Magic Music Visuals

I'm experiencing a connectivity issue between an electronic drum kit, and Magic. I've narrowed it down to Magic not interpreting the signal correctly. When I send the MIDI information to another translator, magic still receives 0 as an input. When I use it directly - the same issue. Other devices such as keyboards and controllers work perfectly as intended, even when sent thru the same translator as the electronic drum kit.

So, I opened an empty instance of Magic, and added a new global. I set the parameter to "learn" incoming signals. I hit the kick-drum (note #36). Magic responds well, and assigns the global as Source - velocity (note #36), and it populates correctly. However, when I activate the kick drum - the value stays at 0, constantly. I even tried scaling and inverting the signal to perhaps see if it was a non-zero number, with no luck.

When I use my keyboard to trigger note #36, it works fine. It just does not like what the drum kit is sending as a value, but it knows the correct MIDI note. Could it be that it's triggering so fast that Magic cannot see the note?

Yes, MIDI notes do need a minimum duration. Everything in Magic is drawn based on the frame rate, let's say 60fps, so that means approximately 16ms per frame. If a MIDI note goes on and off in less than 16ms, meaning between when two frames are drawn, Magic won't be able to show the change. Make sense?

Best practice is not to make your MIDI notes that short anyway. At 120bpm, a 1/32 note -- an extremely short note -- still lasts for 62.5 ms.

This worked! Thank you!

My output from my instrument is not adjustable, so I sent it again thru my translator with a 20ms delay between note on and note off output. Magic is now receiving the data as intended, and displaying the correct values.