Endless Problems with Midi Controllers

What’s the best approach for using an external
controller to send CC data with midi gear? I’m using MPC 2.15

After going through a torture session of using a simple APC keys midi controller with MPC Live 2, I have come to the conclusion that the MPC doesn’t like passing midi CC data from an external controller through MPC Live 2 to a midi device whatsoever.

If I use Program Edit on the MPC and record the CC data using Q Links, everything works fine.

An Eventide Space I own responds to CC22-30. I put it on CH5
Another synth’s cut off filter was on CC30 but on CH15
If I try and adjust the cutoff, it makes the Space CC30 change. Infuriating.

This renders the idea of a midi controller useless right now.

Using Midi Control seems fraught with bugs. It locks out so often.

Can anyone help?

afaik there's no proper midi filtering and routing options inside the mpc, which affects a lot of users.
Hopefully Akai will offer a solution one day.

Right that makes sense. It’s completely useless at passing midi CC data through itself, unless you have the track selected that you want to affect.

This makes the whole point of Midi Control unusable. If you map controllers, like CC07 volume, to a load of sliders, lifting one of them will affect anything responding to CC07.

The solution is easy, then

You get an external piece of gear dedicated to midi routing.

MOTU used to make lots of midi patchbay gear. Search for "midi patchbay" and see what you can find in the used market.

BEST MIDI DEVICES:

Roland A-880
Edirol UM-880
MOTU Midi Express XT
Edirol UM-550
amt8/Emagic Unitor-8
JL Cooper Synapse
Akai ME-80P
Rocktron Prophesy II Rack Preamp Multi-Effects Unit.
Kawai MAV-8
Digital Music Corp MX-8
MOTU MTP A/V
Yamaha MJC-8
Studio 64 Xtc Midi Patch
JL Cooper MSB+ Rev 2 Midi Patch Bay
MIDIman Midisport 8 x 8
OMS Opcode Studio 4 (MIDI PATCH BAY)
AKAI Pro ME30PII MIDI PROGRAMMABLE PATCH BAY
Steinberg Midex 8
M8U XL

I would buy one that you DO NOT NEED A PC to edit. Some of these might require a PC link to fully edit. Avoid those. One that operates in both standalone mode or extra option for PC would work but some of these are PRE-USB technology meaning serial ports. So keep that in mind.

Sense-A wrote:The solution is easy, then

You get an external piece of gear dedicated to midi routing.

MOTU used to make lots of midi patchbay gear. Search for "midi patchbay" and see what you can find in the used market.

BEST MIDI DEVICES:

Roland A-880
Edirol UM-880
MOTU Midi Express XT
Edirol UM-550
amt8/Emagic Unitor-8
JL Cooper Synapse
Akai ME-80P
Rocktron Prophesy II Rack Preamp Multi-Effects Unit.
Kawai MAV-8
Digital Music Corp MX-8
MOTU MTP A/V
Yamaha MJC-8
Studio 64 Xtc Midi Patch
JL Cooper MSB+ Rev 2 Midi Patch Bay
MIDIman Midisport 8 x 8
OMS Opcode Studio 4 (MIDI PATCH BAY)
AKAI Pro ME30PII MIDI PROGRAMMABLE PATCH BAY
Steinberg Midex 8
M8U XL

I would buy one that you DO NOT NEED A PC to edit. Some of these might require a PC link to fully edit. Avoid those. One that operates in both standalone mode or extra option for PC would work but some of these are PRE-USB technology meaning serial ports. So keep that in mind.

I got a few MOTU MTP AV's. I love how you can setup everything right there on the box & save different presets. 8x8 MIDI in/outs is very powerful. You can even link 2 boxes for 16x16. I use the orange price tags from Staples to label the cables.

I’m struggling a bit with the setup. I have a few Kenton boxes so I’d happily try one of these…

https://kentonuk.com/product/merge-4/

Midi controller- -
|- - Kenton Merge — | Synth1+2
MPC Live 2 - - - - -


- I have a Bitstream 3x midi controller - I could put that into Midi Input of the Merge
- put the MPC Live 2 into another input so it bypasses all the MPC weirdness

I guess the only issue is you can’t record CC data?

https://blokas.io/midihub/ This solves all problems. Filter, remap, rescale, transform anyway you like. Doesn't handle sysex though, but that's not an MPC concern.

FWIW:
I bought the Novation Launchkey 61Mk4 recently and it seems to be totally mappable to Live2. It comes with config for Ableton Live which I also use. Yet to figure how to save settings but it's all new to me. Seems like a lot of Keyboard/midi controller for the money though. I don't know if it's possible to map the metronome and play/record buttons. Don't understand this stuff enough but it does come with config software which I have yet to look into. A nice combination for those of us using MPC as more of a DAW in a box than any sample cutting type stuff.

I can make any controller I have work with MPC synths, it’s passing the data through to other hardware and controlling those is where it all goes wrong.

It’s not filtering out the data correctly and passing messages on different midi channels to the wrong place.

I think I’m going to use MPC controlling everything. It’s fine sending data to hardware when generated internally, not passing it through.