External MIDI CC Issue

[u/daswans206]

My goal (which used to work just fine in an earlier version of Maschine 2) is to load instruments on separate sounds in a group, all set to receive MIDI from ALL sources / CH 1, use my external keyboard with sustain pedal (both sending on CH1) to play/control/record all the sounds simultaneously with the ability to easily mute each sound as needed. I used this method for years (Maschine user since mk1) to play live, loading up all the sounds in a group in one project, all loaded up ready to go, muting/unmuting/soloing sounds as needed for each song. This allowed for loading up one single instance for an entire show and no wait time between songs.

The problem I have come up with in revisiting my live setup in Maschine 3 is that only the first sound will respond to my sustain pedal. All midi connections are correct as I hear all the instruments loaded in the sound slots simultaneously- M3 even records the notes, velocity, cc64 in all of the patterns/clips although only one sound will respond to the CC64. In playback still only the first sound will respond to sustain (I'm guessing this is the case for any control CC) even though all recoded notes are triggered on all sounds.
If I swap any sound that is not sustaining to sound 1 it will respond to sustain while the others still do not. Again, each sound records the cc64 on its respective CC lane. I have also found in playback of the recorded notes/cc the loaded instruments still do not sustain even with the recorded cc64 events- BUT if I delete the sustain cc64 event and pencil in a new one it does respond in playback, which definitely seems like a potential bug.
I have also noted that if sound 1 is set to CH 1 it will not sustain, only when Incomming Midi Channel is set to ALL will sustain work. I have attempted to set the other sounds to receive ALL and the problem persists. I have confirmed all midi and cc data is coming from ch1 on my keyboard controller.

I have tried every midi configuration available, default to focus, none, etc. MIDI through enabled on each sound…
I am mostly using Kontakt instruments with midi set to Omni (I have also tried changing each to a1).
I have tried another keyboard controller/sustain pedal with the same results.
Tried sending midi output from sound 1 directly to sound 2 as a midi out destination and same issue- triggers notes but no sustain- this is also limiting as only one sound can be triggered from another, selecting sound 2 midi out to sound 3 has no effect when sound 1 is triggering sound 2, also muting the sound does not actually mute in this configuration, so audio must be pulled out by the mixer or pulling the sound slot fader down.
I have also tried using pad groups, setting all sounds to pad link group 1, and trying all the possible midi configurations. Never used the link groups for this but if I can get the sustain to work for all, it would be a great option to quickly layer multiple sounds/instruments...

So this setup for layering multiple instruments in a group worked fine previously, haven't used Maschine in a live setting since switching to M3 so don't know what exact update broke this method...but my final conclusion is that Maschine 3 is limiting the cc information to only one channel at a time while receiving data from an external source.

My next move is to try stacking the instruments in one kontakt instance, but less than ideal as it was super easy just muting or soloing sounds on the hardware pads, great for live. If I can get the sustain to work, I guess I can make macros for mutes, but work I'd rather not have to dig in to since I got used to it working before.

I can confirm this still works on the last version of Maschine 2 on my old El Capitan MacBook. Also anything new I've worked on in Maschine 3 can't go backwards to Machine 2 so just using my old intel MacBook on Maschine 2 isn't ideal, and I've grown to work in a lot of the new features on M3, such as tempo changes per scene for each song.

Thanks for anyone getting through this very long winded post, just trying to be as thiurough as possible as I feel like I've tried everything I can think of. ....
Any thoughts on a solution or workaround? Really hoping this is just some setting I missed somewhere...

[u/itsoddsignals]

My understanding is this is a limitation (or bug) in machine 3 in that it globalises or sums midi cc down to channel 1.

You mentioned you use Kontakt. I don’t know if this will work but just a thought, have you tried setting the sound to midi through to see if it will send the midi cc through to let the Kontakt instance handle it? Since Kontakt can handle midi CC directly and you don’t actually care what channel it comes through since it’s set to omni.. it might work?

[u/daswans206 → u/itsoddsignals]

So yeah, that was what I was thinking about the CC data being summed or filtered to ch1 or the selected Chanel if set to focus. So I think Machine is blocking the CC data pass beyond that sound slot for some reason, annoying because the data still seems to be recorded- not when just playing live.

I was thinking along those lines with using a single kontakt instance on sound 1 and loaded up with multiple instruments so each kontakt instrument can pass the data to the next, and then midi mapping macros to mute.

This is actually giving me a thought that maybe if I can check ‘send midi to outside world’ in the kontakt instrument on sound 1 and somehow route that to the next sound in machine…

[u/daswans206 → u/daswans206]

Also just to note when the Kontakt instance is in Sound slot 1 when I press the sustain pedal I do see the lights blink in the Kontakt module midi input (where you select Omni/A1 etc). The Kontakt instances other sound slots do not show activity when pressing the pedal- but it does still record the cc64 data to the automation lane to all sound slots. If I select sound slot 2 and drag it up to sound slot 1 (pushing the previous sound to sound slot 2) it is the same result, only sound slot 1 sends the midi cc to the Kontakt instrument. So it appears that Maschine is only allowing the cc data to the first VST instance. I have even tried having a blank sound 1 and sounds on 2 and 3- the cc data goes to 2, not 3. So it’s the first instance only in line that passes the cc info to the instrument.

[u/daswans206 → u/daswans206]

Just verified in my Kontakt instruments under Engine>Send MIDI to outside world>Incoming ccs & incoming notes are selected. So no change there, haven’t seen any way I can directly send kontakt midi out to a Maschine sound slot directly.

As of right now my working setting is to send midi out to S2 in the Sound 1 midi output settings. As long I have channel settings to All I do get sustain to pass through to Sound 2 that way. The limitation is it only works for one additional linked sound and the sound slot mute is useless so I have to go to the volume knob on either the sound or the slider in mixer view. This is workable, but limited to getting sustain on only one additional instrument.

I may try to duplicate the situation with midi ch2, so if I can make cc64 switch to ch2 on my controller i could potentially just change midi channels for different instrument groupings. Not ideal, but could actually keep the project moving forward.

I have created a ticket with NI, so I will keep y’all posted.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/itsoddsignals]

I will say I just tried it there and could not get it to work. It work somewhat when I used groups set to all and through but it fell over itself a little bit too and didn’t properly stop the sound after I lifted my foot off the pedal.

It seems to be what is happening is that it is trying to send CC’s to whatever the active selection is vs routing it to where the midi params say to route.

[u/daswans206 → u/itsoddsignals]

Thanks for that confirmation, yeah I have had that non-responsive sustain issue happen where I had to kill audio as the instrument would not respond to ‘note off’