MIDI forwarding on HX Stomp not fully working

[moehuh]

The Stomp is part of my pedalboard and I use Nixie to update all my Strymon units (Big Sky and TimeLine). All are MIDI daisy- chained, controlled from my RJM Mastermind. Before getting the Stomp, I had a Mobius and I was able to update all 3 devices, accessing from the Mastermind's USB (The Strymon units need to be set to MIDI merge).

 

Since I swapped the Mobius with the HX Stomp, I cannot access the Strymon units anymore. If I take the Stomp out of the loop it works.

 

Has anyone a suggestion what I could try? Seems like not all MIDI commands are forwarded from the Stomp. All "normal" MIDI commands work

[rd2rk]

My guess would be that updates are accomplished using sysex commands (strings, whatever), which are longer than normal commands, and that the HX does not properly pass the entire string. This is not at all unusual. Many midi interfaces behave like this. I once had a Behringer BCR2000 that wouldn't pass sysex to a Behringer FCB1010. Over on the FCB1010/UNO users group there's a whole list of interfaces that will or won't pass sysex.

[phil_m]

8 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

My guess would be that updates are accomplished using sysex commands (strings, whatever), which are longer than normal commands, and that the HX does not properly pass the entire string. This is not at all unusual. Many midi interfaces behave like this. I once had a Behringer BCR2000 that wouldn't pass sysex to a Behringer FCB1010. Over on the FCB1010/UNO users group there's a whole list of interfaces that will or won't pass sysex.

 

This is exactly it. Nixie uses Sysex commands. The Stomp won't pass those commands from it's MIDI Thru jack (or technically, the MIDI Out jack set to Thru).

[moehuh]

Thanks guys! Yes, that makes sense with Sysex, haven't though about that.

 

Would there be any reason why a full message forwarding cannot be implemented? I'm not familiar with the machine level communication on MIDI messages.

 

In general, I experience from time to time that normal CC MIDI messages are not forwarded (the Stomp is currently before my Strymon units). Haven't had that problem with the Mobius instead of the Stomp. It's rarely, but it happpens. Maybe the whole forwarding could be improved

[phil_m]

2 hours ago, moehuh said:

Thanks guys! Yes, that makes sense with Sysex, haven't though about that.

 

Would there be any reason why a full message forwarding cannot be implemented? I'm not familiar with the machine level communication on MIDI messages.

 

In general, I experience from time to time that normal CC MIDI messages are not forwarded (the Stomp is currently before my Strymon units). Haven't had that problem with the Mobius instead of the Stomp. It's rarely, but it happpens. Maybe the whole forwarding could be improved

 

I don't think "MIDI forwarding" is the right way to think of it, as that kind of implies that the Stomp is actively processing the incoming MIDI messages somehow before passing them through. I think really all it's doing is filtering the Sysex messages out. Sysex messages can be problematic because they can sometimes disrupt the other messages from getting through and mess up the timing.

[codamedia]

IME... as far back as midi goes, sending sysex messages is best done directly to the device, or using a midi splitter. Midi Thru has always provided unpredictable results. IE: You got lucky with your initial setup :) 

[rd2rk]

5 hours ago, moehuh said:

In general, I experience from time to time that normal CC MIDI messages are not forwarded (the Stomp is currently before my Strymon units). Haven't had that problem with the Mobius instead of the Stomp. It's rarely, but it happpens. Maybe the whole forwarding could be improved

 

I've never experienced problems with CCs and MIDI Thru. If you have a preset that presents this problem predictably, attach a copy of the preset and I'll have a look at it.

[moehuh]

On 11/15/2019 at 5:37 PM, rd2rk said:

 

I've never experienced problems with CCs and MIDI Thru. If you have a preset that presents this problem predictably, attach a copy of the preset and I'll have a look at it.

 

Will do. So far it's been random. I'll also recheck all my MIDI cabling, maybe it's just a loose connection after the Stomp?

But like I said, it doesn't happen often (which makes trouble shooting harder...)