Chronic Midi Problems With Firewire 410, Stuck Notes! Options

[jeffreynothing]

I haven’t used my computer for music-making in almost three months because the midi signal coming out of my M-Audio Firewire 410 is so buggy. On my external midi gear: notes stick, are not played, or have random velocities. The current situation is completely intolerable. I’m going crazy! Has anyone else had similar problems?

I’m running recent versions of MOTU Digital Performer and Ableton Live on an iMac G4 (800 MHz, 512 MB RAM, OS 10.3.9).

Everything going on inside the computer seems to be alright. Audio in/out isn’t a problem either. It’s ridiculously easy to provoke the symptoms…

Step sequence an 8 measure long quarter-note pulse. Route midi to a hardware sampler or synth. During play-back of that 8 measures, at least 2 or 3 notes stick or don’t sound. This is strictly midi! No audio play-back, just a single midi track playing a very simple pattern!

I called M-Audio tech support. They’ve never heard of this problem, but suggested re-installing drivers (done, newest version 1.51) and repairing disk permissions (done). I also rebuilt my drives with Diskwarrior. Yes, I even tried switching midi cables.

I’ve had the Firewire 410 for about a year now. It’s always been a little flakey, but never this bad. I don’t remember the exact circumstances under which this all started because I originally thought that it was my synth (an Ensoniq SQ-80) that was the problem. I’ve recently acquired an Emu e6400 Ultra and am having exactly the same issues. Does this sound like a problem with the hardware or do you think it’s a software conflict? Could recent updates to Panther or the M-Audio driver have caused it?

Thanks for listening to my sad story. If you have any info or suggestions that might help, please let me know.