Hey all! Just got an MC6 Pro, and I’m loving both it and the editor. I’ve got my pedal programmed, and am now starting on a Bank for controlling Ableton.
After creating keystroke presets for navigating the tracks and scenes in Ableton without a hitch, I have discovered that I cannot create a preset with a CC command and then switch to Ableton to midi map it. I have to disconnect from the editor, close the browser, and power off and on the MC6 Pro in order to midi map. (I’m using midi channel 1 for Ableton)
As you can imagine, this is a pain in the neck, when I’m trying to set everything up. Is there some sort of exclusive control happening that I can change or something? Please help!
Generally speaking (at least from my experience) you’ll want to tell Ableton to only connect to midi port 2 of your MC6 Pro. Then you’ll want to start Ableton first before you start the Morningstar Editor.
The general reason for the problem is that the Windows supplied midi drivers are not “multi-client” meaning that once one application grabs a midi device no other app can access it. Many apps will default to grabbing all available midi devices which can lead to problems like you’re talking about.
Thanks for the reply! I figure that out, as well. Windows has been on midi 1.0 for ages. They JUST rolled out midi 2.0 for Windows 11. I’d been a die-hard, will not upgrade guy, but that put me over the edge. I just did the upgrade, and that should enable multiple applications to communicate with the midi.
Took a while to turn off all the spyware, AI and all that!
This is actually a Windows MIDI limitation, not an MC6 Pro issue
On Windows, only one application can connect to a MIDI port at a time. When the Morningstar editor is open, it has exclusive access to the MC6 Pro’s MIDI port, so Ableton can’t see it for MIDI mapping. That’s why as soon as you close the editor (and sometimes power-cycle the MC6), Ableton suddenly works again.
There isn’t a setting to change this behavior unfortunately. The two main workarounds are:
• Close the editor while MIDI mapping in Ableton, then reopen it when you’re done
• Use the Serial Port connection in the editor instead of MIDI — this frees up the MIDI port so Ableton can stay connected while you edit
macOS handles MIDI differently and allows multiple apps to share a port, but on Windows this one-app-per-port rule is just how the OS works.
