Composer crashes when setting up midi controller

[Pat401]

Hi Shelly,

Last week I upgraded from Notation to Composer so that I could use my MIDI controller with the software.

Today I've tried to set up my USB MIDI controller for the first time and Composer crashes every time I get part way. It lets me get so far, such as being able to play the test in the Device setup window, or it might even go as far as the Tap In Delay Button and then the program will crash. Windows itself doesn't crash, just Composer.

I tried unplugging my Sound Blaster Play external USB sound card and using the computers own soundcard but that makes no difference.

The controller is a Midistart Music 25, compter is an HP DV6 Notebook, 3GB Ram, Windows 7.

I wonder if a cup of coffee will help, but I suppose it's best to keep the keyboard dry. :-)

Regards,
Pat

[dj]

Hi, Pat:

Rebooting the system completely usually cures any such problems with initial setup.

I assume by now you've rebooted.

David

[Pat401]

Hi David,

A hard reboot doesn't fix the problem, I'm afraid.

Pat

[Sherry C]

Hi Pat,

When Composer crashes, are you getting any error message in the Status Bar? (It's the bottom bar of the Composer window, any message should appear in the lower left.) If you are, please let me know what that is.

If there's no error message, then it may be a driver conflict. What kind of MIDI devices are on the machine, and is there any other software running that might use a MIDI device (eg. instant messaging program, other audio/media players, etc.)?

One way we can isolate some of the issue is to try another MIDI recording application. An easy (and free) one is Red Dot Forever, available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/reddot/ It's a very simple MIDI-recording-only application. If you can use that and record something, then we'll know that the issue is more specifically related to Composer than to the general MIDI interactions on your machine.

(I'm glad I wasn't drinking _my_ coffee at the end of your post )

ttfn,
Sherry

[Pat401]

Hi Sherry,

Firstly, the controller does work with Red Dot Forever. I've still got the problem with NC crashing, but I think I've narrowed it down a little. Here are the steps I took just now.

Part 1
1. Open NC
2. Controller plays and records ok -I got as far as setting it up as the default device yesterday.
3. Latency is obvious so go into Setup > Configuration > Device > Test.
4. NC crashes.

After a hard reboot I tried again. Actually the computer wouldn't shut down, it just hung in "shutting down" mode so I had to close it using the On/Off button on the computer.

Part 2
I did steps 1 to 3 again and this time for step 4 I went to Calibrate playback delay (latency). Once it got to trying it, NC crashed again but this time I saw the error message in the status bar, which was:

Internal program error: c0000005 address: 57c8a9
The windows alert box said Notation Composer has stopped working.

So, it seems to be something in the configuration file that's causing the crashes.

Part 3
This is a different problem that's not really a problem

When opening a new file, an alert box comes up with "Can't open template: C:\...." click OK and the Ensemble options box opens, then another "Can't open..." alert, but every thing opens up ok.

Anyway, I hope you can make some sense of all this. I appreciate your help.
Cheers,
Pat

[Sherry C]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the info. What playback device are you using? I know the MIDI 25 unit is an input-only unit, so there is another device that is acting as the playback device. It may be as simple as needing to make sure the MIDI 25 unit is set as an "In" only device in Composer's Setup/MIDI Device Configuration.

Actually, it might help if you can take a screen shot of your Setup/MIDI Devices configuration for me. Do you know how to take a screen shot? If so, great - you can either post it here or send it to me at the Helpdesk at support@notation.com If you don't know how to do one, please see the step-wise description at our KnowledgBase at http://notation.com/helpdesk/admin/s...kbarticleid=56

Thanks!
Sherry

[Pat401]

Hi Sherry,

The playback device is Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth.

Still the same thing happening, controller plays with latency, crashes NC when tapping the Tap button. I forgot to say before, there is no sound when the notes play for the latency test, only the notation shows up on the staff.

I tried just entering various numbers from 159 up 500 msecs but none seem to change the latency.

I'll send some .jpg files in a separate post, because I forgot to reduce them in size so they won't upload for the moment.

[Pat401]

Here's 3 .jpg files.

In the first and second one it shows the Midistart as MIDI output device. I've since unchecked that, but doesn't affect anything.

Cheers,
Pat

[Sherry C]

Hi Pat,

Let's try the following.

In the Setup/MIDI Devices Configuration dialog, please click on Port -> Select Port, and uncheck the MidiStart 25 box on the right hand side. This should put any stop to trying to treat it like an output device (I know you unchecked the "is output device", but this is a double-check for that ).

While you're still in the MIDI Device Configuration dialog, go to the properties for the MIDIStart unit.

1. Make sure that under Playback properties none of those boxes is checked.
2. Under Recording properties, make sure both are checked.

The MIDI Start unit is only an input device, and so it should not try to act in any way as an output device.



I've done a bit of research, and it looks like some other sequencing software users have had the same issues with the unit as well. It may be due to it being "compliant" hardware and thus not having specific drivers - this can be a blessing if it all works right, but a bane if it doesn't I do see on the maker's website (http://www.miditech.de/127-Downloads) what looks like a specific driver for the unit. If the steps above don't resolve the issue, it may be worth installing the driver. You can always roll back your machine if the new driver doesn't do the trick either.


For the latency, that is an issue with the GS Wavetable, as it has about a 420 msec (nearly a half-second) latency between when it gets the signal from your keyboard and when it actual gets the sound out. There are other devices that have lower (or zero!) latency. Rather than write that all out here, I'll just refer you to Composer's Help/User Guide, and use the Index to look up "latency". There's a nice explanation, as well as steps for using the "Tap in delay" feature to fix it for playback.



For recording, though, it's probably a good idea to look into using a device that doesn't have latency. Some users like using SynthFont in "MIDI Input On" mode. Using an ASIO audio driver (you can get a free ASIO driver at www.asio4all.com) will eliminate latency for beautiful crisp response If you go that route, be sure to use the MIDI Device Configuration/Port/Select Port, and uncheck the GS Wavetable (it interferes with ASIO). There are some discussions here on the forum about other MIDI output devices such as SynthFont, ASIO, using virtual MIDI cables, and the like for better recording and sound. We also have a couple of tutorial videos about the virtual cables and getting going with SynthFont.


Hopefully the suggestions near the front here will alleviate the crashing problem (I've also reported the error message for fixing, so Composer will handle such problems more gracefully in the future


Keeping my fingers crossed for you!
Sherry