Superior Drummer falls out of sync with EZDrummer2 Midi Out

[JetX]

I’m trying to use the Song Creator in EZ drummer using it’s MIDI out to Superior in Cubase 7.5. OSX.9.5.

Timing is shaky but workable on the first round (sounds like humanize is set to “barely capable’), but the thing that makes it impossible to use is that when Cubase is set to cycle any amount of bars, EZ&SD fall way out of whack on the second and subsequent passes. Have to stop and start again to get them in sync, which makes cycling the part useless.

When using EZDrummer only, the Song Creator stays in sync, and of course Superior works fine with it’s own midi track.

I need to hear the Superior output from EZ’s Song Creator, due to different articulations.

Any help would be appreciated.

Topic

[JetX]

I think I’ve found the culprit. It looks like Cubase’s ASIO Guard. Disabling it entirely or just on EZ & SD seems to make cycling work together.

Doesn’t help the dodgy timing however, even after turning off (All Off) Humanize in the Sound Engine setting.

[Henrik Ekblom]

The Humanize function does nothing to the MIDI and the timing of the notes, it changes what sounds the engine should play when a MIDI note is played.
Is it latency that causes the bad timing, e.g. the MIDI is played a bit after when it should be played?
Does this problem only occur in the Song Creator (e.g. are you playing the MIDI straight from the Song Creator’s previews of the different MIDI files) or are you playing the MIDI from the song track?

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[JetX]

Thanks for that info on the Humanize function. Couldn’t find anything in the EZ2 manual.

No the midi is not playing consistently late, the timing is just wobbly, like it desperately needs quantizing.

It’s an Avatar midi file which I have dragged to the song track in ez drummer and repeated for the length of the song in hopes of using EZ to add fills and variations.
It plays beautifully off the midi track with Superior. Same with the audio outputs from EZ drummer. But somehow from the Midi Out of EZ into SD it’s losing it’s timing consistency.

[Henrik Ekblom]

Ok, thanks for the update. I’m going to check that, to see if there’s a bug somewhere…

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[JetX]

Henrik,

It looks like you may be right, I’ve played with the buffer settings in Cubase and the shorter the buffer, the closer the timings between the two. What were enormous flams at 2048 samples are now minor at 768 (the lowest I can go at this stage with this song). I do believe that is the issue, so probably no bug. Just me hearing it out of sync and being thrown off.

Thanks much for your suggestions, really helped me for where to look. Didn’t even think of this since I wasn’t actually playing a controller.

[Henrik Ekblom]

Alright, nice to hear that you sorted it out. 2048 is a pretty big buffer size which will add MIDI latency. Sounds like a new sound card should be the next investment (or an update to ASIO driver, if you don’t use that already)

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

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