Picked Acoustic Playback Issues

Hi all,

tough one to explain.

Using Picked Acoustic in Kontakt in Mixcraft Pro.

When I load the instrument and play from the pop up plugin menu,no issues. The minute I hit record (or even play) on Mixcraft the tempo either drops to 25% or perhaps it's losing notes.

This does not happen with any other Kontakt instruments and does not happen with this one in other software.

Any ideas?

 

Is Kontakt set to External Sync for this instance?

 

Yes. When I open the player (and the project is not playing back or recording) then the tempo matches and changes based on the project.

 

I found this thread because I have the same problem with every Kontakt instrument that plays a pattern. It seems to me that this is due to Mixcraft doing something strange with time signatures. If I set the time signature for the project to 2/8, it will play correctly.

 

Here is something I found in the Mixcraft 9 Help file about this setting in Midi Preferences... See the Red Highlighted portion. Just a thought...

"USE HIGH PRECISION MIDI TIMING (QPC)
High Precision MIDI Timing allows extremely accurate timing for MIDI recordings,
by using a highly accurate clock to precisely record notes. When High Precision
MIDI Timing is disabled, the timing resolution of MIDI events is approximately
+/- 1 millisecond; enabling it increases timing accuracy an order of magnitude to
approximately +/- 0.1 milliseconds (100 microseconds).
It’s possible (but unlikely) that some CPU’s will not support High Precision MIDI
Timing, so if you experience any major timing glitches (besides your own jazzyfingers),
try disabling it."

edit: I never mentioned that using the Demo version of Mixcraft 9, I could not actually replicate the OP’s issue… but since I don’t have specifics on patterns, preset or general usage in a project, I could not fully test the scenario!!!

 

Thanks all. I turned off the high precision midi and it did not change anything.

I am using the Guitar Instrument (not melody) and the first default pattern, countryside, 120 key of C. It happens on all patterns.

While I have no trouble running this on other DAWS I do have an older CPU

I can confirm that switching to 2/8 fixed the issue

 

Will you be contacting support for Mixcraft? It feels weird though if they aren't aware of this issue already, but maybe if there are more of us reporting on it we can get a fix. I don't feel having to set the time signature to something different from what it actually is is a real solution.
I'm not sure what the time signature does in Mixcraft otherwise, besides changing how note length is displayed. It doesn't seem to change how many beats Mixcraft considers there to be in a bar with regards to BPM. It acts like there are always four beats in a bar, though this seems to be how other DAWs does it as well.

 

They are normally quite responsive on their forum but are ignoring this thread. I'll have to figure out if there is a way to register an actual issue

 

I found your thread on the forum there, maybe I'll chip in.

But perhaps Mixcraft isn't at fault here, at least not fully. I just tried loading Kontakt through Komplete Kontrol, and when I do this BPM is syncing correctly and the time signature has no effect at all. But I don't think you should have to do that.

 

The plot thickens... I only have this problem with the VST3 version of Kontakt. What is the difference between the versions? Komplete seems to use the VST3 version though.

 

Posted this in the Acoustica forums as well, but since I can't determine if this is an issue mainly with Mixcraft or Kontakt, or perhaps both, I am posting this summary of my findings thus far:

• I have the problem with the VST3 version of Kontakt.
• I don't have the problem with the version of Kontakt that doesn't have VST3 in the name.
• I don't have the problem when loading Komplete Kontrol in Mixcraft and then Kontakt (VST3) in Komplete Kontrol.

• When I have the problem, changing the time signature of the project to a version of 1/4 (i.e. 2/8) plays the pattern at the BPM of the project.
• When I don't have the problem, changing the time signature has no effect on how fast the pattern plays.
• When I have the problem, the instrument in Kontakt displays the BPM of the project, even though it plays slow.

 

I can confirm the problem when using the VST3 version... tried a bunch of settings (other than the 2/8 workaround) and was not able to correct the issue...but... if you right click the midi clip and select Play, the clip plays normally... so at this point one might conclude a Mixcraft playback issue, but this should be reported to both NI and Acoustica for investigation (and I do not mean on the forums, but support tickets should be opened!)

 

I am a bit lost on all the comments but I will add that I have 4 other DAWS installed and they all work with this instrument, so it has to be Mixcraft. I have other Kontact instruments that work with Mixcraft. I'm going to purchase another guitar one later so that will be interesting to see.

When you guys are talking about the VST3 version, do you mean Kontact or the instrument?

 

Not neccesarily. Since the different versions of Kontakt behaves differently, it indicates that the problem could be with Kontakt, or maybe a combination of Mixcraft and Kontakt.

The only problems I have are when instruments are playing patterns, such as the strum patterns your guitar is playing. If I play a guitar that plays single notes, I don't have the problem, nor when I play single notes with any instrument that can also play patterns. Do you have a Kontakt instrument that can play patterns without the problem?

Kontakt. The Kontakt instruments themselves are not VSTi.

 

OK, I don't seem to have the non VST3 contact installed. I can't see how an instrument that plays without issue in 4 other DAWs on the same PC and plays fine in Mixcraft at 2/8 can not be the fault of Mixcraft

Single notes not play patterns do not have a tempo so that part is not surprising

 

Just installed Mixcraft9

Win 10 Intel Core i7 RME Babyface Pro

During Audio MIDI VST set up & Checks
I found
No Playback on Session Gt Strummed Acoustic x2 and Picked Acoustic

Resolution
1. Update all NI instruments - Native Access (Fixes for VSTs in the updates)
2. Scan for VST folders in Mix9 (Settings/Plugins/Edit vst vsti folders) Auto scan for folders - mixcraft did not find them on install
3. Select req. folders = should rescan for all VST plugins
4. If not rescan for VST plugins (Settings/plugins- rescan all vst plugins)
5.Enable high precision Midi Timing in Mix9 (Settings/midi and select HPMT box)
REBOOT

All Good
2/8 Timing unnecessary

 

Thanks, I have tried all of that before with no success. It's also been recreated by Mixcraft support, which is interesting.

Possibly it's related to my PC, I will be getting a new PC in a day or two so I can test on that.

 

What do you mean that is has been recreated my Mixcraft support. Do you mean to say that they were not able to replicate the issue? And if they tried it, did they use the same version of Mixcraft and VST3(this part is important)?

Regarding what John Mills writes the issue he describes is not related.

My guess now is that new functionality that was added with VST3 plays a part in this, but since I don't know the differences between the different versions of VST I can just guess. But if support was added for sending time signatures to the VST with VST3, and Mixcraft does this incorrectly (or Kontakt interprets them incorrectly), then that could cause this issue.

You wrote earlier that you can't see the non-VST3 version of Kontakt in Mixcraft. I see two versions, but I only have one kontakt.dll on my machine, so I am not sure how that works. If you in Mixcraft go in under File -> Preferences -> Plug-ins -> Manage Plug-ins and search for Kontakt there, can you find both versions and are they both marked as active? And if you don't find it, can you do it through Komplete (which also is free, you should be able to download it using Native Access)?
I think this is the fix we need to use until the issue with VST3 version of Kontakt is solved, but I'm not sure what kind of functionality we lose by using VST2. I assume it's VST2 that's being used when it doesn't have VST3 in the name, but really just another guess.

 

the VST3 version of Kontakt is named Kontakt.VST3 which can be found at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Vst3.

 

A lot to process here.

I just setup a new PC, new Interface (Volt) and reinstalled everything from scratch, Mixcraft and all the Native Instruments stuff

The same problem occurs.

What I was saying was that Mixcraft and NI support have both acknowledged the problem and said they will investigate. Mixcraft believes the problem is on their end.

I do not have access to Komplete as far as I can tell, I cannot find a free Komplete Player on the website

Mixcraft 64 bit only sees the Kontakt VST3 in the standard folders. However by searching and finding the DLL inside a Native Instruments folder I was able to add that and ------ voila - it works. That's good enough for me at this point.