TIPS: Midi recording problem in Nuendo 3.2 with Edirol FA-66 FireWire audio interface

Problem: Last week one of my client faced a peculiar problem in Nuendo 3.2 while sequencing ( recording midi tracks ). The midi notes would not get recorded despite being played and heard while recording. The nature of symptoms for such problem are : Persistent timing problems (shifted notes etc.) while using native or emulated Direct Music midi ports. Using emulated Direct Music midi ports often results in shifted MIDI events while recording (events are recorded too late or too early). After recording for a while the MIDI events are not recorded at all despite of being played and heard while recording. Sometime after recording you find that all the notes have been shifted to the beginning of the sequenced event. The system was based on Intel D945GNT motherboard with 3.4Mhz dual core processor having 1Gb DDR2 533Mhz RAM and 2 x 250GB SATA Seagate Hard disk. The sound card he was using was Edirol FA-66 FireWire audio interface connected through Iogear "Texas Instrument" based PCI FireWire card. It seems D945GNT is not suitable for FireWire audio interfaces as I have faced audio problems using Tascam audio hardware also on the similar type of setup. I connected FA-66 to other system and found working properly without any midi loss at all. I even tried VIA based FireWire card in the same system with no success. The problem is that Nuendo 3 midi port handling is not compatible with D945GNT motherboard as you encounter the problem while using this motherboard only.

Solution:See that you should have DirectX 9.0c installed properly if you are using emulated Direct Music Midi ports. If you are using Direct Music midi Ports then you should enable (check) the option “Use System Timestamp” provided in the Direct Music midi section of the Device Setup dialogue. This option uses another timing reference in your system when enabled. If you are using Windows midi port then you should enable (check) the option “Use System Timestamp” provided in the Windows Midi section of the Device Setup dialogue. This option uses another timing reference in your system when enabled. Just check the box as shown above in the figure and it should solve all your midi timing and recording problems.