I recently got an Electra MK2 and today I started using it.
I connected it to my Roland SE-02 and on my status bar, I notice USB Device, USB Host Midi 1 OUT and MIDI 1 IN are constantly flashing. Is this normal?
I tried to look at incoming midi messages in the preset viewer and I don’t see any midi messages coming.
Also when trying out the following shared patch: Electra One App
When I send this to my Electra one, I get the following errors in the lua editor:
01:17:41.782 lua: transport disabled
01:17:42.798 loadLua debug output:
01:17:42.801 ---- START ----
01:17:42.801 loadLuaModule: Lua extension file initialized: file=ctrlv2/slots/p001.lua
01:17:42.802 ----- END -----
is this normal?
Also this preset had some LUA code, and I could see it in my preset viewer. Then my unit froze and crashed. So I restarted it and loaded the preset again, and now I cannot see any LUA code:
I tried connecting another MIDI device to my electra, and the status bar starts flashing as soon as the MIDI OUT from my device is connected to the MIDI IN port of the electra one. Why is it flashing?
I tested more equipment so far it only seems to happen with Roland Equipment.
Equipment that causes the status bar to flash constantly:
Roland SE-02
Roland MC 101
Roland SQ 64
Equipment that didn’t cause the status bar to flash:
Strymon BigSky pedal
polyend tracker
What is still unclear to me is what is the midi message that causes the flashing because I cannot see in the online Midi monitor and I also tried another MIDI monitor tool and there are no messages coming in.
Has anyone else had this issue with Roland equipment? Does anyone have Roland equipment that they could try and let me know if they also experience this?
After some more research, it seems to be this may most probably be the Active Sense midi message:
From reading some online forums, it seems that Roland equipment adheres strictly to the midi protocol and that protocol says that a device should send Active Sense messages every 300ms
Yes setting up the E1 in a medium to complex midi setup involving several interfaces, controllers and workflows is not trivial at all. I’ve found simple helpers like the CME U6pro very helpful in filtering out certain messages at certain points, instead of trying to do it all in one central interface.
My Motu XT for example, automatically forwards midi clock from it’s current input to all outputs without being asked. Such an easy way to end up with several clocks (double time yey) in certain situations. The CME however, is very flexible (make custom thru boxes with say 3 inputs and 3 outputs, negating the need for additional merging… or set up a merge box with 3 outputs, each with it’s specific filtering and mapping) and super cheap. Recommended!
@jamflava That’s weird.
I have several Roland digital synths from the JD/JV/XV era, and have had a couple more recent ones shortly (ZEN-Core and TR), and never ever noticed any of them was sending those outdated Active Sensing 0xFE MIDI bytes. Not even sure it could be enabled or disabled anywhere in the settings either, since there’s no mention of this in the manuals or the settings pages on the synths themselves.
Korg gear on the other hand…
Just gave it a shot with MIDIOX («System Realtime» unchecked in the MIDI Filter menu) monitoring the rack thru a Midex-8: as expected, the Korg WS/SR is sending Active Sensing all right. None of the Roland does.
Perhaps then it is just some Roland stuff that sends it. I can confirm that MC-101 and SE-02 definitely do send Active Sense. While I could buy a box to do MIDI filtering, I already have such a box: the Electra one MK 2
