Author Topic: Midi USB connection stops working - Drums stop triggering sounds in EZD  (Read 1916 times)

Hey guys. brand new user here. Amazed at the sound quality when using EZ Drummer connected via the USB mide connection. All is great until it stops working. Drums stop triggering sounds in EZD after a while - could be 5 minutes, could be 30.

Anyone else see this? Got any ideas?

Offline Chaser

Hey guys. brand new user here. Amazed at the sound quality when using EZ Drummer connected via the USB mide connection. All is great until it stops working. Drums stop triggering sounds in EZD after a while - could be 5 minutes, could be 30.

Anyone else see this? Got any ideas?

Which module? Which OS?..Win..macOS/X?
The 1st thing to check is if the USB cable is bad or too long...
Depending on the module a lot of the Alesis (Medeli rebrands) are USB 1.0 and using a USB cable over 9'10" will have problems with MIDI signal timing out with the OS.

EDIT:
I added a link to USB CABLE LENGTH LIMITATIONS
« Last Edit: July 21, 2020, 03:47:56 PM by Chaser »

Sorry for the missing info.

Brand new build - Win 10 pro with z490 i7-700 Intel cpu. Nitro Mesh Kit. The board has USB 2.0, 3.1 and 3.2 gen. do you happen to know what input would work the best?

I'll check the cable length. Thanks so much. Really appreciate.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2020, 04:33:33 PM by redddog »

Offline Chaser

Sorry for the missing info.

Brand new build - Win 10 pro with z490 i7-700 Intel cpu. Nitro Mesh Kit. The board has USB 2.0, 3.1 and 3.2 gen. do you happen to know what input would work the best?

I'll check the cable length. Thanks so much. Really appreciate.

Use USB 2.0 ports for hardware when possible.Windows is notorious for having problems with USB 3.0
Ports.
USB 3.0/3.1 has similar length limitations as USB 1.0/1.1 and the recommended max length is 9'10".
Quality of the cable comes into play for super speed transfering.
A majority of the time length is the problem.
I made a long post about this at the Alesis "Get Satisfaction" forum and a number of users with different modules confirmed.The NITRO (DD512-514) was one of them
Unfortunately all that information and more is now gone since InMusic decided to shut the forum down.

Awsome, Chaser!

Thanks again for this! I will try the usb 2 connection. Do you think this will affect the latency when playing? I just assumed it woul;d so I went with the fastest connection on the mobo. I guess I was wrong on that.

So in a nutshell, som modules suffer from this cord length issue and some don't? Was that the issue with the Nitro Module specifically?

Thanka again for this, Chaser. I can't tell you how much I appreciate.

Offline Chaser

Awsome, Chaser!

Thanks again for this! I will try the usb 2 connection. Do you think this will affect the latency when playing? I just assumed it woul;d so I went with the fastest connection on the mobo. I guess I was wrong on that.

So in a nutshell, som modules suffer from this cord length issue and some don't? Was that the issue with the Nitro Module specifically?

Thanka again for this, Chaser. I can't tell you how much I appreciate.

MIDI 1.0 has a baud rate..it won't go any faster than 31250..even though MIDI 1.0 protocol was developed in the early 1980's , there wasn't a USB classification until 1999...MIDI 2.0 has been released earlier this year..a number of OS are starting to show MIDI-CI (iOS 14.0 and macOS BigSur)

As far as latency , I would use shortest cable you can get by with and connect directly to the computer.
Years ago there were devices that had RTP-MIDI...Alesis had quite a few.but not any drum modules.   

Developers have started receiving SDK's etc and last week a new USB Classification for MIDI 2.0.
 
USB Device Class Specification MIDI 2.0
 

MIDI 2.0 is moving fast there are some keyboards already supporting it like the Roland A88 MKII , but it will be awhile before we see a MIDI 2.0 Drum Module and more than likely Roland will be first since they (and Dave Smith) were originally involved with the Origins of MIDI
also Drum Software developers will have to drastically change their software from 16 channels to 256 channels (16 groups x 16 channels) and resample all their libraries..etc etc 

EDIT
I made a post for MIDI 2.0  and WEB MIDI here sometime ago , I will update it eventually
« Last Edit: July 21, 2020, 07:01:40 PM by Chaser »