Strymon LVX and PREditor and basic MIDI questions

I’m trying to follow Using the MC as an interface for the Meris LVX/Mercury and prEditor | Morningstar Engineering Helpdesk but as always the physical connections aren’t mentioned at all. Here are the combos I’ve tried:

Computer => USB Device on the MC6Pro
MC6Pro MIDI OUT DIN5 => Meris LVX MIDI IN DIN5 tried multiple midi cables
Meris LVX MIDI OUT DIN5 => MC6Pro MIDI IN DIN5 tried with and without this connection and again with multiple cables.

Google Chrome can see the MC6Pro, but PREditor doesn’t connect on any of the 4 MC6Pro options in its drop-downs.

My long-term intention is to have the LVX set to MIDI Channel 11, so that’s what it’s set to now and that’s what I’m entering into PREditor. I’ve tried setting the MC6Pro to both MIDI Channel 1 and 11 and no dice. The labels for the PREditor drop-downs are different in WIndows vs the MacOS screenshot, but again I’ve tried all of them.

I’ve tried both MIDI OUT and MIDI THRU modes on the LVX with all of the above.

I feel like I’ve exhausted the options given the simplicity of the setup. So my questions are:

  1. What’s the physical connection assumption that will make the HOWTO article work?
  2. Should the LVX be set to MIDI OUT mode or MIDI THRU mode?
  3. Does the MIDI Channel of the MC6 matter for this purpose?
  4. In general, should the MIDI connection “loop” on the MC6Pro? I intend to control many more things with the MC6Pro and I don’t know if DIN5 MIDI connections should be a loop or a string. It seems like it should be a loop given the MIDI Thru tester found in the MC6Pro editor, but nothing about MIDI has been intuitive so far, so who knows?

is the overall goal of this to just have your computer connected to the MC6 instead of having it connected to the LVX when using the PREditor? Or is there more that can be achieved from this that I’m missing?

I’d like to be able to use the PREditor by plugging the MC6Pro’s USB Device cable into my computer.

Ultimately I want to have a whole chain of effects that can be used/addressed this way, but right now I’m just trying to solve for the simple case.

The long-term goal looks like this:
MC6Pro DIN5 => LVX => Ghost => MercuryX => ML10Xb => OBNE MTET => DisasterArea-MIDIBox-4 => ML10Xa (?=> MC6pro?)

There will be other devices hanging off the DA-MB4 and the MC6Pro’s omniports as well…or that’s the plan anyway.

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Meris released PREditor v2.0 today and in the announcement video they mention a couple of times to set the LVX to MIDI OUT (not THRU) so I’ve done that and tested again with v2.0 and I still can’t make it work. Will this setting be any different when multiple pedals are “behind” the LVX? This is what it says in the LVX manual:

MIDI OUT: Select MIDI Out or MIDI Thru. When MIDI Thru is enabled, MIDI data received on the MIDI In jack is passed to the MIDI Out jack

So I assume that long-term I’ll need it to be set to THRU.

They also discuss “daisy chaining” multiple pedals and it seems like the MIDI OUT eventually does need to come back to the MC6Pro’s MIDI IN. Please let me know if that’s incorrect.

The MC6Pro’s manual says this:

The MC6 PRO can receive MIDI messages via its MIDI IN port and relay them out through its MIDI outputs (all MIDI message types) and USB port (only PC, CC, Note and MIDI Clock) .

Does that mean that I can’t do this unless I connect the DIN5 port on the MC6Pro to my computer?

This connection is correct.

MIDI Out

Yes, set it to a different MIDI channel as the LVX so the MC6 will not respond to MIDI messages sent by the LVX/Editor.

Did you set your MIDI Thru settings on the MC6 PRO to match what is shown in the helpdesk? Here’s the image:

Basically, what the MC6 PRO is doing is just acting like a MIDI interface to pass incoming USB MIDI messages from the prEditor to the LVX and vice versa. So in the MIDI Thru settings above reflects that.

I’m guessing these settings would also apply to nonpro MC6? I am having a hard time getting the preditor software to find my “live” mercury x

I still haven’t been able to make PREditor work via the MC6Pro. I did match the MIDI Thru settings in the picture.

I do have the MC6Pro MIDI controlling 12 devices over 12 channels though, so that’s been cool and indicates that MIDI is generally working.

For the non-PRO MC, you just need to

  1. Enable Cross MIDI Thru
  2. Disable MIDI Thru

What devices are in the signal chain? Some devices don’t pass SysEx messages through, like the HX Stomp and Microcosm, so if those are in your MIDI signal chain then the communication betweeen the preditor and Meris LVX can’t work.

MC6Pro DIN5 OUT => LVX => Ghost => MercuryX => ML10Xb => OBNE MTET => DisasterArea-MIDIBox-4 => ML10Xa => MC6pro-DIN5-IN

But I also tried MC6Pro DIN5 OUT => LVX => MC6Pro DIN5 IN

Are you using Windows or macOS? If you’re using Windows, then it is possible that another program has already claimed the MIDI port (i.e. if you have the MC editor open). In Windows, only 1 USB MIDI port can be used by 1 software. Try closing the MC editor (and any other MIDI software that you might be using like DAWs) and see if the connection issue persists.

I have the same problem here, only with a Mercury X.

I have followed the instructions on the Morningstar page i.e.
USB Device MIDI In - Thru To → DIN5 checked
DIN5 MIDI In - Thru To → USB Device checked

I have tried the most basic connection setup and it just refuses to work.

Computer(MacOS 13.6.9) → MC6 PRO USB Device
MC6 PRO MIDI OUT → Mercury X MIDI IN
Mercury X MIDI OUT → MC6 PRO MIDI IN

Mercury X has firmware 1.2.1
MC6 Pro has firmware 3.12.13

MC6 PRO is on MIDI channel 1, Mercury X is on MIDI channel 5.

Mercury X Globals/MIDI OUT is set to OUT

I know both cables are fine as I can send MIDI messages from the MC6 PRO to the Mercury X and I swapped over the cables to see if this was still the case.

prEditor shows the MC6 PRO ports. In the Settings screen I have:

DEVICE → MERCURYX
IN → Morningstar MC6 Pro Port 1
OUT → Morningstar MC6 Pro Port 1
MIDI CHANNEL → 5

I have no problem with the editor connecting to the MC6 PRO. I do not have the editor connected when trying to connect with prEditor.

I have restarted everything. No difference.

There is definitely some funny business going on here.

I have the same problem with SysEx Librarian. When I am connected through the MC6 PRO nothing gets transmitted from the Mercury X to my computer. I did notice, however, that if I press a footswitch on the MC6 PRO then SysEx Librarian does record something.

So I dug out an ancient USB Uno MIDI device (USB A to a DIN5 pair). With this I am able to connect my computer directly to the Mercury X and then both SysEx Librarian and prEditor work just fine.

I then used the same cabling that was between my computer, the MC6 PRO and the Mercury X, but connected through an Arturia MiniFuse 2. Again, no issue with prEditor or SysEx Librarian.

So there is something going on when the MC6 PRO is the middle man between my computer and the Mercury X.

Well… at risk of making myself look a fool (not difficult), it has all of a sudden just started to work as it should. Same cables. Same connections.

I did some further testing and was beyond frustrated. I could send PC changes through the editor to the Mercury X. So it all pointed to data either not being received on the MC6 PRO MIDI IN DIN port or data not being routed to the USB device port.

So I tried a simple program change command from within a Logic midi external instrument to the MC6 PRO. It was not working, then, like magic, it just started to work. I cannot explain this. I am certain all the cables I have been using are fine.

So putting back the connections to what I actually want, which meant data flowing through a CME midi box, it is still currently working.

But I will keep my eyes on this, because one second it wasn’t working and the next it was and I hadn’t changed anything.

Under the Editor Settings tab, there is a “MIDI Thru Check” function.

You can use it to test if the SysEx message is going through all the connected device. How it works is that, if you have set the MIDI Thru correctly on the MC6 PRO, for example like this:

n

Here’s what will happe

  1. The editor sends a SysEx messages via USB
  2. SysEx gets passed through to your DIN5 port through all your devices
  3. MC6 PRO receives the SysEx message and then sends it back to the editor
  4. Editor will display that the SysEx message is received.

I’m having trouble connecting to my MercuryX as well. Laptop > USB C > MC6 Pro > MIDI OUT to MercuryX MIDI IN.

My MIDI Thru Check test in the editor does not return a “message received” message.

Did you connect the Mercury MIDI OUT back to the MC6 PRO MIDI IN?

…I did not. Connected MercuryX MIDI Out to MC6 Pro MIDI In and everything is working now.

It feels like such a silly mistake but I don’t remember seeing any instructions anywhere about connecting the cables this way.