Logic Pro 9 late controller response

[eartoyz]

I am doing a live show tomorrow using logic 9.1.1 and am having an issue with the controller (Akai MPK-88) I have, being late to play the first note trigger. The response when I am playing is ok, but if I neglect to play for a short period of time, the first note I play sounds much later than actually played.
As I said once you are playing the latency is not there, only if you haven't played for a little while. Changing the buffer setting in Logic doesn't cure this
problem.
Any help or advice with this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Alan Hayes

 

[zerobeat]

Logic's software instruments are in a kind of "standby mode" (you'll notice that the R button isn't solid red on the track) before you play any MIDI into them. So it takes a moment to activate them when it detects MIDI. One solution is to tweak a controller (say, Mod Wheel) to wake the track up before you want to play. Or

The reason for this standby mode is to preserve DSP resources. Imagine if every available software instrument track was in IMMEDIATE LIVE mode (low latency)... it would take up a lot of resources for just the off chance that live MIDI (not prerecorded MIDI... that's always in time) could trigger it.

When the "R" is solid red on the software instrument track, it's in live mode.

 

[eartoyz]

Thanks for your reply!
I kinda figured that was the case, so I pump the sustain pedal before playing. Would be nice if there was a feature that would keep an instrument awake!
I only had two available at a time and switched using performance patches from the controller.
Thanks again for your help!

 

[Peter Ostry]

... so I pump the sustain pedal before playing. Would be nice if there was a feature that would keep an instrument awake!

You can probably do this by sending a kind of pulse from another application to the Logic channelstrips. For example some controller event that is not used for playing.

However, it is a good idea to do something on a keyboard before you play. Is the modwheel really down? Sustain pedal in the best position? Correct key range selected? A short check, a personal ritual if you want, helps also for concentration. If you watch sportsmen, all of them do something funny before they start their action. They do it for a good reason because they need to get concentrated from the first second on if not shorter. This is a good thing for musicians too.