MC6 Pro missing rapid successive footswitch presses

Morningstar Gear MC Pro Series MIDI Controller
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1

Hi! I’m wondering if there’s any way to improve the response to rapid repeated presses of the same footswitch on the MC6 Pro.

I’m using a switch to cycle through MIDI CC values for changing keys on a Meris Hedra. The switch is configured with CC Value Scroll on Press, so ideally each tap advances one semitone/key.

The problem is that if I tap the switch quickly five times, the MC6 Pro will often only register about three presses. I’d really like to be able to rapidly tap 4–5 times to jump several keys without having to wait for the controller to catch up. At the most extreme, I’m talking about roughly 150 ms between presses.

I’ve tested this with:

  • A completely fresh preset
  • Only one message assigned to the switch
  • Action = Press
  • Switch Sensitivity = 5
  • No double-tap or other secondary actions

The missed presses still happen.

Is there any setting that can reduce the minimum time between successive presses?

I work as an embedded firmware developer, and typical mechanical switch debounce is usually on the order of tens of milliseconds — around 30 ms would be pretty normal — so it seems like it should be possible to register presses and releases considerably faster than this. Even if the screen/UI needs a little time to catch up, I’d much rather have the controller capture every press and update the display afterward than drop increments entirely.

Is there anything else I can configure to improve this, or is this a limitation that could potentially be improved in firmware?

2

It seems like this is a common request among other forum posts (faster response to single Press times when Double Tap feature is not used). The forum limits how many links can be shared but they should show up in the Related Topics below.

3

Hi, you can enable ‘looper mode’ for that preset. I believe it’s in ‘utilitiy’ message type.
That should help.

5

That did not help. Same exact result. :slightly_frowning_face: There is always 300 milliseconds of delay between footswitch responses in Looper Mode and Normal Mode with Switch Sensitivity = 5.

6

What about using release messages instead of press?

7

It’s a slight improvement, but not enough. I’m still consistently missing a couple of presses/releases when tapping quickly.

I really feel like this should be possible to improve in firmware. The MC6 Pro is running a 600 MHz Cortex-M7, so there should be plenty of processing headroom for reliably capturing switch events while also updating the displays and handling MIDI/USB with minimal latency.

Even if the UI can’t visually keep up with every press in real time, I’d much rather have the switch events queued/counted correctly and let the display catch up afterward than have inputs dropped entirely.

8

The issue here is that the LCD is programmed to refresh after each press/release - this refresh adds a little bit of latency which will affect quick consecutive presses.

In the v3.14 firmware, we’re working on a “Fast Step” mode that allows quick consecutive presses, and then the LCD refreshes after. We currently have this as a Preset message type, but we’ll add this as a global setting as well.

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v3.14 beta firmware currently available for MC8 PRO only but we’ll work on the MC6 PRO firmware this week.

9

:partying_face: That’s so awesome to hear you already have this in the works. I love the work you guys put into continuously improving your tools. I’d be happy to help beta test it whenever it arrives. I’ll wait patiently for the update and find a workaround in the meantime. Thanks for making such great devices!