Prophet 08 - Midi In - Logic problems

[theelectricdisco]

I've been having issues with my Prophet 08 for a month or so now for no apparent reason.

It just stopped responding to logic completely out of the blue.

I've been round the houses with it and finally got it down to the Midi In signal.

It works perfectly if nothing is connected to Midi In.
Sends Audio to my soundcard. Sends midi to Logic. Everything as expected. But as soon as I plug a midi cable, either coming from my Saffire 56 or Maschines Midi outs, it freezes the audio on the Prophet and I have to unplug and restart for it to work.

It worked perfectly for a moment this evening then stopped.
I also had a strange thing where it would only play audio while I was chanting the master volume on the Prophet but stopped as soon as I didn't.

I'm not sure if something in Logic has tweaked? or if without realising I've changed something on the prophet itself, but any clues at all would be appreciated!!

[timbo74]

Hi,

Maybe worth exploring/testing..

1) Reinstall the Prophet 08 firmware ( With all midi cables disconnected from device)
2) Make sure all your other devices are not flooding midi clock/sysex/NRPN/CC data to the P08.
3) Just use another keyboard device's midi out to play the P08. (Simple master keyboard without midi clock)
4) Check all the other midi devices firmware are up to date or the flip side is maybe a recent update has set up incorrect settings in that device.
5) Go through the P08's global settings and check everything is ok. Turn off all incoming clock and NRPN/CC reception for testing purposes.

If starts to work slowly reintroduce the settings that you require to track what may be causing the issue you mention.

Give that a try and hopefully all will be well.

Good luck.

I've been having issues with my Prophet 08 for a month or so now for no apparent reason.

It just stopped responding to logic completely out of the blue.

I've been round the houses with it and finally got it down to the Midi In signal.

It works perfectly if nothing is connected to Midi In.
Sends Audio to my soundcard. Sends midi to Logic. Everything as expected. But as soon as I plug a midi cable, either coming from my Saffire 56 or Maschines Midi outs, it freezes the audio on the Prophet and I have to unplug and restart for it to work.

It worked perfectly for a moment this evening then stopped.
I also had a strange thing where it would only play audio while I was chanting the master volume on the Prophet but stopped as soon as I didn't.

I'm not sure if something in Logic has tweaked? or if without realising I've changed something on the prophet itself, but any clues at all would be appreciated!!

[MartinM]

Moinmoin,

before reinstalling the P'08 software, I would try to check the settings.

Check P'08 global settings, especially regarding MIDI. If in doubt, reset them to defaults (user manual, page 3: hold "Global" and press "LFO3")

Check Logic settings: If You connect P'08:out to Logic:in and P'08:in to Logic:out, You will install a MIDI (eternal) loop, that must be interrupted in Logic. What are Your regarding Logic-settings?

Check Logic output. Does it send one of the MIDI commands, that switch all notes off and repeats it? There are quite a few:

• "all sound OFF" / "all notes OFF" (of course)
• active sensing (a system real time message which may or may not be supported by P'08, never tried or used that command)

Toggling Omni or Mono-modes BTW also switches off all notes currently sounding, but P'08 should react to the next (P'08-)keypresses following these messages.

HTH

Martin

[theelectricdisco]

Thank you Timbo and Martin for your quick replies.

Just noticed I wrote 'chanting the master volume'....  I meant changing! I'm not actually sat in the studio chanting to myself


So I've tried the Global reset.
I'm not sure how long this should take and if there's an alert that says this is complete or of it's just instantaneous.

Martin, what did you mean by the 'Regarding Logic settings?'
Is there somewhere I can check this?

Also, re. the Midi commands it's sending, should I check this in Midi Monitor?

(Apologies for the questions, I'm away from my studio now so can't check until later)

I will also check the Omni / Mono mode tonight, but I guess what strikes me as odd is that this issue has surfaced without me knowingly changed anything.

Timbo, thanks for all your suggestions.
How would I check whether Logic is flooding midi data to the 08?

I'll try turning all the clock and NRPN/CC off later as that seems like a simple method to track potential issues.

Thanks again for the suggestions.
Hugely appreciated!

Best
Mark

[timbo74]

No problem Mark,

Chanting aside. 

Martin has more knowledge about logic software than I, but in answer to your question about checking "flooding of clock/sysex/NRPNs" I would just simply disconnect the other sending devices from the P08 and check nothing has changed in those sending devices to the P08.

Looking at Midi OX or Midi monitor I don't think will be of any benefit in this case.

Midi loops as Martin has mentioned can cause real headaches.

I am unsure to how updates for Logic are delivered but If Logic has been updated behind the scenes then maybe the settings within Logic have changed.

It wont hurt to reinstall the P08 firmware (Both Main and Voice) , Calibrate the P08 and check all the settings within Global are as you require.

Then you can connect up Logic and verify the settings are ok.

Work back from there.

Maybe try the beta firmware available on this site for the P08?

Good luck.

Thank you Timbo and Martin for your quick replies.

Just noticed I wrote 'chanting the master volume'....  I meant changing! I'm not actually sat in the studio chanting to myself


So I've tried the Global reset.
I'm not sure how long this should take and if there's an alert that says this is complete or of it's just instantaneous.

Martin, what did you mean by the 'Regarding Logic settings?'
Is there somewhere I can check this?

Also, re. the Midi commands it's sending, should I check this in Midi Monitor?

(Apologies for the questions, I'm away from my studio now so can't check until later)

I will also check the Omni / Mono mode tonight, but I guess what strikes me as odd is that this issue has surfaced without me knowingly changed anything.

Timbo, thanks for all your suggestions.
How would I check whether Logic is flooding midi data to the 08?

I'll try turning all the clock and NRPN/CC off later as that seems like a simple method to track potential issues.

Thanks again for the suggestions.
Hugely appreciated!

Best
Mark

[MartinM]

Moinmoin,

to my experience the P08 MIDI-implementation is very stable. I tried all "normal" MIDI commands, some not so common ones like NRPNS and if I remember right even some that are not documented in the P08 manual, but seemed like "should work" and everything worked as it should.

But no, I am no Logic-expert, although using it sometimes as a "sidekick" of master-user Peter Sonntag during recording or remixing of our band's (Final Virus) music. Using Logic as a MIDI sequencer (we use it more as a recording and producing tool for "real" instruments, only sometimes supported by MIDI-features) You have to look at some things, one of them being the MIDI loop.

The behaviour described may result from breaking the MIDI-connection in Logic and at the P'08 side:
If "Local Control" in the P'08 general setting is set to OFF, the P'08 will react only to MIDI-commands from its MIDI in, not on its own keyboard and/or knobs! Everything touched at the P'08 will be sent to its MIDI out only.
If in this situation the MIDI echo at the Logic side is set to OFF, Logic will not send back on its MIDI out to P'08's MIDI in, what it received from P'08's MIDI out.
This results in effecticely separating the P'08 "user interface" (keys, knobs, controllers) from theP'08 "sound source" (VCO, HADSR, VCF, VCA, LFO, ...).

There are some other MIDI commands like "active sensing", which may interrupt the link between "user interface" and "sound source". "Active sensing" requires a sort of lifecheck signal regularly exchanged between the MIDI-partners. If this lifecheck fails, all sounds are switched off and the connection hangs.

Unlike timbo74 I am a fan of looking into MIDI dumps if I have problems. In Your case:

• are there any key messages entering Logic, if You press P'08 keys?
• are there any NRPNS (or CCs, whatever You configured in P'08 global settings) entering Logic if You tweak P'08 knobs?
• are there any key messages leaving Logic, if P'08 should play, but doesn't?
• are there any NRPNs od CCs leaving Logic, if P'08 parameters should change, but don't?

If You checked P'08 "Local Control" and Logic "MIDI echo" (Only one of them may be OFF!) and the P'08 still remains quiet, check Logic's input and output for the listed topics.

HTH

Martin

[DavidDever]

If you're planning on using Logic with intention, I highly recommend that you dive into the Environment.

In the past, I've generally "firewalled" all incoming MIDI (i.e., filter all SysEx, CCs, NRPNs, notes, etc.) and exposed only what I needed to be handled by the sequencer. The Inspector module comes in quite handy for this as well; if you filter everything but CCs, for example, you should only see CCs in the event listing.

Effectively, you'd be using Logic as MIDI plumbing with recall, rather than an omniscient brain that knows exactly what to do with everything you throw at it (not likely).

[theelectricdisco]

Super quick reply.

I tried resetting the Prophet and then turning everything off as suggested then coming back in one at a time.

So, initially it works! Well, at least more than before.
It seems that when I get to turning back on Midi Control on the Prophet, that's when everything stops.

So, I have to turn it off and restart and I'm 50% there.

Now, it's sending and receiving from Logic successfully.
However, with it's now not receiving parameter change data.


With local set to off, I'm not able to control any of the parameters on the Prophet, yet it seems to be sending the data as it's registering and recording in Logic.

Yet with Local on, I can change, and again send to Logic, yet its' still not receiving anything back other than the note on off data.

I'll dig deeper now but fear as David said I might have to dig into the Environment...

It's self constructed at the moment and I haven't been inside it at all yet this time around...