Midi merge yields stuck notes w/Kontakt, Absynth

MacBook Pro 13" late 2009; 8Gb Ram; Glyph Firewire drive; Apogee Duet2; Akai APC40; Belkin USB Hub; Ableton Live 8.2.1; Kontakt Ultimate; Keyboards: Yamaha S90ES; Fantom G7.

Searches fail to yield my specific stuck note issue, which only occurs when I'm running two keyboards into a midi-merge box (Pocket Merge, ancient, unpowered, and maybe that's the issue) and then into my midi-to-USB cable. This happens whether using Kontakt multis standalone or running through Ableton Live 8. When I eliminate the merge and do 1 keyboard, note hang is gone, even with extended frenetic playing.

I've played with sample rates from 44.1 up to 96 and buffers from 128 up to 1028, no difference (other things change, of course, mainly latency but that's another issue).

Open to suggestions and I have 2 questions: would running midi out from Yamaha to midi in of Fantom, and then midi through to midi-to-USB cable possibly help? I mention this only because I saw a post about a Reaktor stuck-note issue where someone talked about midi thru, although it was somewhat inconclusive. Of course, now that I saw the post, I'll try this.

The other question: Currently was chaining my Firewire drive to my MBox Pro 2 to the Mac (because I'm still actively using the MBox for a project; when done with that, I plan to remove the MBox from the config). Do you think the MBox could be introducing problems (both stuck notes and latency)? Obviously not using it actively in the keyboard-Apogee-Mac config, but wondering if just having another piece of hardware in the chain could yield stuck notes and/or latency. Again, when I have all reassembled, I will try this, but hoping some of you may have had experiences to relate.

 

I run each of my two keyboards through their own MIDI to USB connections. That way, any merging occurs in the computer. I will occasionally get a stuck note but it's rare.

In my hardware days, mergers did cause stuck notes.

 

Re: Midi merge yields stuck notes

Yeaux, Geoelectro: you were spot on, and coincidentally, someone at the Ableton Live forum suggested the same thing. Once I installed the Yamaha S90 driver onto my Mac, and ensured both keyboards' midi preferences were set to route midi to the USB port, everything just worked (well, that is, once I ensured the Kontakt and Live Midi/Sync preferences were enabled).

I haven't had a single stuck note since (two days running with a lot of frenetic playing).

Now all that remains is getting the latency resolved, which seems less problematic in NI (maybe because it's 64-bit and I can use >4Gb RAM) than in Ableton Live.

Thanks much!

Marcus