SD3 and MacOS Catalina: Midi Events not Seen

[Craig Kolb]

My mac was updated to the Catalina (non-beta) today, and it seems as if midi events from my TD17 are no longer registering with SD3.  No drum/cymbal/pedal events are seen by SD3, either in midi setup, or in the main UI.

SD3 sees the TD17, and I can select it as the midi input device. Audio output through the TD17 works fine.

Known issue, or…?

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina Beta (10.15)

Topic

[John]

Hi,

I don’t think much can be seen as “known” problem with Catalina, since the entire audio software business has been warning people about upgrading to Catalina before they have tested everything with the release version.

I would first start with making sure your TD17 actually is working as expected with your Mac; can any software on your Mac receive MIDI from the TD-17?

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[kwandrews]

I’ll see what happens as well…worst case, I have a disk image I can use to revert back to MacOS 10.14 if needed.  Or, I could even just install a copy of 10.14 on an external TB3 SSD drive and that as the “audio OS” until a release of SD3 is available with full compatibility.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Mojave (10.14)

[Paul Strand]

I have also updated to Catalina. I can use my TD-30 for audio out, but the MIDI in from the TD-30 no longer works. Any help would be appreciated.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

[Whagi]

Hmmm, well this isn’t good. Same with my TD17.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

[Brooks H]

Surprised Toontrack didn’t send notification not to update like almost every other manufacturer of plugins I own. It seems like none of them are ready for Catalina yet.

SD3 v3.3.6, EZbass v1.1.7, EZkeys v1.3.4
Studio One v5.5.2, Cubase v12.0.60
3.6GHz Intel i9 iMac, 64GB RAM, OS 12.6.1

[Craig Kolb]

Well, that’s a surprising and disappointing response.  I don’t mind that there are issues — it happens.  But I’m pretty sure that blaming the customer is not a winning strategy.

Not all of your customers are going to be attuned to what the ‘audio software business’ has supposedly been telling people, and yet about which Toontrack  has said nothing.

Catalina has been in beta for 4 months.  If you don’t have a list of ‘known issues,’ something is very wrong.

[Craig Kolb]

John wrote:

I would first start with making sure your TD17 actually is working as expected with your Mac; can any software on your Mac receive MIDI from the TD-17?

FWIW, using Applications->Utilities->Audio MIDI Setup, it appears that no MIDI events are received from the TD17 under MacOS 10.15.1.  So this appears to be a MacOS issue.

• This post was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Craig Kolb.

[Craig Kolb]

Craig Kolb wrote:

So this appears to be a MacOS issue.

… or perhaps a Roland issue.  Roland posted a Catalina compatibility statement yesterday, which states, “If you are using a Roland product via a USB connection to a Mac computer, please continue to stay with macOS Mojave (macOS 10.14) until the results of verification are announced.”

https://www.roland.com/global/support/support_news/19091015r/

[Paul Strand]

That is the way I was leaning too, as I had the same results when trying it in Logic Pro X…

[Whagi]

Great so now I have a £1500 drum kit and a £300 piece of drum software I can’t use on my MAC together, which is why I bought both.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

• This post was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Whagi.

[Craig Kolb]

Whagi wrote:

Great so now I have a £1500 drum kit and a £300 piece of drum software I can’t use on my MAC together, which is why I bought both.

I think blame for this one falls squarely on Apple, who seems to have major changes to MIDI support in Catalina, but didn’t give 3rd party hardware and software vendors enough time to make the necessary changes.

[Craig Kolb]

Here’s a workaround for the TD17 module — it may well work for other Roland modules as well.

Under Setup->USB, change driver mode from “VENDOR” to “GENERIC”, and power cycle the module.

This allowed MIDI events to be seen by MacOS and SD3 on my MBP.

Routing audio from MacOS to the module doesn’t work with this workaround, but you can use the audio out of your Mac instead.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

[Whagi]

Craig Kolb wrote:

Here’s a workaround for the TD17 module — it may well work for other Roland modules as well.

Under Setup->USB, change driver mode from “VENDOR” to “GENERIC”, and power cycle the module.

This allowed MIDI events to be seen by MacOS and SD3 on my MBP.

Routing audio from MacOS to the module doesn’t work with this workaround, but you can use the audio out of your Mac instead.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

Does Music to the TD17 module via BlueTooth still get passed to the MAC via USB though?

I’ll try this tonight, as long as I can trigger SD3 from my TD17, I’ll be happier, for now.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

• This post was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Whagi.

[Craig Kolb]

Whagi wrote:

Does Music to the TD17 module via BlueTooth still get passed to the MAC via USB though?

I didn’t test, but I would guess not.  Enabling Generic mode bypasses the Roland driver, and I suspect it’s the driver that provides the audio-over-USB functionality.

[Whagi]

Craig Kolb wrote:

Whagi wrote:

Does Music to the TD17 module via BlueTooth still get passed to the MAC via USB though?

I didn’t test, but I would guess not.  Enabling Generic mode bypasses the Roland driver, and I suspect it’s the driver that provides the audio-over-USB functionality.

Nope, didn’t work. Only the midi to SD3 works using the Generic USB setting. So I’m just playing the TD17 module until this is fixed. Looks like a Roland driver issue to me.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

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Thanked by: Craig Kolb

[Author]

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