When I manipulate an expression pedal to affect parameters on my pedals, it seems to be messing with the MIDI clock creating odd noises like quickly adjusting the pre-delay on my Meris MercuryX and the delay time on my CBA Thermae.
I’ve tried with two different expression controllers, and both produce the same weird effect. (Black Mountain Volume pedal as an expression pedal and Paint Audio Foot Captain.)
I’m running firmware v3.12.6 and have my MC8 set up with MIDI clock persist. Any ideas?
Hi James, thanks for coming back to me. So, My devices are daisy-chained from the DIN MIDI OUT. I’m only using the omniports for aux switches and expression control.
My chain is: Quad Cortex > H90 > MercuryX > ZOIA > Thermae (using the ZOIA’s Cport set to MIDI).
Sorry to ask again, but as I say, I’m not using the omniports to connect my MIDI devices, only for aux switches and an expression pedal. Do you have any other suggestions for troubleshooting?
Can you try connecting the MIDI connection from the MC8 directly to the Mercury X, and let me know if the issue persists? This is just to rule out the issue from other intermediate devices like the QC and H90.
Any other ideas? I’ve ruled out the possibility of the QC and H90 interfering, as you suggested. Sorry to keep asking, but this is quite a big issue for my live set up. Thanks.
I just tested the MC8 with the Timeline. Sending a 250BPM MIDI clock + sending 3 messages with the expression preset doesn’t affect the audio in the Timeline. I’ve also tested this with the LVX.
For your expression preset messages that you are sending, are they on the same MIDI channel as the MercuryX or Thermae? If so, does the issue occur if you send the Exp CC messages on a different channel, just to troubleshoot?
Hi James, thanks. No, the channels are set differently as per the screenshot below. Exp is being sent to my H90 on CH3, while the MercX is CH6 and Thermae is CH2:
Update: unchecking all the boxes except DIN MIDI under ‘MIDI Clock Port Settings’ did not make any difference.
I did just set the MercX to ignore MIDI clock and sure enough, the wayward pre-delay variance temporarily disappeared, but the Thermae still responded like it was drunk!
Thanks, loaded it and tested with the Timeline and Boss GT1K but didnt see any issues. MIDI clock running at 204 BPM and moving the expression pedal doesn’t affect anything.
Do you have anything connected to the MIDI Input on the MC8 or it is possibly receiving MIDI Via USB?
OK, I think I might have found the root of the issue. It seems that it’s, in fact, the MercuryX that’s the problem. Its pre-delay is all over the place when moving the expression pedal, and it’s also affecting pedals downstream of it, including the ZOIA and Thermae. When I took it out of the MIDI path altogether the problem went away. I’ve now re-ordered the chain so the MercuryX is at the end, since it’s the least reliant on MIDI clock, and the ZOIA and Thermae are now behaving, it appears. I’ll report it as a possible bug with Meris.
(I suspected it might be something other than the MC8 in the end, since the H90 was not affected by the problem.)
