Sorry to hijack this thread, but my question does tie into it somewhat.
Also, this is a crosspost from the VCV FB group:
MIDI-CAT question.
There is an option in the right-click menu called:
‘Re-send MIDI feedback’
My hopes where that clicking it would get the current position from the attached module knobs (in this case MindMeld’s MixMaster and Auxspander) and resend those positions to the attached MIDI device (BCF2000 here) and that that device would get the info and, if not currently in the correct position, change to reflect those positions.
But when I click it, nothing happens. I can go over all controls, nudge them left and right a bit with the mouse to get the controller to reflect what’s on screen. But frankly, I’m lazy and wiggling up to 168 knobs is not something I love doing everytime I open up a different patch. Also, there’s this option that seems to, at least promise to, reduce that to 6 mouse clicks. So What am I missing?
Apart from that, love this module and alot of other Stoermelder modules for that mather.
First of all, if an output device is selected all controls should initialize themselves when loading a patch. „Resending“ MIDI feedback should not be necessary.
If this is not the case I’m interested if MIDI feedback works at all: Does turning a knob within Rack (by mouse) also move the knob or fader on the MIDI controller? Assuming the control is mapped, of course.
Besides that, I will check if there is a problem with the context menu option „Resend“.
It might also worth a try to use the latest development build from my GitHub as many parts of MIDI-CAT have been rewritten, mainly to support smoothing and scaling of the parameters range.
So, there are times that I open up a patch and MIDI-CAT shows (No Device) for instance when the MIDI-device was previously disconnected for a while (I move my setup to a friends place about once a week to make music together, and it’ll always happen on those occasions). If this is the case I have to go in and select the BCF as input and output device and it wil not sync up on it’s own.
When it does have the BCF selected on opening a patch. ( for instance when I reopen Rack after a few hours of work without disconnecting the BCF) it does initialize the currect preset page of my BCF, but I have the BCF set up on 3 different pages, with 3 different MIDI channels and a corresponding MIDI-CAT instance for each channel. And the other 2 pages won’t initialize.
Once the link is made it works flawlessly in both directions. Screen to controller and controller to screen.
I’ve found a workaround that is still not as simple as pressing resend, but at least a lot less work then wiggling every knob:
Opening up the patch, making sure the BCF is properly connected and save the patch;
going to preset 1 on the BCF, reopening the patch,
going to preset 2 on the BCF reopening the patch,
going to preset 3 on the BCF reopening the patch.
Also, if I change a knobs position onscreen and the BCF is on a preset that does not control that knob, going to the preset that does control the knob will reflect the old position, not the new one.
I suppose I’m making things difficult by having those 3 BCF preset pages on 3 different MIDI channels. Is there another way to get this to work?
@stoermelder this sounds in some way similar to the x touch mini topic i mentioned in the other thread - maybe presets here are something like the a and b layer on the x touch mini?
@tomcro what are those presets doing exactly on the bcf? on the x touch mini there i have two layers i can choose from which map different cc’s and notes to the knobs and buttons
The presets are 32 pages of different configs you can safe. So for the mixmaster and auxspander I’ve set it up that all 3 pages I use have the same CC for every knob, but 1 preset (page1) uses MIDI channel 1 the next ch2 and last ch3. In rack I have 3 instances of MIDI-CAT one for each MIDI channel.
I can have a different setup for reaper on preset 4 and so on. Sounds like the same thing as the layers on the x-touch mini
I’m having exact same problem with Lemur on Ipad. If MIDI out device is not missing on patch load, I get all the feedback sent properly, but the menu option never does anything.
I suppose that the behringer is disregarding incoming messages for a particular CC/channel combination when the current preset does not have that CC/channel mapped.
But that still doesn’t explain why it shouldn’t receive the resend.
Ok, to sort things up a bit, there are three different topics right now:
(1) “Re-send MIDI feedback” might be broken
(2) Behringer controllers (maybe others?) don’t initialize parameters on different layers
(3) Selected MIDI device is lost on patch load
I think (3) has nothing to do with your code and more like a Rack bug, missing midi devices is something I’ve experienced a lot and even created an issue on GitHub https://github.com/VCVRack/Rack/issues/1661
Oh look, you even referred to this once
I’ve had Rack crash on me because at some point (with the fundamental MIDI modules) I was able to select a MIDI device that wasn’t turned on. So loosing the connection might be a safety more then a bug.
(3) wouldn’t be to much of a problem if (1) was working. (2) seems to me to be a MIDI device (behringer specific?) issue. Which (1) would also be a workaround for.
