Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[Dewdman42]

I have been trying to switch from DP to Logic. Logic has a lot of wonderful things about it, but Jamstix is not working too well with it. If anyone has some ideas for how to make this smoother, please let me know. Here are the issues I'm finding so far:

1. Occasionally, for no sane reason that I can figure out, the Jamstix GUI will get into a weird state with Logic where when you click on the gui, it hides it behind the logic main window at the same time as responding to whatever you clicked on. Very wonky.
   
2. Logic has very poor midi routing capabilities without getting into the environment. The environment in LogicProX is wonky also I have to say, but I have had some limited and buggy success by setting up a midi route for using SSD4 with Jamstix. Basically send JAMSTIX IAC port directly to mixer object with SSD4. Then you can select and record midi on other tracks in Logic while Jamstix just continues to send midi over IAC to SSD4 directly.
   
3. the problem with the above, however is that timing is always way off. I have not been able to figure out a way to get the timing to be in sync with the metronome. At first I thought this was due to audio latency issues and live midi not being sync'd with the audio, but I have tried various different audio buffer sizes and no change, the jamstix midi always comes into the IAC port about 145 ticks (960ppqn) earlier then it should. I have tried turning on the delay parameter of the jamstix track, but that does not effect jamstix midi going to IAC bus. I have tried putting a delay line into the logic environment also, but for some reason that puts everything 80ticks later then it says it should, so doesn't solve the problem either.
   
4. another problem with the above setup is that when its time to record the jamstix midi onto the SSD4 instrument track, it can't be done with that environment, which is probably fine, better to just drag and drop the part to the track (which by the way the dragged part *IS* properly timed). Otherwise if you want to be able to record the midi onto the SSD4 track, have to use the default environment setup. But the timing is always off there, like the other way..Jamstix is sending the midi ~147 ticks early over IAC, at least that is about what it seems to be doing consistently to me here.
   

So the question is, first how can I get Jamstix to play in proper sync with the metronome in Logic? And two any suggestions for managing the ability to record midi on other tracks and work in Logic, while leaving Jamstix connected up to SSD4 so that I can have Jamstix driving SSD4 while I'm writing music and not have to copy the parts over to regions before moving on to other tracks. The direct method I mentioned above works fine as long as we can sort out the timing problem, but maybe there is a way to do it without using the environment...with the midi demix feature? Anyway, biggest problem is the timing. that makes Jamstix of very limited use in Logic frankly.

The fact that is occasionally randomly seems to want to hide the gui behind Logic's main window is also a problem.

[Dewdman42]

I was sort of able to use midipipe to delay the Jamstix IAC by 73ms, which puts it in sync with the metronome in Logic. This doesn't quite work though because the blasted logic Sum port picks up both Jamstix IAC and the midipipe port...and we get duplicate delayed notes.

But 73ms appears to be the amount of time EARLY the jamstix is sending notes over IAC.

[Dewdman42]

Ok, I figured out a way to get it all working by using the Logic Environment and midipipe. see below

Note to ralph, I think JS3 is sending midi data to IAC 73ms early and midipipe could be eliminated from the setup if JS3 sent the midi at the correct time to IAC.

Anyway, here are steps to get it working for anyone trying to use JS3 together with a 3rd party drum sampler such as SSD4, etc. with Logic Pro.

1. Setup Midipipe with the following pipe, make sure the Jamstix IAC port is NOT hijacked:
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Tweak the environment. I came up with two enviroments. The simpler of the two is as follows:
   
   
   Note, SSD4m is a mapped instrument that points to the mixer object with SSD4 on it
   
   With the above environment, Jamstix will be sending midi data directly to the SSD4 instrument, bypassing the sequencer. In this mode it will not be possible to record the midi output of JS3 onto the SSD4 instrument track. Which is normally probably ok. but Jamstix will always be sending its midi to that instrument while you record and work on other tracks in Logic any way you see fit. When you're ready to burn the midi tracks into logic, drag and drop the parts form JS3 to the Logic track for SSD4 and then disable the Jamstix plugin.
   
   
3. If you do wish to have the ability to record enable the SSD4 track and record the midi from Jamstix, then the environment is a little more involved. I created the following environment:
   
   
   Note, its also neccessary for this to work right to go to project preferences->recording and make sure the multi midi demix option is checked. Then configure SSD4 track to listen midi ch10, and use anything other then ch10 for other tracks to record to.
   
   In this mode, you can switch back and forth between "direct" and "record" mode by clicking on the big red button in the environment, which is a cable switcher. In direct mode it will behave just like the first environment. in record mode the midi will be routed to the track for recording, presuming you have properly armed the relevant track in logic for actually recording it.
   

In conjunction with midipipe, this seems to work pretty ok in Logic and the timing is close enough within less then 1ms on my system after delaying the IAC bus 73ms. Might need a different delay on other systems, not sure.

This is pretty convoluted, but it works. I wish Logic was better about allowing midi to be sent from normal AU's. some people say its the AU standard, but I'm not sure that is the case. Perhaps if JS3 came in AU-MIDIFX form, it would be possible to use it as a midi fx plugin in logic with other drum samplers without the IAC loopback and delay compensation. That is what some other clever AU's have done that output midi. Perhaps JS3 could send IAC later? its not clear to me why its sending stuff to IAC 73ms early. Anyway, in the meantime, this seems to work for anyone trying to use Logic with JS3.

[Dewdman42]

And I found an even more elageant solution, but its not free. BlueCatAudio has something called Patchworks, which is a MFX AU plugin. It can host VST plugins and when the VST plugins output midi, it correctly outputs them to logic/mainstage. And I tested the demo out with Jamstix and it works! But only thing is, there is something wonky about the way the JS3 gui is handled in patchworks, whenever you click on anything in the JS3 gui, the entire frame goes white and you have to drag it a bit to redraw the gui. Not sure if this is something that would need to be fixed in patchworks, or in JS3, but it makes it just annoying enough for now that I'd rather use the IAC work around I think.

So Ralph, if you think you can figure out that GUI glitch, this could be very useful. Playback from JS3 this way was perfectly in sync with the metronome and zero use of IAC at all. Very neat and tidy. BlueCatAudio's patchworks plugin is also a little on the pricey side for just this one task. Also, when running JS3 in this mode, no audio from jamstix will be available. That's totally fine for me most of the time. if you want to use Jamstix audio then just use it like a regular instrument. If you want to use BOTH audio from jamstix as well as some triggered notes from other drum samplers..which would not be common...but if you did...then the IAC work around would probably be the way to go.

[Dewdman42]

There might be another problem with this Patchworks MFX approach. not sure. Out of time today to mess with it. But basically the MFX plugin slot in Logic is after the midi region track data stage. I think? This means that if you record the output from Jamstix onto the track...which it does excellently, then you hit play again..the region track data is pumped back into JS3....does not appear to be sent thru to the SSD4 sampler on the instrument plugin slot, and could even have other unintended consequences as far as triggering wierd behavior in JS3 I suppose.

So the process would be, work in JS3, when its ready, record the track, then either remove JS3 from the MFX slot or turn it off, before trying to edit any notes in the midi region or play back the region rather then JS3..something like that...but perhaps some kind of intelligent midi thru in JS3 would be useful here.

Anyway, Ralph if you get a chance to mess with the demo of patchworks to figure out how that might work with Logic, I think that would work a lot better if it was all sorted out, for logic users (mainstage too). Even better would be if you compiled an MFX AU version of Jamstix that outputs the midi, then we wouldn't even need to use patchworks at all. (hint hint).

[stpete111]

I did this video earlier last year on how to do this very simply. I don't have to go into the Environment at all. I only even go into it in the video to show what my Environment looks like by default so other can make sure theirs matches.

Regarding the timing being off from the metronome, you'll note at about 3:20 of the video, if you simply click somewhere in the Jamstix track and then back in the track where the other drum plug-in is, it will instantly lock in time to the metronome. It's a very odd bug, and I don't why it does it, but that little workaround fixes it for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gCcRzs9zPw

[Dewdman42]

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing that. I have to say that must be a bug in either JS3 or Logic. I get the same behavior here. However oddly, this trick did NOT work in one scenario I will describe in a minute.

First an explanation for why you still might need a bit more environment stuff.

If you are working with Jamstix and not yet ready to burn the jamstix tracks to midi regions but want to say, go work on your bass track a while and come back to jamstix, etc. In that case you have the problem that the Jamstix data needs to be separated out from "Sum" port so that Jamstix notes aren't getting fed to other tracks that you record enable and try to record at the same time jamstix is running.

So you could have something like this:





Note that project record preferences set to multi-demix mode. In this way, ch10 events will be routed to SSD4 as long as its record enabled. and you can use your other midi controllers to record to your bass or other tracks however you see fit, as long as they are record enabled, but ch10 stuff will only go to SSD4 and everything else will go to everything else by midi channel.

Note, maybe there is a way to have Jamstix output a global ch10? from what I can tell the only way to change the midi channel output is to modify the actual drum kit definition, but I could be wrong

The above does allow the track switching trick to get it playing in sync again, though that is still kind of a PITA, at least it works and no need for midipipe, which I like.

Now I mentioned a mode where the track switching trick doesn't work. If you want to keep JS3 totally isolated from the other tracks so that Jamstix can drive SSD4 while you select and record on whatever other tracks you feel like working with...then you need something like this:



That actually works almost great for keeping jamstix midi isolated from everything else, and just drag and drop the parts into Logic when you're ready, but for some reason the little track switching trick doesn't bring it in sync. It appears to only work when being pumped through the sequencer input in Logic as in the previous example.

Here is a picture of how I got it working using BlueCat Audio's Patchworks demo. This is an MFX wrapper around the VST version of Jamstix. It actually works totally perfectly in terms of timing and sync and is in many ways a very clean setup, with simpler track setup, etc. But at least for now, GUI bugs make this unusable. I do think Ralph should consider compiling an MFX version of JS3, its only a few lines of code change (seriously). Then there would be no 3rd party requirement and no gui bug.



That's a lot of info, I will write a summary in the next post.

[Dewdman42]

Summary

So basically to summarize, here are the known problems with Logic and Jamstix, some bugs, some logic design flaws:

1. Logic does not support midi out from AU's in the instrument plugin slots, so IAC has to be used for AU instruments.
   
   
2. JS3 is not currently available as MFX form, which could avoid the need for IAC.
   
   
3. JS3.vst can be wrapped by BlueCat Audio Patchworks as an MFX, but there are GUI bugs. Sync and playback works perfectly that way.
   
   
4. When Jamstix sends midi over IAC, it appears to go ~73ms early, quite possibly timestamped properly. This causes a timing problem when trying to send IAC directly to SSD4 in realtime. If its routed through the sequencer input instead, then the timestamp appears to be recognized and the events are lined up in the right place on the timeline. This appears to be by design in JS3 to send stuff early but timestamped. Not a bug, but an unfortunate situation that Logic can only pick up those timestamps and play the events in sync when going through the sequencer input. I'm going to research if its possible with a Logic transformer to honor the midi timestamps in the environment.
   
   
5. But the above only appears to work right when you click back and forth on the tracks interface between the JS3 track and the SSD4 track while JS3 is actually playing. This appears to be a bug in either Logic or JS3. Its possible that Logic is not initially routing the output IAC through the timestamp checking code initially for some reason. So I'm gonna say this is probably a Logic bug but we need more info from Ralph before I can send a bug report to Apple (not that it will probably make any difference).
   
   
6. Logic only has one input pipe to its sequencer, so all midi events are merged together through that port, including the JS3. This is not a bug, but does create some interesting challenges when working with jamstix and any other instrument tracks at the same time.
   

Suggestions

Here are my suggestions for Logic users and for Ralph and Apple:

1. Ralph please consider compiling MFX version of JS3. Message me, I have details from several other plugin authors about what you need to do. Its easy.
   
   
2. if not that, then please try to figure out how to make JS3 work in Patchworks. Get around the gui bug. The gui bug might be in Patchworks or might be in JS3, I can't say, but its not a functional solution right now. this also an expensive solution because patchworks is $80 on its own I think for this simple task.
   
   
3. Apple please fix the bug in Logic related to only recognizing the midi timestamps on the IAC midi events at the sequencer input, and also for not recognizing those timestamps until clicking back and forth between the tracks. That seems to be something that takes Logic out of monitoring mode of some kind, which it should do when you hit play, you shouldn't have to do the track clicking every time to get the timestamps picked up.
   
   
4. Ralph if you think the previous point is a JS3 issue rather then Apple's, then please fix it.
   
   
5. Until such time we can use JS3 as an MFX in perfect sync(which is my preferred hope), we can use the track clicking trick and the environment example I showed above with the "force ch10" transformer on it to isolate jamstix midi from everything else. It sometimes is a little confusing clicking on the record enable buttons and having the wrong instruments playing stuff but not that hard once you get the hang of it
   
   
6. the direct mode I had before, will not work because of the timestamp problem mentioned earlier. Without an MFX, I would prefer that mode for using IAC actually, because the midi merging of the sequencer input can be confusing. But the midi timestamps are not picked up that way, so it never syncs.
   

[Dewdman42]

Geeky tech talk alert..

I have some more thoughts I want to say about this midi timestamping issue. First I am presuming that JS3 is timestamping events it sends out IAC. Not sure if those are offsets or absolute time or what. I would like to know.

In any case, I think I can explain why Logic has the fiddly thing of clicking back and forth between the two tracks to get it in sync. Maybe.

Basically midi timestamps are irrelevant for living playing. Whenever you are playing a synth in live monitoring mode..the midi comes in to the interface, the interface timestamps it, then the OS holds onto it in a buffer. At some point the OS hits a point where it decides to take a yawn and ask the midi device driver for whatever midi is in its buffer. Then the clump of midi data that has accumulated there will finally be sent to the DAW. The DAW normally gets them all late and can't do anything but play them all immediately as far as sending it to the soft synth right now. However the original timestamp that was created back at the hardware midi interface can still be recorded onto the track, so that in theory, on playback it will sound right. No guarantees that the DAW is doing that however.

Ok..so when Logic is stopped or paused, its monitoring all incoming midi data as fast as it gets it and trying to get it to the soft synth as quick as it can. within reason. In that mode, timestamps may be ignored and irrelevant, whatever JS3 is sending over IAC...its irrelevant when Logic is not playing.

Now hit play and IAC is being piped through the sequencer input to the SSD4 track. For whatever the reason, Logic continues to leave it on that monitoring mode, ignoring the timestamps, until you click on the JS4 track and click back. (BTW its specifically the JS3 track you have to click on before clicking back to the SSD4 track, I am not sure why). In logic, clicking on the track arms it for recording. This act, somehow is causing the system to start paying attention to the timestamps.

Its a fairly unusual situation for midi events to be coming into the sequencer earlier then their timestamp. In the real world, mostly the events arrive late. that's the reason they invented the timestamping engine to begin with. So its not unreasonable that Logic would just store the events with their timestamp on the track but not necessarily bother to queue them by their timestamp before sending to the soft synth. Its not clear to me why clicking away and clicking back to re-arm the track somehow causes Logic to start queuing the events based on their timestamp instead of sending them immediately to the plugin. I will make a request to Apple Logic improvement line that incoming midi events should all be queued up by their timestamp whenever Logic is playing..but I doubt this will get much traction because most people do not have this problem since IAC and hardware midi interfaces almost always send the events later then the timestamp, not earlier.

I get why JS3 did this approach, because once Logic starts queuing up by timestamp, in theory, the data going over IAC is actually exactly on time from the timestamps. I think? The problem is getting Logic to get into that mode without having to click back and forth between JS3 track and SSD4 track, for one thing. But I also question whether those timestamps are being honored by Logic when recorded into the region. Because when you don't do the two-click trick, the events are in fact recorded in the wrong place on the region too. So its like Logic is completely ignoring the timestamp unless you click away and click back...no bueno.

I'm going to ask about this on some Logic forums.

Anyway, just thinking out loud, but Ralph, all the more reason why MFX version would be awesome.

The two click trick isn't so bad in the meantime.

I tried to mess around with the delay line in the Logic environment, but got nowhere, somehow it introduces lots of hidden delay. I can't figure out why. Its kind of like that object does pay attention to the timestamp, which brings it back to where its supposed to be, later, and then introduces another 63 ticks or so of delay on top of that for no reason I can figure.

[stpete111]

Regarding your request to get a MIDI FX version of Jamstix - I thought about this too awhile back, but then the more I thought about it and watched some instructional videos on the Logic MIDI FX - the MIDI FX's purpose is to take incoming MIDI data, process it in some way (e.g. arpeggiate it, transpose it, inc/dec velocity, etc) and output the processed MIDI data.

How would a Jamstix MIDI FX work? The purpose of MIDI FX isn't to replace the missing functionality of Logic of outputting MIDI from AU's, it's meant to process incoming MIDI and do something with it and spit it out. I guess my question is, what's the incoming MIDI side of things with JS3? By coding it as a MIDI FX, if there's no MIDI input from the user or from a MIDI track, will it then just ignore that fact and output the MIDI that JS3 outputs as normal course? Would be great if that were the case!

[Dewdman42]

The MIDI FX slot in logic and Mainstage does not have to process incoming midi, though it can certainly do that if it wants to and that is one use for it. It can also function as simply a midi generator. No incoming midi is required.

You can try this out yourself if you obtain the Blue Cat Audio patchworks MFX demo and try that out. Here:

http://www.bluecataudio.com//Vault/Products/Product_PatchWork/BlueCatPatchWorkAUDemo.dmg

It can host Jamstix inside it. In order to try it out, make sure to do the folowing:

1. Use the MFX AU version of the Patchworks demo plugin
   
   
2. Use Patchworks+JS3 in the MidiFX slot of an instrument track in logic and SSD4 or any other drum sound source in the instrument slot.
   
   
3. Use Patchworks preset called "wrapper" which is a simple single plugin setup in patchworks.
   
   
4. Load the VST version of JS3 into Patchworks. The AU version of JS3 doesn't output midi
   
   
5. after you load the plugin into Patchworks, click on the name of Jamstix to show a pop up window and you can select the midi out port, which by default is deselected. Select "Host"
   
   
6. When you open Jamstix the gui will be doing wonky things. Basically every time you click on it, it will go blank. Click again to bring back the gui. You can kind of get around and make it work
   
   
7. If jamstix outputs audio, its simply ignored by Patchworks MFX, but change the JS3 mixer to midi only to save some cpu power.
   

[stpete111]

Ok if that's the case, then yes, absolutely it would be great if Ralph could add a MIDI FX version of JS3 geared toward Logic users.

But you're sure that the Blue Cat MFX, as a wrapper, isn't just simply taking JS3 output as its MIDI input, and passing it through? I know you said "The AU version of JS3 doesn't output midi" but it would seem that it has to output MIDI somehow, otherwise how would the IAC workaround work? That MIDI has to be coming from somewhere?

[Dewdman42]

Yes I am sure about that. In Patchworks you can configure where the midi input comes from..and I had it configured for "Host". Might be able for it to get the midi input from someplace else.

No this solution works completely without IAC.

try it

[Dewdman42]

Because of my OCD, I have some more debug information for Ralph related to the IAC timing. I think I have concluded that this ~75ms timing discrepency is caused by Jamstix itself. I have hooked up a great midi monitoring app which shows the actual timestamps of midi events coming through an IAC port. For midi events that don't have a timestamp, it can optionally show a calculated time for when it was actually received.

So by comparing the SPP start clock time midi event sent by Logic itself to the JamstixIAC (not time stamped), compared to the first drum note to come through from Jamstix (time stamped), and do that both with and without the track clicking trick, I see that the track clicking causes the drum note timestamp to be ~75ms later in time with the track click trick, relative to the first SPP song start message received from Logic.

I can conclude that somehow clicking on the jamstix track causes Jamstix to correct its internal counter it uses to generate timestamps as well as send the events. I do not know why they would be ~75ms early before that. But I do think this is a Jamstix problem, not a Logic problem. Its just that only Logic users really use this IAC feature to find out, or perhaps there is something about Logic not sending some clue to Jamstix to get the correct counter until the Jamstix track is clicked on, I'm not sure. I leave that to Ralph to figure out.

However, it goes without saying, an MFX version of the plugin would be far preferable in any case.

[Dewdman42]

Also, It turns out the click-track-trick thing is a bit simpler then that. Its not the act of clicking on any tracks that causes things to work. For whatever the reason, the Jamstix track needs to be both selected and have a red R button. Not the red letter, but the actual button red with white letter on it. That means Jamstix track is record enabled. That track needs to be in that state while Logic is playing or recording for Jamstix to properly update its internal timestamp counter. It doesn't have to stay selected or record-enabled once logic has played a bit with it on. Once jamstix updates its internal counter then it will be in sync for the duration of that play, and you can select or record enable other tracks after that as you wish.

So you could select that track and record enable it before hitting play and when you hit play, jamstix will be doing its job in sync.

But Logic's midi input routing method can be really wonky. It gets really confusing which track is getting the midi. But you probably won't hear anything from SSD unless its also record enabled and you either click on that track to hear it, or you have Logic setup for multi-midi demix mode for recording to more than one midi track at a time. If you want to be able to work on other tracks while using Jamstix this way, you have to use that mode. Then you can do this:



Note how the Jamstix track is selected and record enabled, and the SSD4 track is also record enabled. That will play in sync when i hit play and the sounds will be coming from SSD4 with no extra track-clicking required. If you hit the record button, the jamstix notes will be recorded to the SSD4 track.

I reccomend the following environment for this to channelize jamstix to ch10, which will make it easier to deal with the multi-demix mode of Logic:



However, even that mode will be a little weird when it comes time to record other instruments bcause if you wanted, for example, to record some bass tracks while still monitoring jamstix output, you'd have to record enable the bass track, and leave the Jamstix and SSD4 tracks also record-enabled. Then when you hit record (with Jamstix track still selected) the SSD4 and bass tracks would both record their midi, even though you really only want the bass track recording just yet.

So a more elaborate environment is this one, I mentioned earlier:



With this one, you can hit that big red button that says "Direct". It will switch back and forth between direct mode or record mode. In record mode it works like the previous example. In direct mode, the SSD4 track does not need to remain record-enabled to be able to hear jamstix while recording the bass track because IAC is routed directly to the SSD4 mixer object behind the scenes. You still have to select and record enable the Jamstix track before hitting play, as always to make sure its in sync, but then only the bass track would need to be record enabled in addition to that, and SSD4 would be playing the jamstix notes for you behind the scenes. When you're ready to record jamstix to midi finally, then you would have two options:

1. switch to record mode with the red button in the environment, and record enable the SSD4 track, make sure jamstix track is again selected and enabled before hitting record. Then hit record and record the jamstix midi to the SSD4 track.
   
   
2. Or stay in "direct" mode all the time. you can just drag and drop the parts form Jamstix to the SSD4 track when they are ready to be frozen. Those will be more absolutely accurate anyway.
   

And it goes without saying, all of the above quirks would be made a million times easier by instead having an MFX version of Jamstix. But it would be good to figure out this record enable timing glitch with IAC anyway. I also find that Jamstix gets into a wierd state sometimes for no reason that I can figure out where it keeps going behind the logic main window when I click on it, hiding itself from view. The only way to fix it is to reload the plugin. I haven't been able to figure that out..really annoying when it starts happening.

All things considered though, i was getting way crazy worse performance out of DP for entirely different reasons...so...its not bad..it basically works in Logic as long as you get your head around these little quirks. It can be a little confusing, it took me obviously some hours to figure all this out.