MPowerSynth Multiparmater Question

[dmbaer]

I'm confused about the behavior of the screen with which you assign a MIDI control to a multi-parameter slider in MPowerSynth. When that screen comes up, you have a left-hand panel. In that you see MP1 thru MP4 listed twice and checked both times. You see MP5 thru MP8 listed once and unchecked. Then you see a whole bunch of "... Gain" (I'm not at my DAW machine, so this is from memory). When you learn a MIDI control for MP5 thru MP8, nothing happens - the MIDI control that was "learned" is listed, but it does not work. You must click the appropriate MPn entry in the left hand panel for it to work.

What's going on here? I can't see any logical reason for this scheme of things and there's no documentation I can find in the MPowerSynth manual that explains it.

Why are there two entries for MP1 thru MP4. Why are they checked but MP5 thru MP8 are unchecked? Why are there multiple "...Gain" entries at the bottom of the list?

Thanks in advance for any clarification.

[MeldaProduction]

Well, I'm a little lost in the problem. Anyway the screen is actually MIDI settings (see MIDI button, bottom right of the plugin editor). Each item on the left is one MIDI controller, which has the target parameter (in your case a multiparameter), controller and range. It needs to be enabled by the check next to it. And of course you need to send MIDI to the plugin in your host. When you use the shortcut from multiparameters (right click and learn MIDI), then it simply opens this window again and selects one free controller, assigns the multiparameter and activates "Learn" (learn button), so you can just move any controller to learn it. Disable the learn or close the window and it will start working.

[dmbaer]

OK, I spent some more time with this and maybe understand it a little better. When loading a new project with MPowerSynth in my DAW, I get the following. I load the Default preset - nothing has happened prior to this. I get to the MIDI Settings window, and I see (in the left side panel) MP1 thru MP4 twice in that order (all checked) and then quite a few "Globals - Gain" entries (all the same) unchecked. So, two questions right away: 1) why have check boxes vs just the ability to delete an unwanted entry? and 2) what's the deal with all those "Globals - Gain" unchecked entries.

In any case, the content of the Default preset would explain why most other presets all had these entries (and sometimes, but not always, more entries. Pretty much all the presets I looked had those mysterious "Globals - Gain" entries cluttering up the MIDI settings.

My first attempts at playing with this (that is, getting MIDI controls learned for MP sliders), I got myself in a position where I was seeing MP5, MP6, MP7 and/or MP8 in the list but unchecked in every preset I looked at. With them unchecked, the learning assignment didn't "take". This took a while to figure out, I did get the MIDI learning to work once the entries got checked.

Now, is it possible that MPowerSynth should be clearing/refreshing the MIDI settings when you load a new preset (irrespective of having saved the current one) and is not doing so? It appears that the accumulated settings just stay there. If you add a MIDI learn to a preset and load a different preset, the earlier MIDI learn still seems to be there in the MIDI settings window. Maybe there's a reason for this behavior but it doesn't seem correct or logical to me. Thoughts?

[MeldaProduction]

First of all, yes MPowerSynth MIDI settings are stored with presets. You can override that by pressing the big "Do not load from presets" button .
Next it's there twice simply because each multiparameter has 2 controllers attached by default, simply because MIDI pseudostandard is an archaic mess and there are 128 controllers, most without a reasonable meaning. So 2 sets were chosen, both seemed reasonable.

Anyway I'm starting to feel like you want to do something really odd. What are you trying to accomplish?

[dmbaer]

What I'm trying to accomplish is to simply understand how this capability is supposed to work - a little documentation wouldn't hurt (hint, hint).

Don't get me wrong, I'm rather in awe of some of the possibilities MPowerSynth offers. I'm not trying to be critical other than hopefully in a constructive way.

I got really confused the first time I tried to do something with MIDI learn. Somehow, I got MP5 thru MP8 in the list (I still don't know how, but it was probably by visiting a preset that had them defined and they stayed in the list thereafter) and I could not get my MIDI controllers to alter the MPx slider settings. Turned out to be that MP5 thru MP8 were in the list but were there unchecked. Once checked, things worked as desired. Furthermore, as explained earlier, the multiple occurrences of "Globals - Gain" are baffling. What possible purpose do they serve?

The double occurrence of MP1 thru MP4 at least was not at all a mystery. With those, it was immediately clear that two mappings were present, as could be readily seen in the text box next to "CONTROLLER".

Nevertheless, how do you remove something from the list? I can't see any way to do that. Maybe I'm being dense, but deleting would seem more logical than unchecking. What purpose does an unchecked item in the list serve?

As to "DO NOT LOAD FROM PRESETS" - I honestly didn't notice that (not that it's not obvious now that you pointed it out). Is that a global option (I suppose I could just test it, but I'm not at my DAW"). But it is confusing in any case. Should the MIDI learn settings be on a preset by preset basis? Or is your intent to be able to define a consistent set of mappings that work the same on all presets? Seriously, a little documentation on this might have addressed all my questions, and I'm sure I won't be the last person form whom this area is a bit puzzling. I am a big fan of MIDI learn - I use it all the time. But this is the first instrument I've encountered which caused me to struggle to figure out how to get it to work.

[MeldaProduction]

Ok, now the question is what you find so confusing .
Anyway the list is kind of confusing - adding/deleting would be better, but there is a predefined number of controllers, for a simple reason - you can actually automate/modulate/control their ranges. So you may for example use one controller to control range of another one. That wouldn't be possible if these would be "deletable". So checking does the same purpose.
And why is there Gain by default? Well, because it's the first parameter . The controller needs to have a parameter associated and well, it takes the first one .

And about the "Do not load option" - by default the MIDI settings are stored with presets, assuming that the presets may have defined something specific. For example, Organ presets are different to others, because Mod wheel is managed by the Rotary FX. Most people also don't use MIDI settings , so you simply assume the settings will work. But if you have something special for your controller for example, you can just define it in the MIDI settings, save it as a preset and press the button, so that it stops loading the preset controllers. What can be quicker?

[dmbaer]

OK, I take back one thing I said ... I found the section documenting the MIDI Setting panel in the manual. Since there's no table of contents or index, I missed it when trying to track down an explanation. So, ignore the snarky remark earlier about this feature needing documentation.

[MeldaProduction]

Hehe no problem