"The Last Unicorn"

[James Steele]

There's a way to kill it on the hardware MTP/AV unit. The SysEx message sent here is always the sync message.

I haven't really figured out how to stop it. When I had the MTP/AV, I tried all sorts of settings from the front panel and couldn't get it to stop. These are the messages it was sending out:

MTPAVsysexmessages.png (80.54 KiB) Viewed 872 times

As I may have mentioned, it seems that this behavior only seems to happen when there is a DAW currently running (happens in DP, PT and Logic). If there is no DAW running in the background it does't do this. It seems like it's some sort of sync thing, or the MTP/AV (and later MIDI Express XT) is sending some sort of status to the DAW letting it knows it's there and connected I guess.

There might be some strangeness as has been mentioned with the Mac Studio in particular. I have power cycled the MIDI Express XT and then launch DP and DP does not seem to "see" it. Running Clockworks seems to re-establish the connection and then these little messages start up again until I quit DP.

It's not really that big a problem now and if I need to record a bulk sysex dump from a hardware module into Sysex Librarian, I just have to make sure I don't have DP open in the background and then I can get an "unpolluted" capture.

Again... don't regret getting the new interface. Yeah... I might have spent money I didn't need to, but I'm fully in the modern age now I guess.

[monkey man]

There's a way to kill it on the hardware MTP/AV unit. The SysEx message sent here is always the sync message.

Yeah Michael, but James has switched to a USB unit now (MIDI Express XT) and he reckons ClockWorks doesn't mute it in the USB stream.

I'd have thought CW would've been able to do it in his older unit, hence my reply earlier, but I've no experience with USB MIDI so I'll have to take James' word that for whatever reason CW will only mute the messages over the conventional MIDI outs and not the USB one.

EDIT:
Didn't see that James had responded.

[James Steele]

Well it's a real mystery and it also seems to come and go. I almost wish I had a camera overhead capturing what I'm doing because I can't remember the series of steps that gets me into certain situations. For example, was just running DP 11.21 and the MEXT (I'm just going to use that for MIDI Express XT from now on) wasn't sending those messages. It may be because at some point I power cycled it. Like I said, I don't remember. But it's working and it's not sending those messages, however, I have a feeling that if I were just to launch Clockworks long enough to let it simply establish communication with the MEXT, and then quit Clockworks, the messages would start up again.

I'll try it now actually.

Okay... so what was weird... Clockworks established connection to MEXT (and at that point it's normal for the "Computer I/O" led to flash. And it's not doing it. Funny thing though... whenever I launch Clockworks, the MEXT (and it happened with MTP/AV as well) sends out a message on all cables that freaks my EPS16+ rack module out! It immediately throws an error "ERROR 144 - REBOOT?" Still don't know how to stop that. I've tried muting all sorts of messages on the output cable going to the EPS16+ but it just doesn't seem to block whatever is sent when Clockwork initializes communication with MEXT. Perhaps at some point it will annoy me so much I'll try to find one of those old Anatek Pocket Filters and put it in line and throw dip switches until I get lucky. Who knows? A lot of times the EPS16+ saves a corrupted bank file to whatever directory it was last in which I have to go in and manually delete.

Oh well... growing pains.

[monkey man]

Have you tried muting the "Reset Controllers" (or whatever it's called) messages James?

Another one I'd look at is programme change (reset?) messages.

If the XT is spitting these out on all channels simultaneously, it could explain the Ensoniq's crapping itself.

[James Steele]

Have you tried muting the "Reset Controllers" (or whatever it's called) messages James?

Another one I'd look at is programme change (reset?) messages.

Yes. Tried both of those. Like I said, it's bizarre. Doesn't always happen either.

[monkey man]

Yikes.

They're the best sort of anomalies - the ones that "don't always happen".

[Michael Canavan]

Yeah James that's definitly the same Sync SysEx message I'm talking about. This IMO is a MOTU thing, the first time a Sync messages is requested DP starts up the sync messages, and since most of the time that's what you want, there's no quick way to turn the stream off. With the old MTP/AV you turn the unit off and turn it on with Panic held down.

[James Steele]

Yeah James that's definitly the same Sync SysEx message I'm talking about. This IMO is a MOTU thing, the first time a Sync messages is requested DP starts up the sync messages, and since most of the time that's what you want, there's no quick way to turn the stream off. With the old MTP/AV you turn the unit off and turn it on with Panic held down.

Interesting! I never knew about the power-cycling with the Panic button held down! That must be documented somewhere, but I never saw that. Might not have purchased the MEXT if I'd know about that, but like I said, what's done is done and happy enough with the new interface given that the display and knobs on the MTP/AV were getting funky.

[James Steele]

With the old MTP/AV you turn the unit off and turn it on with Panic held down.

Ha! I was searching for this post. Last night it was happening again and I couldn't remember the procedure. Although just power cycling it was enough to make it stop as I recall. Not a big deal and as I said, if there's now DAW running it seems to stop which is fine. On the rare occasions that I'm going to collect a sysex dump from a hardware device, I'll just make sure I don't have DP open in the background when I'm using Sysex Librarian.