emusonacid! legacy

I noticed something odd yesterday when running a synth through the RFX 24-bit card...

When I have an External Input enabled in Multimode (the alternative to "binding" the inputs), certain types of activity in my DAW (Cockos Reaper) cause the External Input to drop out. It seems to happen when I rewind the sequencer, or arm/disarm tracks. I then have to re-enable the External Input in the Multimode screen to get it working again.

If I bind the External Input to a Bus instead, it never drops out.

I haven't tested this thoroughly, but my guess is that my DAW is sending some kind of a MIDI MMC/Sysex command and the Emu is responding by "un-enabling" External Inputs in Multimode.

Not a major problem, but a little annoying since having External Inputs enabled in Multimode gives you more flexible routing options than binded inputs.

Let me know if you're able to duplicate this "feature".

When it "un-enables" the External inputs in Multi-Mode, what does the multi-mode screen say? Does it change to another preset? Maybe the DAW is spitting out some Program or Bank Change messages that are switching away from the External Inputs?

Curiously, the Multimode screen remains unchanged. I have to dial the input out and then dial it back in to get it working again.

Aha, I've figured it out.

Reaper was sending an All Notes Off command every time I arm/disarm a track or reset the track marker. Unfortunately, it looks like you can only turn this off for track arming, not for resetting the track marker.

This explains why nothing on the display changes: The two voices occupied by the 24-bit card are simply switched off by the sequencer, in the same way that voices occupied by a stereo Preset would be switched off.

It would seem that the reason binded inputs don't behave like this is because they don't occupy voices.

So, technically speaking this isn't a "bug", because the sampler is doing what it's supposed to. At the same time, it's not very helpful.


Edit: Found a check box in Reaper to disable All Notes Off on particular MIDI outputs, so problem solved.

hooray!

Have you had any luck getting your input card to work properly, speak_onion? (I thought my card had suffered a similar fate when this problem first appeared.)

Ommatidium wrote:Have you had any luck getting your input card to work properly, speak_onion? (I thought my card had suffered a similar fate when this problem first appeared.)

Nope, no luck. I didn't pull it to look for burned components yet, though. I'm having too much fun making presets and RFX templates, so I don't want to pull it out of the rack right now.