I press one button and my layout and the device goes insane! (MIDI loop?)

Question

This is a question from a user:

I'm having some trouble setting up super controls for my Meris layouts. Or maybe it's with my toggle buttons. Anytime I put a group of buttons together and make a super control and exit design mode to test it, the app and subsequently pedal, freak out. The app seems to be toggling between all the buttons in the subconrols and does that on the pedal too. Sometimes it lands on the button you pressed, other times it seems to just turn that function off or crash the pedal. The only way I have been able to get it to work properly is to turn Midi Receive off for each button in the subconrols. This works perfect for the preset pages but for some of the buttons, I'd like to have the respond to what I'm doing on the pedal too. Is it possible to have both? 

Our answer was that it's probably a MIDI loop. So... what's a MIDI loop?

Answer 1

We use "MIDI loop" to refer to a feedback loop where outgoing MIDI triggers incoming MIDI (from your MIDI target) which triggers another round of the same until your device crashes or becomes unresponsive (MD has a lot of protections in place to never crash in performance mode).

The simplest example is a supercontrol in MD that receives MIDI and causes a subcontrol to send out. In your MIDI target, that outgoing MIDI causes another message to be sent to MD... which in turn causes another message to be sent out.

There are a lot of ways to diagnose this, but using the MIDI log -- or an external MIDI log if you can go through a computer, for instance -- is an important tool. At the same time, don't discount guessing and testing (which scientists call "hypothesis testing").

Comments

Note: hopefully the case mentioned in the question is actually a MIDI loop. We're waiting for confirmation of that.

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Hypothesis testing was the real winner here! I was the user having the issue and my solution was turning the the midi send off of the buttons I was trying to control with the supercontrol. And the big one, not having the supercontrol cc the same cc as the buttons you are trying to control. The other thing I think helped was changing the midi range was OFF = 0 & On = (whatever number you want the button to trigger) in the MIDI menu and then Send On Only in the Advanced menu.

Answer 2

We use "MIDI loop" to refer to a feedback loop where outgoing MIDI triggers incoming MIDI (from your MIDI target) which triggers another round of the same until your device crashes or becomes unresponsive (MD has a lot of protections in place to never crash in performance mode).

The simplest example is a supercontrol in MD that receives MIDI and causes a subcontrol to send out. In your MIDI target, that outgoing MIDI causes another message to be sent to MD... which in turn causes another message to be sent out.

There are a lot of ways to diagnose this, but using the MIDI log -- or an external MIDI log if you can go through a computer, for instance -- is an important tool. At the same time, don't discount guessing and testing (which scientists call "hypothesis testing").