I have read James posting on how to debug midi problems, but I’m still at loggerheads trying to figure this out. I’m using my MC8 to control my Kemper Profiler Player using the USB-B to the Kemper’s USB-A. This works perfectly always. In addition, I have the MC8 midi out DIN going through a midi adapter into my Macbook running Logic which I’m controlling using the MC8. When it works, it works perfectly, so I know the programming is set up correctly. The problem is that at least 50% of the time, it doesn’t work at all. My first inclination was to believe the problem was my midi adapter (iConnectivity mio). However, when I plug my windsynth into the mio, it always works with no issue. There may be a clue in that often, after I test the windsynth through the mio, when I reconnect the MC8 it magically starts working.
Any advice on how to debug this would be greatly appreciated.
Are you using the windsynth to control Logic, or when you say “it works” you just mean that you can see that it sends MIDI notes? I ask because in the DAW I use, the MIDI settings for using something as a control surface are separate from just letting it record MIDI or send its MIDI to a track, so with this sort of behavior, I’d look to see if the DAW might be losing connection somehow.
The DIN ports on the MC8 sends MIDI whether something is connected or not, but do you have another way of checking, like a MIDI monitor in Logic?
Yes, I mean the windsynth is just sending midi notes.
I don’t think it’s the DAW because if I connect the USB from the MC8 to the DAW everything works perfectly well. So, what I have is the windsynth sends notes through the mio midi interface ok, and the MC8 sends the control signals through the USB connection ok, and often the MC8 sends the control signals through the DIN midi out ok, but only about half the time.
I don’t know if Logic has a midi monitor, but I’ve got a python script (using rtmidi) that behaves as a midi monitor and I can see that when it works the python script shows it’s there, when it doesn’t the script shows the same.
I’m not familiar with Logic but most DAW’s will require you to set up a “hardware controller” profile if you are using the MC8 to control DAW functions or plugin parameters.
I did this in my DAW with the MC8 through DIN and USB.
It functions correctly no matter which way it is connected.
If you simply want to stripe/record midi events (CC/PC/Note on/off/Sysex) etc.for general use, then it’s not necessary.
This is what your windsynth is doing.
I think I might have stumbled on the solution. I’ve found that if I power the MC8 with 9 volts from a power supply, it works every time. What I had been doing, simply out of convenience, was powering it through the USB connection. I certainly don’t know the electronics well enough, but my speculation is that the USB wasn’t supplying enough juice to power the midi out connection to work reliably. So far it has been working very well using external power supply.