H9 midi preset switching engage issue

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

I'm trying to use a Disaster Area DMC-4 to control  my h9 along with a timeline and bigsky. I have preset switching and engage working, but am having an issue where the preset switching causes the preset to engage, so I cannot cycle through presets without the pedal being engaged which causes my on/off state to get out of sync between the pedal and controller. Is this the expected behavior of preset switching over midi?

[gkellum]

Doll.jeff@gmail.com:

Is this the expected behavior of preset switching over midi?

It depends on what exactly you're doing.  When you say you're preset switching, do you mean you're using MIDI CC messages to go up or down in the preset list or do you mean that you're sending MIDI program change messages to activate a particular preset?

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

On the disaster area controller there is an up and down button that I'm trying to use just to cycle through presets, not specifically engage a specific preset. I cannot speak to whether it's using C&C or program changes, the controller doesn't come with a lot of information about what it's actually sending and I've had some trouble getting the guy that makes them to respond to my messages. But specifically to answer your question I'm just trying to 'scroll' presets without engaging them as it scrolls

[gkellum]

Ok, this has been coming up a lot. The behavior of the preset up and preset down functions has changed between different versions of the H9 software, and the short answer for your problem is that if you upgrade the software on your H9 to v4.8.0[1] it will do what you want.  

I'm pretty sure that you have an H9 Core which currently has 4.5.0[3] or 4.5.0[4] installed, because the behavior of those functions is what you're describing when that H9 software version is installed.

I gave a longer explanation of the differences between the H9 software versions in this forum thread if you want the complete story. Although the thread is about the aux switch the same applies to MIDI CC values: http://forum.eventide.com/cs/forums/t/9444.aspx

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

The pedal currently has that firmware on it. Is there a different version that changes that behavior?

[gkellum]

Sorry, I think I misread your original post.  But after reading it three more times, it's still not clear to me what exactly is happening now and what you would like to happen.  The DMC-4 has four foot switches with four status leds.  Could you describe what's happening now when you press each footswitch including what happens to the status led, and could you describe what you would like / expect to happen?

We have emailed a bit recently with Matt from Disaster Area about some other issues that have come up with people using those footswitches with H9s, but I'm not sure if you're describing what we've talked about with him already or something else…

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

For the four buttons on the DMC-4 what I'd like to happen is:

Top left is either hold or tap, right now it's tap, I have yet to get this to work

top right is engage/disengage when held, the tap on this switch changes modes on the DMC-4. This currently works as expected 

The bottom two switches are prest scrolling, preset up and down. These work currently, however when I scroll, if the pedal is not engaged, the scroll (tap of bottom left or right) not only scrolls the preset but also engages the pedal. This is the behavior which I'd like to change. When I scroll prests using these buttons the preset engages currently, I would like to be able to scroll to a preset and then manually engage the pedal.

[gkellum]

Ok, actually, I think I did understand you correctly then.  You wrote:

Doll.jeff@gmail.com:

The pedal currently has that firmware on it. Is there a different version that changes that behavior?

What firmware does you pedal have on it?  I mentioned two firmware versions in the previous post: 4.5.0[4] and 4.8.0[1].  If you don't have 4.8.0[1] installed, you should install it, and I think the preset up and preset down will behave as you want them to.  If you do have  4.8.0[1] installed and are still seeing this behavior where the preset goes up and activates, you should double check and make sure that you're not triggering two pedal functions with a single MIDI CC message, i.e. preset up and activate.  You can check this by clicking on the Pedal button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, going to Midi Settings, and going to "Assign MIDI CC messages to pedal function".

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

It currently has 4.8.0[1] on it. There is no documentation on the DMC-4 which tells me what midi CC's it send when these things are triggered. I checked the other assign settings and none of them have settings except the current ones which work… I can try going through and in assigning by individual CC#… But I didn't set any of the other control changes, which makes me think that is not the cause of the current problem. I'll certainly give it a shot though

[gkellum]

I can double check that the MIDI CC to preset up and preset down functions in 4.8.0[1] are working as I described on Monday, but we did test that before the release so I'd be surprised if that's the problem. But it would be good to verify that before spending too much time thinking about other possibilities. 

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

It looks like the DMC is sending midi PC messages for the preset switching and I'm not sure that this can be changed to use midi CC. So I'm left with two paths, either the h9 allows midi PCmessages to switch to a preset but not engage it, or I need to look at a different controller to meet my needs… The latter seems more likely….is it possible for the h9 to receive midi PCamd not engage the preset that it is being switched to?

[gkellum]

I just talked to one of my colleagues about your problem.  I was thinking that the DMC was using the preset up and preset down pedal functions to change presets, but my colleague thinks that the DMC is probably keeping track of what preset it's on and sending out a program change for the current program + 1 if you press up or the current program – 1 if you press down.  This is just our guess as we don't have one, but if this is the case, there is a solution for your problem using the DMC.  You can save presets to your H9 in bypass.  Make sure you have the latest version of H9 Control if you're using the app, because this is a new feature.  Then, go to the Preset List screen with your H9 connected, put a couple of the presets on your H9 in bypass, and try loading those presets with the DMC and see if that works as you desired now.

[doll.jeff@gmail.com]

I'm confident you're correct about the method by which the controller is scrolling presets, it isn't a simple up and down scroll as I expected, but rather sending the program change message for the given next up or down preset (controller keeping track of the the current state).  When I went through and unassigned some of the program change messages, the scrolling stopped working on my controller. At this point, I have exchanged my controller for one of their larger, fully featured controllers. Matthew from Disaster Area let me know that he would send over the midi CC messages, which I will likely still get as this same scrolling behavior is still a part of the larger controller. The new controller however will allow me to set a 'patch' to send a given midi CC to any connected midi device (up to 5 devices i think) which will allow me to easily set the engaged or bypass state of all the controlled pedals simply. The lesson learned is do better research when expecting something midi to do what you want it to 🙂

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