Issue selecting a Preset and Scene with MIDI from Ableton/DAW

mcpable

New Member
I'm using the CC#34 Breath Controller to send a value of 0 to my Axe FX II, and it is not selecting Scene 1 like I would expect. If I change the value to 2 it will select Scene 3 for a couple seconds and then go to Scene 2.

But in another section of my song I have it select Scene 2 with a value of 1 in CC #34, and this actually seems to work fairly consistently. Though if I change the value to different numbers the behavior seems pretty erratic and isn't selecting what it seems like it should be (I just tried putting the value at 7 and it stayed on Scene 2).

I've got all my I/O settings according to what the Scenes Mini Manual says, and I set my MIDI output settings in Ableton to ON for everything in the Axe FX II Output section.

It seems like everything is set properly so I'm kinda stumped for why it's not working well.

Anybody else been through this before?
 
Use a MIDI port monitor like MidiOx to see what messages are actually being sent to the Axe. Sounds like Ableton is not sending the right messages or maybe something else may be conflicting with it. Also, make sure you pause or close Axe Edit anytime you are using the front panel or an external controller with the Axe. Axe Edit doesn't always play nice when you use other means to control the Axe while it's running.
 
Does the breath controller use values 0 to 128, or 0 to 100. I have trouble with my daw and midi because of this.
 
Awesome, closing Axe Edit did the trick. I still had to automate the envelope on CC34 to slope down to 0 value before bar 1 for there to seem to be a proper signal to change the AxeFX to Scene 1 (instead of just keeping the envelope flat on 0), but it works.

paranoid the breath controller uses values 0 to 127
 
Yeah you'll need an explicit message on bar 1 for it to change. If it is already at 0 during the count in, it may be filtering the redundant 0 value message and not send anything until the value changes to something else. I'm not familiar with Ableton, but check the MIDI options to see if there is a setting that might be filtering redundant MIDI messages like that.
 
Ableton is a great program, but editing midi envelopes is a major pain in the butt there. Dragging the mouse to change from 0 to 1 at exact locations is an art form for which I don't have the patience. Also, you need to be very exact because if there's any slope between two points it will continuously send midi data to Axe which may cause stuttering or other problems.

So what I ended up doing was creating short clips in Reaper with the most used commands I send to Axe (you can just type what you need there). I then add those clips to a track in Arrangement view, consolidate, and get a nice automation track.
 
Yeah Reaper has a built-in MIDI editor with an event list view that lets you edit individual MIDI messages. Gives you a lot of control over what exactly gets sent.
 
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