Hi Folks,

I have recently bought an Arturia keyboard (32 The Factory) to use on the laptop on the road and as an accompaniment to my big studio keyboard.

The 32 keyboard works fine on my laptop but when I plug it into my Mac Pro, it doesn't provide any midi signals on Logic, and seems to instantly stop my normal keyboard from working too - I have to do a full restart with the Arturia unplugged to get my normal keyboard to be seen by Logic again.

My setup is: Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad-Core, 7GB Ram, OS 10.6.8, LogicPro 9.1.6, Yamaha P-150 keyboard running through a Motu Midi Express 128.

Is it possible that Logic gets confused because it is receiving midi from both a midi interface (the Yamaha) and usb (the Arturia)?

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Have you checked in the Apple Audio Midi Setup utility, to make sure the Arturia keyboard shows up there and is (virtually) cabled up correctly?

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Quote kinglouis:

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Is it possible that Logic gets confused because it is receiving midi from both a midi interface (the Yamaha) and usb (the Arturia)?

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Unlikely, Logic will happily accept all MIDI input from any valid port your computer sees.

You need to work through to find where the issue is. For instance, in Logic, when you plugin in the keyboard, and play the keys, do you see *no* input activity in the transport area, from either keyboard?

Quit Logic, and run some other MIDI app (Live, AU Host, a standalone instrument, Garageband etc). Do those get MIDI input? (Ie, trying to work out if the problem is just occurring in Logic, or with incoming MIDI in general).

Okay, thanks for help:

I quit Logic, opened a standalone version of Kontakt 3, the Yamaha worked fine. I then plugged in the Arturia via usb, switched it on. Kontakt then didn't see the Arturia OR the Yamaha. I then quit Kontakt and opened Logic, which registered no input activity at all in the transport area - which is what happens once I've plugged the Arturia in. It seems to cancel all midi input until the Arturia is removed and everything rebooted.

Just to be sure, I opened Logic on my laptop just now and plugged in the Arturia; it worked fine.

It may be that the Arturia driver is killing the MIDI engine process.

I'd try completely uninstalling the Arturia software/drivers (if they have any), restarting, reinstalling the drivers, restarting and trying again. Also check you have an up to date version that supports your OS version.

Also, check you have no other MIDI drivers that you don't need - remove them. If you have audio interfaces with their own MIDI drivers, try uninstalling them and seeing if that makes a difference.

Thanks for that Desmond - don't have access to intraweb on MacPro just now and am in the middle of 2 big projects so will wait until after they're safely in the can before updating drivers. Will jump back on post if weirdness continues.

Many thanks to you both.

I don't know if its connected but Logic has also limited the range of my main keyboard to C-2, I've tried manually adjusting it in the Inst2 drop-down box but it won't shift. Is there a more masterly control that I can reset?

Quote kinglouis:

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I don't know if its connected but Logic has also limited the range of my main keyboard to C-2, I've tried manually adjusting it in the Inst2 drop-down box but it won't shift. Is there a more masterly control that I can reset?

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Does this happen if you load a factory template project? Or only on your projects? If the latter, try making sure you haven'tt changed your MIDI Thru parameters, which affect all incoming MIDI - deselect all regions, and look at the region parameters (which, now no regions are selected, shows the MIDI Thru parameters). Check that you haven't set note limits here.

Apologies, the keyboard restricts me to C2 in the bass, not C-2.

I loaded a factory template and the instruments worked fine, the full length of the keyboard.

The limitation to C2 only happens in Kontakt and Trillian. All other programmes (all Logic instruments, Superior Drummer, East West, all other NI synths and drums &c) work the full length of the keyboard.

Midi Thru displays nothing different between the channels that work normally and those that don't.

The Instrument Key Limit is :C-2 G8 in all of the channels, even though Kontakt and Trillian only go down to C2.

There is nothing that I can find within the Kontakt or Trillian engines to suggest why this would be happening. Its not like the notes are being transposed and therefore running out of samples at C2; the keys below C2 are simply not triggering any samples (though the midi data is appearing in the transport bar).

Quote kinglouis:

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I loaded a factory template and the instruments worked fine, the full length of the keyboard.

The limitation to C2 only happens in Kontakt and Trillian. All other programmes (all Logic instruments, Superior Drummer, East West, all other NI synths and drums &c) work the full length of the keyboard.

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So, to be clear: are you saying Kontakt and Trillian work fine in the factory templates but not in your projects?

Create a new software instrument track, and load Trilian onto it. Do you get the keyboard range you expect, or not?

Obviously with things like Kontakt, and sample based instruments in general, you may often be limited in terms of how the samples have been mapped.

Quote kinglouis:

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Midi Thru displays nothing different between the channels that work normally and those that don't.

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So you still see incoming MIDI activity on those missing notes, they just don't sound.

Quote kinglouis:

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There is nothing that I can find within the Kontakt or Trillian engines to suggest why this would be happening. Its not like the notes are being transposed and therefore running out of samples at C2; the keys below C2 are simply not triggering any samples (though the midi data is appearing in the transport bar).

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Ok - so you still have samples mapped to those notes, and would expect the notes to sound.

Do the get above (creating a new software instrument track and putting a new instance on it) and seeing whether that works. If it does, then you may well have restricted the note range on the particular objects that Trilian and Kontakt are instantiated on (it's difficult to guess as I can't see what you're doing).

See if that helps track it down...

Quote desmond:

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So, to be clear: are you saying Kontakt and Trillian work fine in the factory templates but not in your projects?

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No, sorry if that was unclear. Kontakt and Trillian have limited range in both my projects and factory templates.

Quote desmond:

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Create a new software instrument track, and load Trilian onto it. Do you get the keyboard range you expect, or not?

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I get keyboard range down to C1 then nothing beneath that. In most patches within Trillian the range would go to C0.

Quote desmond:

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Obviously with things like Kontakt, and sample based instruments in general, you may often be limited in terms of how the samples have been mapped.

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Absolutely, but to see if it was the samples running out at C1, I transposed the Kontakt/Trillian instruments down x 2 octaves and found that there are generally two more octaves of notes beneath C1 that it will not play.

Quote desmond:

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So you still see incoming MIDI activity on those missing notes, they just don't sound.

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Yup.

Quote desmond:

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Ok - so you still have samples mapped to those notes, and would expect the notes to sound.

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Yup.

It seems that, as you say, I must have restricted the note range on those particular instruments. So its a NI/Spectrasonics issue rather than a Logic issue presumably.

The fact that it's doing it in factory templates means it's unlikely there's something you've inadvertently done in Logic to affect this.

But it's odd that it affects two completely different instruments, indicating it may well be something outside those instruments. Hmm, I'll have a think...

Edit: Can you run Trilian/Kontakt in another host, say Garageband, the Live demo, Au host etc - and see if you get the same behaviour, or not?

Also, check your MIDI master keyboard is transmitting on one zone on one MIDI channel across the whole keyboard, and that you haven't got a split going on with MIDI channel 2 on the left and MIDI channel 1 on the right side, for instance - most plugins won't care about the MIDI channel (like most Logic instruments, for example), but multichannel instruments like Kontakt and the Spectrasonics stuff will.

You can see the MIDI channel of note events in the transport window, if you're not sure.


Edited by desmond (08/06/12 12:19 PM)

Tried Trilian in both GB and Main Stage, in both cases the keys stopped working lower than C1...

Ok, so - I'd look to your transmit keyboard settings, as I alluded to above...

...and the cased is solved.

Thanks Desmond, looks like my 18 month old had a play with the buttons on the keyboard and 'split' was on. It now isn't and it works perfectly. Wonderbra, cheers for the help.

Ah, cool.

Yeah, "it was the little one" or "the cat must've done it" are good culprits for many technical issues...!

If the boy's managed to mess with my Arturia drivers then I'll be extremely impressed. That one might need to be blamed on daddy alone I fear...