MIDI Keyboard Record Chords out of time

[Shrooblord]

Hi,

The title may be a bit obscure, but I tried to describe my problem as accurately as I could.
Anyway, I have a problem with MPTracker. I just got this keyboard for MIDI recording (and for the fun of having a keyboard of course, but mainly for the MIDI recording) and so I tested it out on MPTracker. I already ran into a problem with chords themselves, but then with a quick search I found how to implement these. So, I turned on my recording channels and tested something out. The result was quite horrible.

You see, when I play chords, the program records them completely off time. Sometimes they're alright, but most of the time they're a sixteenth of a beat behind or too fast. This is quite confusing as I'm playing correctly; I'm sure it can't be picking up imperfections in my timing - they would be too minute to be causing the problem, if there are any.
Here's a screenshot of what's happening. As you can see, the notes are scattered all around the place, while they should be focussed on the beats. the double notes should be on the 1 and 3 of a measure and the two faster notes should be on the 2 and the 4. Instead, they're everywhere else.
This is what happened:
http://i53.tinypic.com/9rlsaf.jpg
As you can see, the notes are slightly off their timing almost all the time.
This is what it should have sounded like (first few seconds) - even if they are the wrong tones, you get the picture:
http://hosting.raymanpc.com/raytunes/music/106%20-%20Into%20the%20Sanctuary%20of%20Rock%20and%20Lava.mp3

So is this timing flaw my fault for not precisely hitting the notes at the right nanosecond, or is there something wrong in my MPT settings?

Thanks for your help,
Shrooblord

PS
The problem is a lot worse with actual chords - one note of the chord tends to be put one sixteenth away from the rest of the chord.

[Saga Musix]

Enable "automatic delay commands" from the list of general options. This helps a bit with the timing (but won't compensate for lagging drivers). There is no quantisation option in MPT, so with the automatic note delays you will get something that sounds better, but for a perfect recording you might want to adjust the notes afterwards (that's what I'm always doing).

[Shrooblord]

Thanks! That helps one problem.
Now I've found something else that will probably grwo to annoy me if it so happens there is no solution to it. When I play a note, MPTracker decides to randomly put it in one of the collumns I put up for recording. So when I'm alternating between basslines and chords, neither of the two will have a set place to appear in, which would cause me to have to put them in the right place afterwards. Doing this for songs on end will not be fun - is there a way to solve this, or is the best advice to record the chords and the bassline seperately? I hope not, since with some songs, I really need to play the two together to get it right.

[Saga Musix]

Well, in theory, what you want is possible. But only in theory I fear. OpenMPT has two record group options, and from the source code comments and name ("split record"), I assume that the person who implemented them originally had in mind to make this feature work with the keyboard split option (so that notes above the split point would go into the first record group and notes below the split point into the second record group). But that the moment, those two record groups don't do much - if the cursor is in one of them, it will not leave the group. So the best advice currently is to record basslines and chords in two runs.
I'm not sure if I will be able to make this behaviour more logical (so what you want could be achieved by using two record groups), but I'll try.

Edit: Seems like I managed to make it work - expect split recording functionality soon.

[Saga Musix]

OK, I think I got the split keyboard feature working correctly now.
Download this test version and proceed as descibed below:

1. Select some channels for the high (chord) instrument for record group 1, by shift-clicking the appropriate channel headers.
2. Select some channels for the low (bass) instrument for record group 2, by shift-rightclicking the appropriate channel headers.
3. Open the split keyboard settings dialog (in the edit menu) and choose a split point. Either the instrument, volume or transpose setting must be set to a non-standard value to enable split keyboard settings.
Notes below the split point should now go into the second record group, notes starting from the split point will go into the first record group - the cursor has to be located in one of the two groups for this feature to work.