hello,

I have sk880 connected to DAW via BiPort 2X4s midiman midi adapter. I am using the latest cubase which is VST/32 5.1R1. I playing a midi song from Cubase, about 12 midi tracks. Although both Ports A,B are connected to adapter, all 12 tracks are directed to port A.

Basically, I selected a song in sk880, adjusted each track so that it is playable, set the clocking to external.

Well, basically the keyboard plays fine and receives data fine. However, it is frozen and the only buttons that work are, start/stop, play, stop [song stop], switch to record mode [the red button]. It does receive midi data and it does accept program change and it does play the midi data correctly. However, after playing the song from cubase is done, you cannot do anything else without powering down, powering up the keyboard. Furthermore, I keep getting the message about "Buffer overlap" but I am not recording anything...

I would appreciate anybodies help and wisdom.

Thanks.

Hi sk880user. If I'm not mistaken, you need to switch the sk880's clock back to internal. If it's still on external when you try to play the sk880, it's sitting there waiting for external clock sync. Hope this helps.

Vic01,

Thanks, but it will not allow me press the MIDI button to change anything. And even if it needs the clocking changed, I was able to do it at different time and I should be able to navigate the keyboard. This is true locking problem.

Hmmm..... You said you were able to do what you wanted to before. When you were able to do it, were you using a different midi adapter ? Has the current setup ever worked ok ? I'm just wondering if there is an configuration issue with the BiPort.

Vic01,

The same setup. I think the X factor for reproducing the problem is working on midi on the computer for sufficient time and ignoring the keyboard. Keep in mind, I keep getting the "BUFFER OVERLAB" message which is SYSEX V1.03 message, maybe? I keep getting this continuously.

So a possibility is that after getting too many of these messages, the OS gets stuck in the keyboard.

I think you may have nailed the issue. Unfortunately I can't think of a solution to the buffer over running messages. If you don't need to send sysex from cubase you can shut off the sk880's ability to receive sysex in the midi config section. I think it's the same as the wk8 in that regard. If you are programing the board via sysex then... Do you send sysex at the beginning of a song or are these messages spred out over the song ? Sysex as you know can get pretty dense as it's being sent over a serial connection. I can remember choking a sequence I was sending from cakewalk to my outboard synth modules using sysex but I never had one lock up on me. The sequence would stutter like crazy until the sysex was finnished transmitting but then it would play ok. Maybe I was just lucky. It may be you are sending so much sysex that the processor in the sk880 can't handle it. One other thought are you playing the song from the sk880 into cubase or the other way around ? If it's from cubase to the sk880 (which is why you would have the sk880's clock set to external) is local on or off on the sk880 ? If it's on then that could cause the sk880 to lock up as it's getting stuck in a midi loop back.

Vic01,

I really appreciate the fact you are reading my messages and helping me through this. Thank you for your patience.

the message is actually SYS EXC V1.02: Buffer Overlap.

After working on it for some time. I noticed that the deadlock is broken when I press stop twice in cubase. When this happens, cubase resets its marker to the absolute beginning of the song and boom, the keyboard is working normal.

So maybe it is not a bug afterall. Maybe the keyboard is designed in such a way that if it is receiving midi data as part of the song, the midi task/process will be given the higher priority than user-interface. When the song is stopped and reset from cubase, that is an indication for the keyboard to lower the midi priority task.

Thanks again.

Actually, you are right, I am setting it to internal and local on. maybe when I set it to external, local off for tracks that I do not play with, it will fix my problem.

I'm glad you are making progress in your situation. It seems what is going on is a basic "master/slave" thing where when the sk880 is set to external clock it's waiting to recieve the majority of it's instructions from an external source. When cubase is sending data the sk880 is "locked" to that data stream. However, once cubase is reset the sk880 regains control until the data stream begins again. Isn't technology wonderful !!

[This message has been edited by Vic01 (edited 05-07-2002).]

Thanks