MC8 doesn't change bank when FM3 sends a MIDI message

I was trying to configure a 2 way communication between my Fractal FM3 and my MC8, so that when I press a footswitch on the FM3 on the MC8 it loads the Fractal Integration Preset Selection mode or the Scene Selection mode.

Once the MC8 enters a Fractal Integration mode, if I send a CC message from FM3, the MC8 doesn’t react to the message until I get out on the Fractal Integration pressing the B+C switches.

If I press the B+C switches on the MC8 afterwards, when I try to enter the Fractal Integration, it doesn’t show the options and it also doesn’t respond correctly to external MIDI messages from the FM3, I need to switch off and on the MC8.

Is it possible somehow, to send a MIDI message from the Fractal device to get out the Fractal Integration on MC8, so that the device doesn’t get stuck?

For this issue, can you confirm that MIDI Thru has been turned off on the MC8?

There isn’t a CC implementation to exit the integration mode yet - we can possibly look into adding that

I confirm that MIDI Thru is OFF on both devices.

If you can implement a way to exit Integration Mode, it would be fantastic! It would allow Morningstar customers to mimic more or less the same OMG9/OMG15 Fractal functionality with their proprietary external footswitches!

It would miss only the single Effects ON/OFF feature.

Wouldn’t be much simpler to implement the Fractal Integration in a why what, when you get a Bank or Preset change request from MIDI, you get out from the integration and execute the command?

This way, if I’m on a Scene Select, when MC8 receives from FM3 a command that corresponds to a Preset change for the Fractal Preset select, it would just get out of Scene Select and get into the new Fractal Integration?

I believe when you change presets on the FM3 (we only have the AxeFX3 to test with), it will send a PC message, and the MC8 will update the scene select integration to display the new scenes on the screen. Is that what you are expecting?

what do you mean by get out of scene select and into the new fractal integration?

I’ll tell you in detail what I’m trying to do, so that you can reproduce on the AxeFX3, there shouldn’t be any difference (I hope):

I have a bank on the MC8 where:

  • Preset A => Action: Press → Fractal Integration → Preset Select → MIDI Channel 1
  • Preset B => Action: Press → Fractal Integration → Scene Select → MIDI Channel 1

On the FM3, I have 2 footswitches configured like:

  • Control Switch 1 (CS1) => CC Number 10 → CC Value 1 (calls the press action on the Preset A)
  • Control Switch 2 (CS2) => CC Number 11 → CC Value 1 (calls the press action on the Preset B)

Try in sequence to:

  • Press the CS1 on Fractal
  • Select a preset on the MC8
  • Press the CS2 on Fractal

You can see that the MC8 will still stay on the Preset Select integration instead of switching to the Scene Select integration and it will start to act weird from now, even if you get out of the Fractal Integration pressing B+C.

What I would expect is that, when FM3 sends a CC message to another Fractal Integration screen, it should get out of the current one and load the one corresponding to the CC message.

Ah ok, understood. Just to clarify, in the fractal integration mode, the CC implementation isn’t active, so none of the presets will execute when you send a CC message.

When in Scene mode integration, you can exit the integration menu by sending the MC8 a CC#61 value 0 message (currently not documented). Will that work for your use case?

I tried to configure the FM3 this way:

CS1

  • Command 1: CC 61 - On Value 0 - Off Value not set
  • Command 2: CC 10 - On Value 1 - Off Value not set

CS2

  • Command 1: CC 61 - On Value 0 - Off Value not set
  • Command 2: CC 11 - On Value 1 - Off Value not set

It sees to work fine the first 2-3 times maximum, then it gets blocked as before.
Do you know how can I debug what is going on the MC8 when the FM3 sends those messages? I’m wondering if the Fractal device is sending them maybe too quick or not in order?

OK after more testing, it seems I found out that the CC61 - Value 0 command works only with Scene Select but not with Preset Select.

Ah yes, and that’s what you wrote before in fact, I misread it before… is there a command to get out of Preset Select too?

Can you try this firmware and let me know how it works for you?
20230112 MC8-Midi-Controller Beta.hex (614.0 KB)

I’m trying to update the firmware with the updater 1.1.2 on macOS, but it doesn’t show my device on the list.

The editor is working without problems.

can you click on download logs in the firmware updater and email it to us?

if you use the previous version of the firmware updater, it should work fine: Release Firmware Uploader v0.9.1 · Morningstar-Engineering/Firmware-Uploader · GitHub

The new firmware doesn’t work at all, when I launch a Fractal integration it says: “Fractal Device Not Found”.

What’s the email for sending the logs of the updater?

It seems it’s trying to send the message for the wrong Fractal model and without the Preset Start number I set:

I downgraded the firmware to 3.10.2 and the Fractal integration is not working anymore :frowning:

I cannot restore the device as it was working before, now it’s completely unusable for me, can you please help me to restore it?

OK… I just put back the firmware you sent on this forum thread, now with the CC#61 - Value 0 message it gets out of both Scene Select and Preset Select, but those integrations don’t show the names of scenes and presets now and are not able to select anything.

I’ll test this again in the office later but nothing changed related to the integration except adding the CC# to exit preset integration mode. It sounds possible that it is your cable connection being intermittent. Can you double check that?

Unfortunately I have only those 2 short MIDI cables that I use for MC8 and FM3 together with me, I don’t have another to test… I’ll try to swap them to check for a different behaviour.

Btw, when I switch ON the MIDI PC Mapping option on the FM3, I see that footswitch selection on the same device is not working well anymore.

To work with the MC8 I need both SysEx and PC Mapping to be ON, right?

OK I found other 2 cables, everything is working fine with your firmware! Sorry to bother you so much!

Thanks a lot for great support!

Will you include this CC#61 - Value 0 message in the next stable firmware as well?

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Thanks for the update! Yes we’ll include that in the next firmware update.

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