Midi Playback Problems, complex PC MIDI won't play on MAC Options

[kaboombahchuck]

Ok,, logic here..
To figure out what the problem is would take some reseach... which I am not inclined to do at this time..

The root of the problems comes to the internal synth you are using.. The QuikTime synth is limited IMHO. I would suspect its midi recieve / send chanels are rather limited (I would guess around 16 pollyphony channels). Where a Creative Labs (Audigy) card (PC) is quite impressive.The synth engine for PCs with most Creative Labs sound cards can (and will) accept more midi data than that of QuikTime... I know for fellow mac users, that's a hard pill to swallow. But then again, that's why most of us stay away from cheezy QuikTime instruments, and sequencers.

[oaomdal]

Hi, I thougt it would be a good idea to reply to your post, now that I have read it. Maybe it won't help you, but I will try to be polite and help you the best I can.

First of all, the reason why I read your post, is that I am planning to buy a mac, and as a Keyboard player, MIDI is very important to me, and therefore I got a bit scared when I read your post title. That is why I clicked on it, and read it. Maybe a lot of the other "14" are like me, wondering what problems mac has with MIDI.

About your MIDI problem:
As I mentioned before, I am a keyboard player, and I like to use as many different sounds as possible in my live performances (5 or 6 is my current limit, and I hate MIDI playback) therefore I has been looking for over two years for something to help me switch sounds easily, but I have not found it yet. And as an electronics engineer, I decided to make my own little gadget for this purpose And because of this, I know a bit about MIDI.
Here are some suggestions of the cause of your problems
1:
MIDI has 16 channels, and most commercial midi players support only 16 tracks. The reason for this is they thought that there would be no need for more than one track per channel, wich makes sense. But the proffesional MIDI recording software that you use, has more tracks to make big arrangements more tidy.
Maybe your advanced MIDI files uses more than 16 tracks?
Solution:
MIDI arrangements can be treated as audio arrangements, merge down the tracks to maximum 16 tracs, and use only the first 16 tracs (e.g. 0-15 or 1-16)
2:
MIDI is a very advanced language. It tells the synth how to play. MIDI has instructions about what instrument, volume, velocity, note, pedal ++ is used. Extreme examples are: The piano lid is 32% opened, The guitar microphone is placed 7" away, 2" over and 3" left to the hole. According to the MIDI spec. the synth must ignore MIDI instructions that are not of interest. Usually synths come with a MIDI implementation chart that describes the implemented instructions. These charts are hard to read for people that have not studied MIDI.
Solution:
Try a more advanced synth, or MIDI player.
3:
SysEx - System Exclusive. MIDI synths usually has extra functions that are not standarized. KORG keyboards has functions Roland does not have, and the other way around. KORG MonoPoly has functions KORG Polysix does not have, and the other way around. This is much like doctors talking to doctors and mechanics talking to mechanics. They all use the same language, but some use words that only a few understand. (English - Human language, MIDI - Instrument language).
Some SysEx messages also tells the instrument how to sound by sending a wave file through MIDI.
Solution:
Use the same setup on playback as you used on recording.
4:
Human error. Did you press play, are the devices connected, do they work, are they on, did you remember to connect the power cord, do you have a file to play, is it a MIDI - and not a BAT file, are you playing the MIDI file on a device that supports MIDI playback, are you dreaming?
Solution:
Find the problem, and try to solve it, or find something else to do.

I think this covers the most common MIDI problems you may stumble across, and I hope it helped you. (I just had to have problem 4 on the list - just for laughs )

I solved this a long time ago. In the Mac community there are many that believe that their computers are perfect and there is nothing that can be done to make them better. After many years of using PC's to make pro MIDI, I had to come to the conclusion that the only Macs that will do pro MIDI are the high-end machines that will let you plug in a sound card or a lower-end MIDI with an external playback device plugged in. As for software, you have to pay for a quality program like Finale, Sibelius, Logic or the like to get a good finished product. Quick Time plays MP3 with no problems but it will overload and quite if your MIDI is too complex. All my MIDI is 16 channel but there are quite a few note and other events that need processing power. I never had problems with them on PC. I plan to take a disc and check out the playback on a core 2 duo machine and see if the additional processing power solves the problem, but I strongly suspect the Quick time synth.

Glad it helped

Now I'm playing Stomp right now in Quicktime, the average CPU is 10% on my mono G5 1.8. A peak at 2 places at 29 %. Maybe you kill the G4 What I don't understand is there are places where the sound stops, CPU is still high (29-31%)… I wonder if there's not something fishy in the file itself. And here there's CPU to spare, and a SATA drive… strange…

Does the midi file load correctly? Performer doesn't seem to like it.

Been a long time since I've been back. If you're still following this thread, the MIDIs stomp and pennies from heaven at http://lamplightmus.topcities.com and other MIDi with a lot of pedal instructions seem to overload the soft synth on the Mac. Quick time adds a bit of reverb and sustain itself and MIDI that I've done on PC seem to not convert well - the piano pedal events and passages with a lot of notes seem to overload and the playback stops. I've seen this continue to the intel imacs as well. I just decided to convert those MIDI to MP3 for the benefit of Mac listeners - hard to go back and recode an improv and get it with that live feel and sound. I don't like using Windows so I had to adjust to what the Mac does and how well and what you have to pay to get the results you want.

[gdoubleyou]

Take a look at the file in an event editor, there could be some CC data that overwhelmes the QT instrument.

Try dragging and dropping the midi file into Garage Band and selecting instruments. if you have one of the newer versions of GB you can freeze tracks to free up cpu resources.

I have a 1GHz Powerbook, and it quite challenged when it comes to softsysnths, I constantly have to freeze tracks to get stable playback.

With my Core Duo Mac Mini, it has enough muscle so that I don't have a need for freezing.

1GHz is a slow machine by todays standards.