Midi send/return issue

[bwquestion]

Hey all, first my apologies if this is something I am missing but I am not even sure what search terms to use to search for.  I will explain my problem.

I have the NDLR connected by USB to my computer.  I have Ableton Live, Cakewalk, and Midi Ox that has produced this issue.

I have the NDLR set to send midi out of USB1 which shows up in all the software as NDLR.  Motif 1 goes out channel 1, Motif 2 goes out channel 2, Drone goes out channel 3, Pad goes out 4 and has P-Chains enabled (4) so there is also MIDI data going out channels 6 and 7 (not sure what happened to 5 but that is not of particular importance right now).

If i select the input and output from any software I have, it seems to make a loop and the NDLR is repeating the same MIDI messages it is sending out.  I am not really sure what to make of this as I have a good bit of hardware and have not seen this particular issue before.  If this is happening with other hardware they seem to be ignoring the looped data they have sent that gets returned to them.

Is there a setting or something that I have missed?  I have tried the last two firmware release versions and the current beta for the NDLR and the problem (or my lack of knowledge) seems to exist across all of them.

If I disable the MIDI send in the software, the problem goes away but I cannot send any MIDI to the NDLR.

I hope I have worded this in a way that makes since.  Any help or pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Bryant 

[Alan]

The NDLR has a MIDI through for incoming data. It talks about that in the manual.

[bwquestion]

The NDLR has a MIDI through for incoming data. It talks about that in the manual.

Alan, thank you for getting me pointed in the right direction.

Interesting. I do see that in the manual. Is there any way to change this to just in/out instead of in/thru? Seems like this always being on makes it really easy to get an unintended loop? Other devices I have seem to ignore any data that comes back in that originated on that device or they just do not pass data from the in to the out. They usually have a thru port for this type of thing.

[Jesse Johannesen]

The NDLR has a MIDI through for incoming data. It talks about that in the manual.

Alan, thank you for getting me pointed in the right direction.

Interesting.  I do see that in the manual.  Is there any way to change this to just in/out instead of in/thru?  Seems like this always being on makes it really easy to get an unintended loop?  Other devices I have seem to ignore any data that comes back in that originated on that device or they just do not pass data from the in to the out.  They usually have a thru port for this type of thing.

Hey Bryant, 
I'll see if I can figure out a solution with you. I'll cut and paste the manual here too for your reference. Gimme a minute. 
Jesse

[bwquestion]

Hey Bryant, 
I'll see if I can figure out a solution with you. I'll cut and paste the manual here too for your reference. Gimme a minute. 
Jesse

Not sure if you read the post above, but I have the manual and have read the references to the merging of information coming into the unit and information being generated by the unit. It seems as though the designers made this a design decision.  All of the "outs" on the unit are actually thru/merge/out ports and the unit does not recognize and filter out its own information.  It would have been nice to have at least one of the USB in's and one of the DIN in's actually just be in's and not pass through to the corresponding out.  Something like USB1 in/out and DIN in/out A be true in's and out's without the thru.

Also, it seems strange that both of the responses to this question seem to refer back to the manual even though there does not seem to be anything in the manual that will solve the problem.  If there is something in the manual that will show how to change the in/out/thru situation to just in/out, providing a page number would be great.  Or if there is a filter that can be turned on to allow the NDLR to drop its own incoming messages that have looped a page number to that would be great also.

Thanks for the help.

[Jesse Johannesen]

I had originally misinterpreted your post as saying you had not found where in the manual this is discussed, but noticed shortly after posting my reply, sorry for the confusion. I think what needs to be done to solve this may be to use 2 different ports. Since your MIDI is going out USB1 to your DAW, can you send it back through USB 2? that way it isn't then sent back into the DAW for a second pass, and goes out to downstream MIDI gear from there? USB 2 has the added bonus of passing start and stop messages to downstream gear, which may be beneficial (or not, depending on your setup).

USB 1 in sends MIDI data thru to 5pin DIN A and out USB1, where USB 2 sends out 5Pin DIN B, and USB2, passing (Start & Stop).
The path would look something like this:

NDLR-USB1->DAW-USB2->NDLR-5PINB->-(splitter?)->Synths
\->USB2->DAW->Synth plugins

Does that seem like it might be doable?
Jesse

[bwquestion]

I had originally misinterpreted your post as saying you had not found where in the manual this is discussed, but noticed shortly after posting my reply, sorry for the confusion. I think what needs to be done to solve this may be to use 2 different ports. Since your MIDI is going out USB1 to your DAW, can you send it back through USB 2? that way it isn't then sent back into the DAW for a second pass, and goes out to downstream MIDI gear from there? USB 2 has the added bonus of passing start and stop messages to downstream gear, which may be beneficial (or not, depending on your setup).

USB 1 in sends MIDI data thru to 5pin DIN A and out USB1, where USB 2 sends out 5Pin DIN B, and USB2, passing (Start & Stop).
The path would look something like this:

NDLR-USB1->DAW-USB2->NDLR-5PINB->-(splitter?)->Synths
                                              \->USB2->DAW->Synth plugins

Does that seem like it might be doable?
Jesse

After being put on the right path (no pun intended), that is indeed what I was coming up with also.  It is just very strange that we have 6 possible paths for MIDI to travel and they all are passing MIDI thru.  It would seem that at the very least one of the USB paths would be standard in/out.  I can imagine that several users have probably given up on this device and sold it because it was doing this and they thought they were doing something wrong or could not figure it out.  Especially being that a default MIDI in/out does not usually do a thru automatically.  I do have some devices with the option to do a thru with the out but even those are not enabled by default because of the possibility of creating a MIDI loop and getting irregular signals.

Again, thanks for your assistance with this.

[AlexisMori]

Hi...In the event that I get it you, you're attempting to record the MIDI input and sound yield at the same time onto one track. This can't be done, you'll record either one or the other, but not both.

https://www.7pcb.com/