After upgrading to 4.0 I noticed that the preset I created for controlling Cubase via MIDI remote is not receiving anymore the MIDI messages Cubase send back. Electra is connected via USB to my Mac and I’m using the Port named Electra Controller Electra Port 1 on my Mac. With MIDI monitor I can see Cubase sending messages to this port and Electra indicating it is receiving MIDI messages on USB but it doesn’t react to them. The same preset was working before when I war running 3.6.1
can you send me a link (url) of the preset? I will take a look at it. Thanks.
I’ve posted a link to the preset in my previous message but I think that looking at it will not bring up anything special, I just tried to create a new preset from scratch in Electra with just 2 faders and assign the faders to Cubase function and the behaviour is the same, Electra does not respond to messages that Cubase sent back. BTW I’ve used Electra Port 1 for both input and output.
I’ve got a PC where I’m also running Cubase and Electra is communicating with the PC via regular 5 pin MIDI and it receives correctly the messages that Cubase is sending back, so it seems that something happened with the 4.0 update regarding controlling the Electra knobs via the USB ports
Sorry for writing all these messages but I just found out that if I use USB Port 2 instead it all works, I’m just wondering why Electra doesn’t listen to messages sent back to the USB Port 1. Am I mistaken or in the 3.6.1 version there was only one USB MIDI port?
no worries. I just tested the preset by sending CC messages to it via the USB port 1. It seems to work just fine. I can see that the preset controls listen on Port 1 / channel 16. If I send CC messages (as I see them in your preset), the controls get updated accordingly. Can’t it be something in Cubase or MIDI routing in the computer?
Edit: Yes i’ve found the culprit, by enabling MIDI controlled function on USB port 1 on all channels I blocked the ability of Electra listening on that port for controls updates; below I’ve left the message I’ve written a few minute ago
I don’t think that it could be a routing problem or a Cubase one, because I was watching in the MIDI monitor software Cubase sending MIDI messages to the Electra USB port 1 like now, that I changed to port 2 all the controls that are in the preset and reassigned the Cubase port for the MIDI remote, it is sending to port 2 and Electra is reacting accordingly. Are you in the new 4.02 firmware? I’m still at the official 4.0.0. Also could it be some coinfiguration inside Electra? For example, I’ve assigned some messages in USB port 1 to control a few Electra functions like opening the pages menù and show the bottom menù, so I’m wondering if these assignments could block the reception of other MIDI messages. It’s not a big problem for me right now that I’ve find a way to make the preset work, I’m mostly curios and would like to know the cause of the problem
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I spoked too early. Now Electra is reacting correctly to MIDI messages coming from Cubase but does not respond anymore to Bank Select - Program Changes to select presets. In this post
I wrote that Electra stopped responding to Bank Select - Program Changes messages for selecting presets after I upgraded to 4.0. I later discovered that I had to send the messages to the USB Port 1 and not the Electra CTRL port I was using in the previous firmware version, but now it doesn’t respond anymore to these messages, despite sending them to all 3 of the USB ports.
There’s definitely something strange going on with MIDI USB ports after the 4.0 upgrade, at least on my system.
@martin Is it safe to downgrade to 3.6.1? Or my only option now is to upgrade to the beta 4.0.2?
I’ve tried to disable MIDI Control and then enable it again but this didn’t solve the matter
Hi, I will be looking at the issue in a minute. I have it on my todo for today.
Downgrading is safe. The only problem that you might is that presets there were transferred to the controller after you upgraded to 4.0.0 will not be accessible to 3.6.1. These need to be sent to the controller again after you are on v3.6.1
The program change issue is fixed in 4.0.2. While it is still beta, it is safe to use. Users reported / questioned mostly stuff related to the UI changes. You can give it a try before downgrading to 3.6.1.
Thanks for your quick reply Martin, given that you are looking at the issue today, I’ll wait to see if you find anything about it before trying to upgrade - downgrade
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ok, I ran all sorts of tests on the 4.0.2. This is the result:
4.0.2 Electra listens to bank select and program changes on the CTRL port. Bank 0 is for the preset selections. Further banks (1 .. 12) are used to choose a snapshot bank within the current preset. ie. CC 00 00 → selects the preset bank, subsequent program changes will change the preset. CC 00 01 → selects the first snapshot bank of current preset, subsequent program changes will load and send out corresponding snapshot. Note, the bank number and program number is displayed in the top-left corner of each snapshot.
If MIDI control or Remote knobs are enabled on a Port (all channels) or Port and a particular channel, the midi messages that match that port and channel configuration are “consumed” by the those two features. Thus, if MIDI control is enabled on all channels of port 1, the messages sent to any channel on port 1 will not be passed to the preset for processing. That is expected behaviour. The 4.0.2 has the Router screen redesigned to provide information about all routings on one screen:
I would say the 4.0.2 works as it should. I guess the confusing bit for you was the 4.0.0 ignoring the Bank selects and Program changes sent to the CTRL port.