It would be helpful if you could target a specific step in a Message Scroll preset via incoming MIDI message. This would allow you to randomly access all the steps in a Message Scroll preset via MIDI. I am a long-time RJM Mastermind user and am currently working with an MC8 Pro on a new project. The Mastermind has this capability using IA Cycle buttons and the setIA feature.
Even on the MC controllers themselves, there isn’t really a direct way to randomly trigger messages in a scroll, so I think doing so remotely would probably be pretty far down the feature request list. That said, if I needed to randomly access the individual commands in a message scroll, I would probably make them all commands on another bank, and then have the scroll call those presets:
The issue with the suggested approach is it does not keep the Message Scroll preset state “in sync” with the remotely triggered action. The idea I was going for was to create a Message Scroll preset that could be manipulated by sequential button presses or by random remote triggers AND with the scroll state of the preset always reflecting the last state entered (either via button or remote).
I understand if this is not a high priority feature request. I will make do without it. Thanks for the response!
So there IS actually a way to do it. It’s a LITTLE bit of a hack:
First, you’ll notice that in our MIDI implementation, you can trigger a preset with a CC. CC#10 correspondiing to Preset A, CC#11 corresponding to Preset B, etc. Additionally, the CC value corresponds to a different trigger, where 1=Press, 2=Release, etc.
Then, let’s say my Message scroll is in Preset A. I’m going to use Preset B as a remote control for it, like so:
Now CC#11 = 1,2,3 can set the message scroll to messages 1,2, 3 respectively.
“Release” on Preset A (CC#10 = 2) after that will then execute from the new position.
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Sweet. I will try this out!
Also, given that it thus is possible to target a scroll step within the controller then perhaps it makes adding a CC to do this remotely not quite as low a priority? 
That’s true! I’d totally forgotten that this utility function was in there until now. Still, it’s hard for me to think how the MIDI implementation would be handled. I’ll throw it in the Feature Request queue later today and if it makes sense to implement, I’m sure @james will figure out something clever. lol.
Awesome, thanks for helping sort this out!
did you try it out? I tested it out and it worked for me, but curious if you could as well.
Edit: Trello feature request: Trello
Not yet – hopefully this weekend!
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Well, I was able to get it to work after some trial and error.
First, I misinterpreted the “Msg #” parameter of the Set Message Scroll Counter action. I first thought it meant “Scroll Step #” but it doesn’t. I had “number of messages scroll” set to 2 so this caused me confusion trying to debug what was going on.
Second, Set Message Scroll Counter sets the counter but does not trigger the remote controlled preset to do anything. I figured out I had to add an Engage Preset = Release to the remote control action. Once I did that it all seems to work as expected.
It is a brittle programming model, though, with the use of Msg # instead of the more abstract “Step #” in the remote control action. This ties you tightly to the implementation of the target preset. If you add actions to the target preset after the fact, for example changing the # messages to scroll each step, all your remote control actions will break in non-obvious ways.
It would be less brittle if there was a way to set the pointer to a specific Scroll Step #. This is how it is done in the RJM PBC and it is a much more robust programming model. In the PBC you add “step markers” to your action list to indicate when the actions for the next step start. It makes it simple for the system then to “set the counter at step 3”, for example. The MC scheme of fixed (but changeable) messages per step and target message numbers is just inherently brittle.
Thanks again for all your help.
Definitely, using the MC controllers this way isn’t the normally expected function, so making it happen requires a couple layers of abstraction. That said, you could consider combining the two strategies I suggested:
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(first way) Have each message scroll engage another preset on a specified bank, e.g. if Bank 100 stores all the scroll steps, then your scroll can always be 1 controller message per scroll message.
OR
(second way) Another way to handle this might be to simply leave space in the editor. If you space your “release” messages in the scroll 4 messages apart, for example, but leave the other messages empty, you’ll have space to go back and change the number of scroll steps, but nothing else changes about your numbering -
Use the “remote control” method as I described above for MIDI access to the scroll steps. Also, I purposefully didn’t include the actual “engage” message in my directions above (but I did mention it). One way to automate that would be to have each step in your remote control section also include that engage message, e.g. (1) Press => set msg position; (2) Press => engage the preset with “release”