are imagining things, but maybe it's a configuration issue rather than a systemic problem if you are getting really high latency -- ~2-3ms latency (128 samples at 44.1kHz) is less than what many MIDI interfaces introduce, before the MIDI even gets to REAPER, and I don't consider that high.

The typical solution (and what I often do if I have these sorts of problems [almost never]) is to patch the external hardware into your mixer, or turn on your audio interface's no-latency monitoring mode so that you can monitor directly from the instrument, while letting the software do its thing.

[ReinerZ]

Originally Posted by Kejnel

To me it is unacceptable that the audio buffer still influences the midi timing even when attempting a mere midi thru with a midi controller.

I currently have to bypass Reaper with virtual midi cables in combination with Midi Ox to hear no midi delay with an external synth and also pass midi *to* Reaper in order record the midi performance... awful.

I need to use higher buffer settings because Reaper starts to pop and crackle on anything lower than 128 samples (while 128 and higher cause already an unacceptable midi delay for me).

I was not aware that there is a discussion going on for a long time, so I already prepared a post in the editor. Just to make sure that it is the same issue referenced by Kejnel:

The actual situation is as follows: I wrote a VST3 plugin using Cabbage which for a certain preset simply sends a midi note on for every quarter note. At 120bpm the note-on events should be at exactly 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5… seconds. Checking with the JS MIDI logger I get 0.4985, 0.9977… 5.9900, 6.5009… seconds. That would be consistent with the spacing of the MIDI note-on events being reduced to 0.49923 seconds which is 43*512/44100 (in the audio device settings I have buffers: 4x512). It does not lead to a drift because from time to time (here between 5.9900 and 6.5009) intervals of 44*512/44100 are inserted.

Although this only leads to a jitter of max. 11.6 ms I agree with Kejnel that there should be no limitation to the timing precision of MIDI routing by the audio buffer length. (It took me three weeks to find this out because I would have never expected.) Is there any possibility to 'upvote' this request somewhere?

As a workaround, what would be a reasonable setting for the buffer without getting the pop/crackling issue? I tried 4x256 but even that did not work properly.

Finally, I saw that JS plugins (e.g. the MIDI transposer) are perfect with the MIDI timings. So why does it work for those and not for VST3? I would prefer to stay with VST3 to keep the plugin portable to other DAWs.

[Tale]

Originally Posted by ReinerZ

Finally, I saw that JS plugins (e.g. the MIDI transposer) are perfect with the MIDI timings. So why does it work for those and not for VST3? I would prefer to stay with VST3 to keep the plugin portable to other DAWs.

A wild guess, but: I would expect that MIDI effects like a transposer don't touch the MIDI event offset, so if the timing is correct going in, then it will also come out correct.