I am using the “instr MIDI control” device to program patches on an external midi synth. The synth doesn’t have a hardware control surface or a dedicated programmer so midi cc is my only option.
The problem is after I save a song, all the sliders for my 25 odd midi CCs remain in place but when I start playing my track the midi CCs have no effect. If after loading said song, I move a cc slider even one digit, it has an effect again.
An example to explain a bit more clearly. On this particular synth CC78 at a value of 64 or above enables sample playback on channel 6. So I set cc78 to 65 use the sample function, finish my track save. Load the track again, hit play but samples on channel 6 aren’t enabled inspite of the slider for CC78 being at 65. Renoise seems to be sending the sliders default value which I assume is 0. However if I move the slider 1 digit from 65 to 66, sample playback is suddenly enabled.
Am I being really silly and missing something obvious or is this normal behavior?
Hmm, it might be, that the “instr. MIDI Control” device is thought to be mostly for automation. And thus, without any automation data nothin initiates sending the CCs.
I’m also using some external gear. I have noticed that my drum machine didn’t receive a cc value after loading a song and is playing the default sound, but after re-loading the song it plays correctly… no automation used.
I wish this feature could be fleshed out a bit and be more reliable. Maybe setting the rate at which cc are sent after loading a song, as my C64 with Mssiah-cart cannot receive too much data at once.
I must admit, Im a bit stumped with this one, my midi device is indeed a bit quirky but I am following the same procedure for starting and connecting it that my friend (who uses it with live and doesnt have this issue) uses and it seems that Renoise is indeed missing some of the CCs. First time I load the track, some midi CCs are not sending, if I reload the track a couple of times, it seems to work. Kinda bizarre. Anyone have any idea how to isolate the problem?
No it’s not your MIDI device. I experience the same problem. I have noticed the same thing on two different laptops (win xp and vista) and different MIDI devices… also my DSI Tetr4 that I use with direct USB-MIDI. With the Tetra, I can save the settings in a program, but the MFB-503 drum machine doesn’t work that way. I also noticed that when reloading the song, some of the drum machine parameters were set correctly, but some not. I guess I have to reload the song several times to be sure, or send CC in a pattern before the song… which is a pain, especially when I change some parameter, I’ll have to edit that first pattern each time.
I am wondering if this has to do with the MIDI messages being sent all at once, but the device on the receiving end only accept messages at a certain rate? MIDI is a slow, slow protocol.
Without any intimate knowledge of the Renoise internals, I can only guess to what actually happening, but if this was true then the more MIDI Control devices, the worse the problem should get.
That’s my first guess too. I first noticed the problem with a Commodore 64 using MSSIAH cart. Being a slow old computer, it could only receive MIDI data at a very slow pace… a handful parameters at once at most.
Will double-check this here. Could those who have a problem with this create a small dummy example song where this seems to happen?
This way we can better check what’s going on on your side…
Here’s an example. Just a basic MIDI instrument with Instr. MIDI Control device driving my MFB-503 drum machine. I deleted everything else I have in my setup (I hope). Still had to load twice for the CC’s to stick.
Thanks. Taking a look at this now and using MIDI-OX to log the data coming out of Renoise. I can replicate the behaviour you’ve described, so it does indeed seem like something fishy is going on. We’ll investigate further
Will be fixed in RC2. The problem was that the MIDI devices may not have been opened by Renoise yet - under certain circumstances.
Renoise opens all MIDI devices only when necessary, only when they are used. Thus reloading such a song would correctly send the CCs. Loading the song from an empty template would not.
Sorry! I totally didn’t realize that the bug squad god on this. I was delving ever deeper into the synth assuming it was me doing something wrong but not being able to find anything conclusive. I can confirm this has indeed fixed the issue.
Super sorry to bring this up again but it is possible the issue isn’t fixed. The synth I am using has 10 voices so I am using 10 “inst MIDI CONTROL” one on each of 10 channels. RC2 seems only to transmit midi CC to the first 4 channels on at least some songs. I have attached on of the songs in question if someone would be kind enough to take a look?
Steps to reproduce look like this:
Launch Renoise
Open the demo song “realtriphop”
Play song
Midi CC only affects the first 4 channels (in renoise which also happen to be midi channels 1 - 4
Expected results:
Renoise transmits midi cc data to every channel
Actual results:
Only the first 4 channels react as if they have recived have midi CC date.
note, in RC1, loading a song 2 or 3 times would solve issues with some channels missing midi date, in RC2 this is not the case, CH1-4 get midi data first time every time, CH5 and above never get midi date regardless of number of reloads.
The drum machine seems to receive CC correctly. For the Tetra though, this poses a problem. I still need to save the edited sound in a program on the Tetra. If I select a program, edit it in Renoise and save the song… It won’t sound the same when I reload it. Not unless I have edited all the parameters. The CC’s I didn’t change will also get sent, and they probably don’t match the program parameters too well.
I don’t know how other DAWs deal with this, but how about only sending CC for the sliders that were moved since changing program/bank?
