I have a rather complex midi patch that sometimes gets stuck notes. Not a big deal - I've got an "all notes off" routine. But... once one of the instances gets a stuck note, from that point on, the notes out that midi channel/port are all reversed: noteon with the key coming up, noteoff with the key going down. Checking the velocities going into my midiformat, I can confirm that the velocities are correct (vel > 0 when I press the key, 0 when I release). What's even more messed up is that this behaviour will then persist, even if I close/re-open the patch. I even tried messing around with the abstraction that holds the actual midiformat and midiout objects, and the same thing happens there. Then, as if by magic (though never without a relaunch of max - it's just that a relaunch won't always cure it), it goes back to normal. Checking the actual instrument that I'm playing with this patch, I can confirm that it is playing correctly (checked using midi patchbay direct to the synth).

It seems to me this has happened to me before, but am I the only one? And does anyone know how to fix it? I'll try trashing prefs and stuff, to see if that helps, but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense right now. I should stress that, even when the 'reversed' behaviour starts, monitoring the note data at the absolute *last* stage before my midiformat object shows that everything's as it should be - noteons are on, noteoffs are off... but it still gets reversed.

I have a rather complex midi patch that sometimes gets stuck notes. Not a big deal - I've got an "all notes off" routine. But... once one of the instances gets a stuck note, from that point on, the notes out that midi channel/port are all reversed: noteon with the key coming up, noteoff with the key going down. Checking the velocities going into my midiformat, I can confirm that the velocities are correct (vel > 0 when I press the key, 0 when I release). What's even more messed up is that this behaviour will then persist, even if I close/re-open the patch. I even tried messing around with the abstraction that holds the actual midiformat and midiout objects, and the same thing happens there. Then, as if by magic (though never without a relaunch of max - it's just that a relaunch won't always cure it), it goes back to normal. Checking the actual instrument that I'm playing with this patch, I can confirm that it is playing correctly (checked using midi patchbay direct to the synth). 

weird-midi-problem

bummer that nobody has apparently had this problem. I've actually had this happen (noteons and noteoffs getting reversed) before, with an entirely different patch, several months ago. I've done a re-install and prefs trash which I'm just about to test, but I'm wondering if this could be attributed to some sort of driver problem, or even corruption of the driver? I'm using an m-audio midisport 2x2, and I'm (sadly) quite aware that their drivers are not exactly the greatest (at least on the Mac). Any thoughts on this possibility?

have you tried reinitialising your synth? turn it off then on again. my nord has a panic button for stuck notes. i use the midisport 2x2 and never had any problems

Well, it seems to have been solved by deleting the original patcher and re-instantiating the same abstraction in its place. I've never understood how this is different from just re-typing the name of the abstraction in the patcher box... It's also not really clear to me why this sometimes solves these otherwise insoluble problems... I know I've asked in the past whether patcher boxes can become somehow corrupted within a patch, but I don't recall whether there was a specific answer. Anybody at c74 capable of explaining this?

Turning this not-so-intuitive solution around, the problem started when I option-dragged 8 instances of the abstraction to create 8 new channels of my instrument. Before that, I had option-dragged 1 instance 8 times to create my original 8 "strips". So, another question to c74 might be, how does option-drag copying of multiple objects (apparently) lead to this strange form of corruption (occasionally, though certainly not all the time, as this is something I do quite often without issue). Could it be something to do with initialization routines within the patcher, like loadbangs and such?

Quote: bin wrote on Mon, 12 March 2007 10:09

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> have you tried reinitialising your synth? turn it off then on again. my nord has a panic button for stuck notes. i use the midisport 2x2 and never had any problems

Quote: bin wrote on Mon, 12 March 2007 10:09
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> have you tried reinitialising your synth? turn it off then on again. my nord has a panic button for stuck notes. i use the midisport 2x2 and never had any problems
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To answer your question, the synth instances are not on the same machine - they're on separate machines, so they're pretty much like hardware synths. Also, when this note-reversing issue started, I tested the synths using midi patchbay, and they worked correctly (that is, running from my controller to midi patchbay, to the synths). The problem isn't really "stuck" notes (which is an easy fix, as you point out), but rather "reversed" ons and offs - hold the key down, note turns off, lift it up, note turns on.

Quote: bin wrote on Mon, 12 March 2007 10:09
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> have you tried reinitialising your synth? turn it off then on again. my nord has a panic button for stuck notes. i use the midisport 2x2 and never had any problems
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ooh, this is getting really fun! Max just re-cabled one subpatcher of my app! (It appears that it may have rotated the connections 1 object to the left - thus moving all cabling over one object, but maintaining the correct relative outlet numbers.) Funky! What the $%#@ is that all about??? I've never had that happen before... is my system just plain pooched? Aack!

I should also mention that my ealier problems were beginning to look like they were related to a pattrstorage object... even though there are no pattr-ified objects in the abstraction that was showing the problems! But now, with the funky new automated, Max-intervention re-patching feature, I'm beginning to think I'm never going to make sense of this with normal debugging, as there's nothing "normal" about it. I must be going mad. Could this possibly be bad memory? I've always associated bad RAM with crashes, freezes, and hangs, but is it possible that it could cause something as limited in scope as this?

weird midi problem