So, sometimes it works, and sometimes it just straight up doesn’t. For those familiar with ableton and the MC8, I’ve programmed a patch to send CC 101 value 127 on push and on release it sends 0, and I’m attempting to map this to either the clip record or loop record button and activate it.
First and foremost, what are the correct general settings to use the usb port with ableton–because I know from changing the USB Virtual Midi Ports to 4 that it was working (4 sources were always showing up in ableton anyway) albeit briefly. I’ve had some luck with unplugging it from USB and re-plugging but it’s very intermittent. If I go 5 pin DIN, it works fine–dare I say it, it works great, but part of the reason I bought a MC8 was so that I wouldn’t need the 5 pin din + power.
I don’t anticipate this being a cable issue–if it was a bad USB cable I’d anticipate it working way more intermittently. Is there something about Ableton or the way that Windows handles the USB MIDI support of the MC8 that I’m not aware of?
One problem I’ve experienced is that if you let Chrome (maybe Edge) connect to the MC8 to use the editor then Chrome will generally grab all available midi inputs and Ableton may see them but it won’t be able to use them.
The issue is that the “class compliant” windows midi drivers are “single client”. That means if one application grabs them then nothing else will be able to use them as long as that app is running. Since Chrome will grab them, if you have a Chrome browser open that has previously grabbed them then it will continue to hold them until you close that browser. e.g., exiting the Morningstar Editor window is not enough. You actually have to close Chrome entirely.
Same thing holds if you have any other application open that automatically grabs midi ports.
On my system I usually have a variety of midi-using apps open (such as Midi-Ox and Bome midi translator) in addition to Chrome, so I have to make sure they are all configured not to grab the Morningstar midi ports.
OK, so it’s because of class compliancy not playing nice across all apps–that makes a lot of sense. Kind of wish we could have a dedicated driver for this kind of thing–but I guess that’s a pipe dream.