[BUG] Recording Midi at ANY latency on ANY system (sync)

ffg · April 6, 2012, 4:06pm

Tommok:

This very same problem has been discussed here:

Midi timing suggestion on recorded VST instruments. - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

In this thread someone made the suggestion of actually recording the sound of keys pressed on the keyboard at the same time with the MIDI (with no output instrument attached). So the OP in this thread did exactly this and came up with definite proof of what we’ve been suspecting (and possibly blaming on our own inaccurate playing) for a long time:

MIDI IS ALWAYS RECORDED TOO EARLY.

You ALWAYS need to move recorded MIDI parts forward. This may be worse with long latencies, but it is still recognizable even with very small latencies.

So, the time when you push a key (as compared to either playback or a metronome) should be recorded. Period. This would be expected behaviour by anyone. We are not talking about intuitive compensation for delayed instrument playback (because there is no output instrument selected).

So, if for some reason, placing whatever you record EARLIER than when the key was actually pushed would be “expected” behaviour (which I fail to see), then you would also expect AUDIO to behave in the same way. So at least, when you record MIDI and audio at the same time, they would also be in the same place, regardless of latency.

This experiment finally (after several years) proves that the Cubase behaviour of ALWAYS placing recorded MIDI EARLIER than the actual point of pushing the key is a BUG. A rather annoying bug that should be addressed as soon as possible.

Other DAWs do not seem to show this behaviour (could someone run the same test on Logic or Reaper?)

BTW: This has nothing to do with any kind of quantising whatsoever. Imagine playing to an audio click without any grid. The erratic behaviour would persist. And no, the quantise feature is not designed to move everything forward.

We’ve all been hearing this discussion for years, so today I thought I would test it out on my system.

I did as the OP beerbong suggested - mic’ed up a MIDI keyboard and recorded both the MIDI and audio, whilst (trying to) keep in time with the Cubase metronome.

i did NOT find that the MIDI recorded early. On the contrary, compared with the audio recording of the key being struck, it recorded some 0.01 second later. This was entirely consistent, whatever the audio buffer (latency setting) I used (64 samples to 2048 samples).

I presume the reason for the the MIDI note being late is the latency of my MIDI keyboard (I used an Oxygen 25, USB’d into the computer).

I have to say I was expecting to find the note to be early, because when I record MIDI along with audio I am usually well ahead of the beat (so is everyone else I record). I assume this is because musicians compensate for the delay inherent in all MIDI systems (even MIDI keyboards using internal sounds, not just VSTis) by playing early.

This has been discussed many times over the years - it seems some systems may produce an inaccurate recording of MIDI data, but mine doesn’t seem to. Isn’t that why Steinberg have an ‘Adjust for Latency’ setting? (Devices>Device Setup>VST audio system’) BTW I have this box checked, but set to 0 samples. It seems to make no difference to this test if I uncheck the box.

I don’t understand Tommok’s statements above (my underline) surely if you have to move the MIDI forward, it’s been recorded late, not early? Or do you mean forward as in the direction of the timeline (ie later in time - to the right)?

Talk of quantising, of course, misses the point completely.