MIDI Notes On/Off

H

Hollywood

Member
Is there no way to assign a MIDI note On and Off function separately?

I only get the option of 'Note' it seems?

Other controllers I've been using have the option to program both and On & Off, am I missing something?

Im running into the problem of being able to turn on a setting, but then not being able to turn it off.

Any and all help you can provide would be much appreciated, thanks in advance!
 
When programmed with a note action, the button sends a note on when turned on and a note off when it's turned off.

When do you need the button to send, exactly?
 
Well, ideally i'd like it send the On message when it's 'pressed' and the Off message when it's released. In a momentary type of way, but I realize that may not be possible.

Id gladly settle for being able to turn the effect on and off, via a note button. But, it's not working for me, for some reason.

When I programmed my other controller, it works perfect. But that controller makes me program and on and off and assign when I'd like the action performed.

As is though, I've got the effects turning on via the Mastermind...but when I turn the button off, the state of the effect remains on.
 
If you turn on the Momentary checkbox, it will send note on when pressed and note off when released.

What effect are you using? I've never heard of one that uses note messages.
 
So, that's what I thought, about the momentary function....but, it didn't work for me for some reason.

The device I'm controlling is actually an iPad....so, these note on/off's are being sent thru the USB out.

Is it possible that the USB out doesn't send 'off' messages, and only sends 'on's?

(the program I'm controlling is LightRider....it's a DMX program)
 
The same messages should be sent whether it's coming out USB or the MIDI port.

There is one possible issue I could think of, although it's not an issue I've ever seen before. There are two ways to specify "note off". There is a specific "note off" message, but you can also send a "note on" with velocity of 0. Keyboards are supposed to handle both types properly. We send "note on, velocity 0" - maybe this DMX program doesn't handle it correctly?

There is a way to get the GT to send an actual note off, but it's a bit awkward. You could define sysex messages (which don't actually have to be sysex messages, but can be any MIDI message) and use that to send a "real" note off. If you give me an example of a note you're sending, I can give you a note off message in sysex format to try.
 
Okay, so I'm nearly certain that is, in fact the problem. I did alternatively try sending a Note On message w/ a velocity of zero, from another button....to turn off the effect that was on (from sending velocity of 127), and it didn't work.

So, I'd love it if you could help me get this working, even if it is through sysex that'd be fine; although programming that is definitely over my head, so hopefully you can talk me through it.

An example of one of the notes I'm trying to turn on/off is: 58

Once again, I appreciate all of your help w/ this....thank you!
 
As a reminder, I'd like it to be a momentary press too...where it sends on as it's pressed, and off as it's released (if that makes any difference in the coding.)
 
Ok, so a note off message looks like this:

8c nn 00

c is the MIDI channel
nn is the note nubmer
00 is the release velocity. I put 00 here, because veloicty probably doesn't matter. (Hopefully it doesn't?)

Now, the unfortunate thing about Sysex is that the numbers are specified in hexadecimal, which is a very nerdy thing that end users really shouldn't be subjected to. But, it's been the standard for sysex for decades.

So, let's start with the first number: 8c. "c" needs to be replaced with your MIDI channel number. 0 = channel 1, 1 = channel 2, 2 = channel 3, etc. until you get to channel 11. A = channel 11, B = channel 12, etc.

nn is the note number, translated to hexadecimal. 58 in hexadecimal is "3A". You can use a site like this to do the translation for you: https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/decimal-to-hex.html

So, if you want to send a note off for note 58 on channel 1, it would be:
80 3A 00

Go to the Sysex tab, select one of the Sysex messages in the left column, and put those numbers in the edit field on the right. Let's say you edited sysex #0. You could name it "Note off 58" or something like that.
On your button, leave the existing action and add a Sysex action: Sysex off:0 on:None. This will cause it to send the note off message when the button is turned off (or released in the case of a momentary button)

This workaround should get you going. I apologize for this being so complicated, note off has never been an issue before. I will look into adding an option to select whether notes send note on velocity 0 or note offs.
 
Wow, I appreciate the very descriptive information on how to do this!

That definitely sheds some light on things...

Sadly this still isn't working.

I know on my other pedal I have the Note On & Note Off Velocity both set at 127.

Press: Note On, #58, Velocity 127
Release: Note Off, #58, Velocity 127

I tried messing w/ some of the values in the formula you just gave me, so I wouldn't have to keep bothering you with this, lol.

But, unfortunately I still came up empty handed...

Any other ideas?
 
Okay, so I did a little research....

And, I discovered that in order to signify a velocity of 127, i needed to type '7F' where the velocity part is at.

So, I altered the formula and put: 80 3A 7F

And sadly it still didn't work.

So, out of curiosity to just test and see if the iPad was reading sysex at all...

I made an Note On version of this formula: 90 3A 7F

I assigned that to the Note On, and the other one to the Note Off....and deleted my previous Note Message.

This still didn't work :-(

I'm kind of at a loss here.....it's mind boggling to me that I can get the 'On' to work, but can't get it turn off.

I'm usually really good and figuring this kind of stuff out; I honestly don't think it's user error, ive done everything precisely as you told me too.

Any other help you can give would be beyond appreciated!
 
Excellent!

The two buttons I'm trying to tinker w/ are on the main page, labeled 'FOG' and 'Blackout'.

I'm sure you've already looked into this, but the program I'm trying to control is available for free on the Apple App Store.

Here is a link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/light-rider-dmx-light-control/id1201649563

I do have plans on programming a bunch of other buttons to do similar functions, but they all are controlled by notes in the same way....so if we can just figure out how to get one of these working properly, I should be home free.

Again, I can't thank you enough for going out of your way to help me w/ this!! Very cool of ya.
 

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It looks like the firmware is simply not capable of sending "real" note offs via USB MIDI. I'll fix this in the next release.
 
excellent! I had a feeling that may be the case, but I'm thrilled to hear you'll include the fix in the next update. thanks again!
 
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