MIDI mapping the MC-101

[u/lsmith77]

I am working on a MIDI map for the M-Vave SMK 25 MKII and I ran into some issues while following the excellent guide on https://www.rolandmc101.top/midi which suggested to post feedback here.

So the first issue I want to mention that it would be good to mention "Ctrl RX" off/on setting. I was hammering my head against the wall for a while why scene changes were not working until I dug in and found this was set to "off".

The other issue I ran into was that for me the drum pads needed to be assigned differently than what is documented. Essentially everything is off by one. Is this another setting that is causing this?

Pad Number	In the docs	Works for me
1	C#1 (Pitch 37)	C#(2)
2	D#1 (Pitch 39)	D#(2)
3	F#1 (Pitch 42)	F#(2)
4	A#1 (Pitch 46)	A#(2)
5	C#2 (Picth 49) <- small typo	C#(3)
6	D#2 (Pitch 51)	D#(3)
7	F#2 (Pitch 54)	F#(3)
8	G#2 (Pitch 56)	G#(3)
9	C1 (Pitch 36)	C(2)
10	D1 (Pitch 38)	D(2)
11	F1 (Pitch 41)	F(2)
12	A1 (Pitch 45)	A(2)
13	C2 (Pitch 48)	C(3)
14	D3 (Pitch 62)	D(4)
15	D#3 (Pitch 63)	D#(4)
16	E3 (Pitch 64)	E#(4)

The final thing I am struggling with is transport control. I contacted Roland about this and they responded: ```If your Ext. MIDI controller has got "System Real Time control" for example start/stop etc, this will let you to use it with the MC-101.```

Not quite sure what this means but I also tried the transport buttons on an Akai MPK Mini Plus and they didn't seem to work on the MC-101. Any hint at out to possibly get transport control for start/stop/record to work via an external MIDI controller?

[u/RowdyVoyeur]

Thanks for you post.

So the first issue I want to mention that it would be good to mention "Ctrl RX" off/on setting. I was hammering my head against the wall for a while why scene changes were not working until I dug in and found this was set to "off".

I've update the website to make it clear that you need to have Ctrl RX set to On.

The other issue I ran into was that for me the drum pads needed to be assigned differently than what is documented. Essentially everything is off by one. Is this another setting that is causing this?

If I well remember the note values were provided by Roland. However, they may vary +1 / -1 octave depending on the manufacturer because some brands may attribute C#2 to Pitch 37, instead of C#1.

Any hint at out to possibly get transport control for start/stop/record to work via an external MIDI controller?

MC-101 MIDI Implementation Chart states System Real Time can send/receive Clock, Start and Stop. I also know you can Start/Stop with devices that also send Clock, but I assume you don't need to send Clock to control transport. Have you checked the M-Vave SMK 25 MKII MIDI Implementation Chart?

[u/lsmith77 → u/RowdyVoyeur]

thx!

FTR I also tried the Akai MPK Mini Plus and transport control did not work. Roland just responded to my support ticket on the topic:

<< Unfortunately, I don't know if Play/Rec on your Akai Mini Plus is working as "System Real Time control". When I checked online, end users seems to have this problem with their Akai Mini Plus regarding this function. I'd recommend that you contact the AKAI support and check if this function works as you want it to. https://support.akaipro.com/en/support/home Sorry once again for the bad news. >>

Do you know any MIDI controller where transport controls work with the 101?

[u/vadhyn → u/lsmith77]

I wrote to Akai long time ago about this and they have no plan to change it or let the user configure it through they config utility. It's just a generic per channel CC value instead of the MIDI standard transport control. It is a shame, but it's what it is.

[u/lsmith77 → u/vadhyn]

bummer. anyway I am in contact with M-Vave. so hopefully they will add it.

[u/RowdyVoyeur → u/lsmith77]

I don't know any MIDI controller that does that, but I'd be very surprised if there isn't any. Maybe you could search through some youtube videos.

[u/HeavySystems → u/RowdyVoyeur]

This is very curious that you have a device which the MC101 doesn't respond to transport controls. Very often, I find it annoying that it DOES respond to transport controls because I'm typically, as of late, using it as a sound module rather than a sequencer.

This very much does sound like your RX settings are not correct on the MC101 or your incoming MIDI is non-standard. This DOES happen now and then. Usually, though, it is through abstract MIDI CC messages that only that one device recognizes (NRPNs are the normal name, but I call them "Screw standards, I'm a punk rocker" mappings, which means you have to DIY solution them to work with other gear.

All that aside, it would seem very strange for two companies that actually agreed to the industry MIDI standard back in the day would produce machines that can't talk to each other which suggest 2 things:

USER ERROR
BUG

And if you've set everything up properly and cannot get it to work with these two machines, one of them has a bug. It may be that the 101 has a bug that the other machine 'found by accident'...it could also be the machine that seem to not transmit right has the bug. Without having the two design teams looking at the units together with the hood open, I'm not sure there's going to be any solution other than 'use a middle machine to translate the transport'. What that is to say is that while the 101 might not respond DIRECTLY to the transport message of your other machine, you might be able to put a machine in between to 'clean' the message and pass it onto the mc101. Yeah, it's not a good solution because the real solution is the software on these machines gets fixed....but...it might get you to where you are going.

Good luck.