Before I start, I should say that I use Cubase SX3. Here are my system specs:

-Windows 7 x64-
Asus P5Q Deluxe mobo
Intel Q6600 (Clocked at 3ghz)
4GB RAM
Ati 4850 graphics card
Focusrite Saffire 56 (Connected via TI firewire chipset)
SSL Duende PCIe
Maudio Audiophile 192
Focusrite Liquid Mix (Also connected to TI firewire chipset)
TC Powercore Compact (on Asus FW port - Via probably, but it behaves!)


Anyway, it's Saturday night = music night. My piano friend sat down to record a track, but on listening back to his performance, we notice it's horribly out of time with the rest of the track. At first, we thought it was the Cubase project playing up. However, I have since tried recording in previous Cubase tracks and suddenly there's a lot of midi drift happening.

The strange thing is that it can be random, e.g. it might drift after 15 seconds or sometimes it's fine for well over a minute and a quarter. Bizarre. The only success I've had was starting a brand new (empty) project where I tried putting together a basic drums, bass and piano recording. It sounded in time. But did seem to start showing slight drift...

I tried the Cubase setting "Use System Timestamp" as recommended. And while it helped a bit, it did not fix the problem. This drift is new to me and I'm pretty baffled... Although, now I think about it, I did cancel a lot of windows services recommended from a music orientated site. But then, what windows service being removed could harm the midi timing?

Hopefully someone can help here as I'm stuck and incredibly frustrated. We just lost an entire day which is a lot when you only get together every two weeks for around 5 hours. AND...it's very late and I have not found a solution by trawling the internet. I need help.

Cheers,
Adam.

P.s. does it matter I got a new keyboard recently?? It sounds fine played live.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec07/articles/cubasetech_1207.htm - more than just "use systemtimestamp" stuff in that great article.

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Alexis -Cubase 6.5.0/SX3.1.1.944, XP SP2, 4GB RAM (1GB not accessible, but used just to balance the computer so it doesn't tip over); Delta 66 in Omni i/O Studio; Motif8; UAD-1

Go back to before you unnecessarily destroyed those services.
Use System Restore.
If you can't do that reinstall Windows.
Don't tinker with the engine after advice from unidentified jokers on the net. W7 tinkering not needed.

My apologies. It must of course be a Cubase problemo.

"Clocked at 3gHz"? That overclocked?
Q6600: What FSB? (should be around / over 1333) The FSB on C2Duo & Quad systems easily gets clogged. As midi is not critical to the way the computer works then it gets knocked out first.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

Quote ImdurC:

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I tried the Cubase setting "Use System Timestamp" as recommended. And while it helped a bit, it did not fix the problem. This drift is new to me and I'm pretty baffled... Although, now I think about it, I did cancel a lot of windows services recommended from a music orientated site. But then, what windows service being removed could harm the midi timing?

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Well, turn them back on and see!

W7 doesn't really need tweaking, except, maybe, the Background Services thing in Processor Scheduling. I can't get a straight answer to whether this does anything useful on a multi-processor system. So, if you changed it, try changing it back.

With any luck, "Turn off System Restore" wasn't one of your ill-advised tweaks? That could be a quick way back.

Thanks for the article, Alexis. I skimmed through parts last night during that failed session. But I'll definitely read through it properly today, now you've linked it.

Tex, some joker's site on the internet. Well, you may be interested to note that Focusrite themselves pointed me towards that site - http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=1071

It was Black Viper's guide on SP1 services - http://www.blackviper.com/2010/12/17/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1 -service-configurations/

Take from that what you will, but Focusrite recommended it. As for using system restore, I turned that off when first installing W7. Don't need it because it's my music system and nothing gets installed that I don't know about.

Anyway, the point of disabling services that weren't needed was to improve the latency of the audio interface at lower buffer rates. I have no idea what was on the Black Viper list that could cause a midi timing issue. The B.V. guide certainly gives warnings on certain services as to what it could affect. So, wouldn't it advise that something could affect the timing??


Also, I tried a different keyboard and it wasn't any better. I say that because I was using the fairly new keyboard with USB connectivity (Keystation Pro 88). Thought I'd try a good ol' midi port instead

I even tried disabling windows midi ports in SX3 and vice versa on the direct music ports. But they both showed the same drift. It's going out after roughly 30 seconds on both sides of the midi coin. And I never use the emulated ports. Hmm...

If I have to reinstall windows, that's ok as I've been planning that for the last few weeks. Just annoying that this came up during a session. But still, to stop this from happening in the future, that's knowledge worth having.

On a final note, I completely forgot to mention that during the session last night, my friend and I both noted the cpu meter spiking at times. Very curious as to what that could be. I think my next plan is to make sure all my software/plugins are up-to-date. I'll report back.

Thanks,
Adam.

Quote ImdurC:

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As for using system restore, I turned that off when first installing W7. Don't need it because it's my music system and nothing gets installed that I don't know about.

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System Restore isn't intrusive, and would have made trouble-shooting your present problems a great deal easier! It's very silly to turn it off.

How was your system performing before you "improved" it?

Hi.

Before the "improvements" I could run at 768 buffer and there may be occasional glitching. After the improvements, I could run at 256 buffer with the odd glitch. It was worth doing to get the chance to mix tracks and even play synths at such a low buffer.

If there's a better way to prepare a system for low latency stuff like that, I'd love to know.

Adam.

Just because he's got a company name like Focusright doesn't make the advice any less than 5 years out of date. There's as many employed fools as unemployed. They change their computers and forget that not everyone (ie: you) can afford the time or the money to be on the leading edge and they also forget that their websites need updating.

Reinstall W7 keep the Restore on, get a cheap new version of Cubase rather than the old buggy SX3. Cubase 5 or thereabouts should do you and be relatively cheapo. Keep the setup as simple as possible without all those old tweaks for pre W7 systems and you'll probably be good to go for the next three years at least.

The dropouts are the computers data buses clogging up especially if you use lots of VST/FX or midi samples held in ram as the ram communicates data to the CPU if the data path is jammed the user data usually loses out.
i3/i5/i7 computers have direct communication between the ram and CPU (via the FSB aka Northbridge) so on those systems data loss is much less. Just thought I'd mention that in case you do have the means to upgrade.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

Quote ImdurC:

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Hi.

Before the "improvements" I could run at 768 buffer and there may be occasional glitching. After the improvements, I could run at 256 buffer with the odd glitch. It was worth doing to get the chance to mix tracks and even play synths at such a low buffer.

If there's a better way to prepare a system for low latency stuff like that, I'd love to know.

Adam.

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You have quite a selection of devices hanging off that computer! What happens if you take off everything except ONE audio interface while recording MIDI?

Thanks for posting that link to my ‘Solving MIDI Timing Problems In Cubase’ feature Alexis

Here’s a quote from the end of my ‘Tweaking Windows Vista For Music’ feature from SOS November 2008 - the vast majority of it applies ti Windows 7 as well:

“Finally, although I've broken my own rule about not fiddling with Windows Services by suggesting that you disable the Windows Search service (a 'special case' measure that specifically reduces disk access during audio recording and playback), I would nevertheless suggest that you leave the other services alone. You can experience frustrating instability problems if you start disabling services en masse according to Internet recommendations.”

Here’s a link to the whole thing:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov08/articles/pcmusician.htm


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Oh, and here’s a link to my ‘PC Musician: XP Tweaks For Music: The Audio Tweaks That Work - And The Ones That Don't!’ feature:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep06/articles/pcmusician_0906.htm#5

The section headed ‘Pointless Tweaks’ is mostly about the perils of disabling Windows Services, plus the results of some tests I did before and after disabling a total of 46 Services:

“The total CPU overhead was still exactly the same, at two percent, but the system RAM consumption was now down to 197.6MB: a negligible improvement of just 8MB. To double-check for any audio improvement, I ran a song that had previously been struggling at the limits of both my CPU and RAM, even with an audio interface latency of 20ms, and found no improvement at all. I rest my case!”

Even worse, here’s the follow-up report the following month in my PC Notes column when I describe the subsequent problems and crashes I had after disabling the Services, and how they all disappeared as soon as I restored an image file to return the machine to its previous state:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/pcnotes_1006.htm

So let me reiterate my previous advice : "Disabling various Windows Services in an effort to further streamline your PC's audio performance is, in my opinion, pointless. Moreover, if you don't know exactly what you're doing, your system can become unstable or even refuse to boot up afterwards." Let me now add to this that even if you do know what you're doing, and carefully follow a list published on the Internet, you can still end up with an unstable PC. Just say no to Service tweaks!


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Back with a result. I tried Wombat's idea of disconnecting my liquid mix and tc powercore compact. But, after two tests they both drifted like the previous test recordings.

However, I MAY have cracked it. I looked around various Cubase settings and finally found myself staring at the "Expert" settings under "VST Audiobay". I glanced around and saw one called "adjust to record latency". I declicked it (turned it OFF).

I played through a song for a bit then listened back. It felt MOSTLY correct! I played through the entire song a 2nd time and did it in a very metronome way, e.g. playing stabs of piano on the beat. I listened back and again, it felt pretty much spot-on.
However, as I said, it seems mostly correct. Before, a midi recording was drifting out of time by getting behind the beat. But I get the feeling it's a smidgen fast now.

I may be wrong as, this is a cover of Don't Stop Me Now and perhaps my playing is erratic. I'm not a piano player! lol Hmm... brb

*Goes away to test*

Okay, recorded myself live on a zoom recorder while also recording the midi performance. Once with "use system timestamp" and one without. Long story short, BOTH audio recordings matched 100% with their respective midi recordings! lol Guess I do play erratically on that song!

Hopefully this is the end of this thread, but you never know. But I am glad for this thread to be here for those of us that may get this problem. I almost took my music PC to my fiancée's to completely reinstall everything which would've taken days. Yet, all I had to do was change one setting in Cubase. Phew! As I said, I hope I don't come back saying it's failed again.

Adam.

Just seen your post Martin. Yeah, I think if you're blindly following a list, it's likely that you could do something that you don't want to by accident. But then, I've lived and breathed computers long before discovering music and continue to tinker with them to this day. So, I believe I have a better understanding than most. Best example would be the comments in this thread to reinstall windows. While I welcomed it, I knew that if I just took some time, I could restore all my original service settings with ease. Manually, of course! lol But it wouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, I'll definitely take on that point about maybe not fiddling so much with windows on my music PC. But saying that, it did seem to work re: the 768 to 256 buffer improvement. I didn't imagine that

I'll also look at those articles you posted for proper tweaks. Thank you.

Tinkering with computers is one thing. Tinkering with music computers is playing with another animal with scratchy claws.
On buying my first Atari the salesman laughed in my face and said "That's just a games machine!" Before walking out and buying elsewhere I thought "Yes, dummy. A games machine is what I need for doing music on."
The midi on PCs has always been flaky to say the least sometimes so if there's a problem now it's likely to involve that.
For tighter midi you could try altering the Priority setting in the Devices Setup as it's usually set to balance or slightly weighted to the best Audio efficiency.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.