My setup failed at a gig yesterday

Hi - Yesterday evening I was playing a church concert and everything went well during rehearsel.
I left my gear for half en hour and when I should start the concert my Korg Kronos had frozen for the first time in 11 years.

I restarted it (3 minutes while the audience were waiting), and then I couldnt get GP to recieve Midi information from Kronos. I tried to un-tick and re-tick in Options-Global Midi with out any result.
Then I restarted the computer and GP (2-3 more minutes) and then I was back on track and ready to play.

I have no idea what went wrong, which makes me nervous. Im on a dedicated PC laptop i7 10700 16 gb ram 1 tb ssd. I experienced some popping sound from my old RME Babyface, and I wonder if a unstable USB cable can have caused it or my RME or bad electricity in the old church… Popping sound - not like latency issue but where the sound for a few seconds are delayed and digitally distorted. Then it get back as normal. Is wasnt in the middle of af program change.

Any suggestions for this issue are very welcome.
Is there a way in GP to solve lost midi connection quickly without restarting the program?

This happens probably more at the level of the Korg MIDI driver. If the driver didn’t notice that the Kronos died, GP won’t know it neither. You could try to force ther Korg driver to wake up by removing the USB cable a few seconds and plug it back. Of course it will be difficult to test if this works until your Kronos freezes again… :grimacing:

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So far I havent been able to repeat the problem…
Anyway I cross my fingers for now :slight_smile:

this is not a direct answer to your issue, But:
The Korg Kronos is prone to power spikes in the mains !

Many people use these uninterruptable power suplys anyway.
While with a kronos, this is at many places kind of a must, imho.
…just food for thought. Not knowing anything about your situation and used equipment in that regard.

i had a Kronos.
and i got the RAM wiped out based on a power spike. (had to replace it)
Thats what brought me in, into “this” thematic.

So, who knows, the Freeze might have been caused by a power spike ?
i´d check vs. the power spike issue vs. Kronos in the Kronos Forum, and check if this could have been the cause for the freeze.
Just in case you´re unaware of this specific thematic vs. the Kronos.

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I will not use any keyboard that is not “class compliant” and so requires drivers to be installed. If you want to keep using the Kronos, I would encourage you to get an inexpensive (but decent) USB-MIDI interface and use that instead, i.e. use the Kronos MIDI ports rather than its USB interface.

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I’ve been using a Kronos for about 5 years now, the last three with GP. With or without GP, I had multiple lockups with the Kronos when using the USB port on the Kronos for midi. These lockups always required a restart of the Kronos followed by a restart of the live host. About two years ago, I bought a dedicated MIDI to USB interface (MOTU) and started using standard midi ports off the Kronos into the MOTU. Since then, I haven’t had a single lockup issue on the Kronos. The Kronos usb/midi driver is finicky as hell.

X

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Wauv, never heard about that, so I wouldnt have had a club to go in that direction.
But Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I Will order one right away.
Can you help me with a link to the product?

Best regards,
Mads

this one is very small and buss powered

I have one I no longer really use (bought it 10+ years ago!) but it works well.

If you don’t need a lot of channels, the MOTU M2 or M4 are excellent as well, specially for the price.

Thank you so much.
Does anyone know, if I can use my old RME Baby Face Sound card with the same result. It has midi as well.

  • Im just connection my Kronos to my laptop so its a simple setup.

I use the two MIDI ports of my RME UCX all the time, RME’s drivers rocks. :+1:

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Great. I Will do that as a starting point.

Should I put the computer and Kronos in midi slave mode and RME as master?

What do you mean with master? Is it related to the MIDI clock or something?

Yes exactly. I have never been working in that domain before, but I guess the whole point is that MOTU midi or RME midi takes over the midi clock from the computer and keyboard to make it more stable?

What do you mean by stable?
The connection in general?

I have this issue, losing midi connection to one or the other device, as well sometimes.
It happens often for the E-Drum (Roland TD27), sometimes for my Piano (Roland RD2000) and my Korg NanoKontrol2.
The devices are conected via a USB HUB. I will exchange it today against a active HUB from Anker…
Sometimes it is enough to disconnect and connect the hub, sometimes I have to restart the laptop/ GP.
I have the feeling that it not happens during a “clean” song after song work, more if I am editing GP.

I hope it is solved after changing the HUB…

I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet…but all usb cords are not alike. Use the best you can find. I’ve had intermittent outages before and all it turned out to be was the cord.

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I also use a Korg Kronos.

In the Netherlands I barely got a crash but the reason is high likely that the Dutch electricity sockets are quite reliable.

A ups will help in such cases but cost money space and weigh a lot.

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I have solved my problem as well using first RME Babyface midi and now my new UA Volt 476. It works perfectly (and sounds great!). I actually had one more breakdown with Kronos usb on another gig after this post and before switching to midicable.