Mod wheel affects all tracks at once?

Tom Auger

Hi, I'm perplexed. In Group A I recorded a pattern with an Instrument on Pad 1, and used the mod wheel for some gentle modulation

Then I duplicated the pattern, and loaded a second instrument on Pad 2, and recorded another "track" with different modulation on the mod wheel.

But somehow that's affecting the modulation on Pad 1 as well, which is weird because the second time I recorded the mod wheel, it was while performing with Pad 2 selected.

I can't imagine that you can only have 1 mod wheel per group, since you are able to record completely different MIDI data per Pad (which I think of as "tracks" in a sense).

Am I mistaken? Are we limited to a single mod wheel input per pattern per group or have I made an error somewhere? Is it possible I somehow enabled MIDI recording for 2 pads at once?

In case it makes a difference, I used the mod wheel on the S61 not the touch strip + mod on the Maschine hardware.

Tom Auger

A couple more things I'm observing:

1. I Undid my take and both the second Pad's "track" recording and the second modulation were reverted, which is what I was expecting.
2. I disarmed record and, with Pad 2 selected, started jogging the modwheel on the S61 while playing notes, and the modulation only seemed to affect Pad 2, not Pad 1
3. As soon as I armed record however, the modwheel once again "took over" / replaced modulation values on Pad 1.
4. The modulation is "quantized", as one can see by looking at the mod wheel MIDI data. I didn't think modwheel adjustments would be quantized - in most other DAWs that sort of thing is not generally quantized.
5. This behaviour seems to be the same regardless of whether I use the keyboard's mod wheel or the touch strip on the Mk3
6. On a different Group I loaded two completely different instruments into Pads 1 & 2, and applied modulation to them. The "takeover" effect wasn't happening, and based on the modwheel data, seems to NOT be happening. Could it be a bug (or idiosyncracy) with the Instrument? The Group A instrument is Saffron
7. It gets weirder. On Group 2 I hit Clear Auto, which cleared all automation from both Pads 1 & 2 (I suppose this is the expected behaviour). Then I re-recorded the modulation for Group B and it AFFECTED GROUP A! How is this even possible?

I'm clearly missing an important concept, or something is very messed up with Saffron….

Any advice or troublshooting tips? Or are things working exactly as intended and I've missed the point entirely?

Tom Auger

Actually, the more I play with the mod wheel in Maschine the less sense it's making.

I just recorded an FM3 on Pad 3 and the playback sounds NOTHING like what I recorded. I've done a number of takes, and I'm watching the MIDI data as it gets recorded, and sometimes, as soon as I have finished my recording (I disarm recording before the loop ends but keep the loop playing) the data completely changes.

In one case, I was recording a smooth sweep and then when it looped, any Mod wheel data that didn't correspond to the time I pressed a key was erased.

Another time, that wasn't the case, but the resulting modulation when playing back sounds nothing like what it looks like.

This is nuts. I'm going to reboot the computer and see if that changes anything because there's no way this is operating as intended unless I have a deep miconception of mod wheel data in Maschine.

Tom Auger

Sorry, I'm just talking to myself because it's late and I'm completely flabbergasted.

I think I can conclude that the modwheel seems to be additive ACROSS ALL GROUPS!

This is absolutely INSANE - Native Instruments, Spitfire, a ton of other VIs all use the modwheel for things like OSC A/B blend (like Hypha or Arkhis) or for things like expression (Stradivari Violin etc). It's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to compose any kind of music that requires INDIVIDUAL MODULATION PER INSTRUMENT.

I mean, this is a BASIC fact in every DAW I've ever used. Can anyone explain how this can be?

As soon as you record a second track, be it in the same group or a different group, the modwheel data that is recorded OVERLAYS on all the other tracks.

The weird part is: ONLY ON PLAYBACK after modulation has been recorded.

In other words: if you're just trying out an instrument while the other tracks are playing and you adjust the modwheel, only the currently focused instrument is affected. Same thing as you're recording - all sounds fine. Then as soon as the pattern loops, all other patterns that are playing seem to be affected by this additive thing.

Please tell me there's a setting that fixes this, or that I'm using Maschine in completely wrong way. I've not spent 4 hours experimenting and Googling and I'm not seeing anyone else complain about this!

What am I missing?

(I promise, this is the last I'll write until someone responds)

Thanks in advance for your moral and technical support haha.

ozon

„Yes“ - Kosh (Vorlon Ambassador on Babylon 5)

ozon

You ran into limitations of Maschine:

• There is no concept of arming a track (Sound) for recording - instead recording is global and the destination is determined by the current focus.
• The MIDI channel information for all MIDI controller events (not only Mod-Wheel) is ignored and the events are sent to all destinations.

which is fine as long as you are only using the Maschine controller, but is almost unusable with external MIDI controllers.

There are long standing (like ten years) feature requests to fix these and several related issues.

Tom Auger

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/198456#Comment_198456

"Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth."

Tom Auger

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/198871#Comment_198871

Thanks for this info, but I think I'm still confused.

I will go back and try this again, but I think I was seeing the same behaviour with "Mod" on and using the Machine touchstrip.

But I don't understand why the Mod wheel works fine when playing during recording (only affects the current Sound) but affects ALL Sounds across ALL groups when playing back?

D-One

I'm confused about what you are doing and what you mean by "quantized". Are you just using the mod wheel normally or have you MIDI learned it inside a plugin or something? MAS-Plugin or MAS-standalone app?

Mod Wheel Modulation is Per Pad, it's does not affect other Pads. One Mod lane per Group would be crazy.

It does overwrite itself if you do multi-passes while moving the wheel.

Note that this sort of data looks awkward in Maschine, visually it looks like a mod-wheel would behave as a Pitch wheel "and return to zero" due to the 'gaps', but like any other host, it does not… If there's an open gap before the next part pattern it will bleed into it, hard to explain in words…

On a DAW it looks like the Pink line below:

If you do a lot of pattern switching you may have a pattern that ends with an "open gap" without noticing it, if you do you will have unexpected results when the next Pattern starts.

Tom Auger

Heya @D-One ! Thanks for your feedback.

I agree with you - this behaviour is cray-cray, but I have literally proven that modulation automation that is recorded in one Group affects ALL playing groups. It's insane.

There are many ways to test this out:

In Group A, add an instrument that uses Mod Wheel for expression - I used Guarneri Violin for example. Record a very gradual rise and fall of the mod wheel. Something that will be obvious if it changes.

In Group B, add an instrument that uses Mod Wheel for A/B blend, like Hypha, or maybe Arkhis which does the A+B+C blend. Something noticeable again, but this time, record a rapid modulation with the mod wheel.

Note that while recording, it behaves as expected: modulation recorded in that Pad/Instrument only affects that instrument.

Make sure you stop recording before it loops otherwise things get messy.

Now, with record turned off, but playback still looping - dial down the volume of Group B so you can focus on what's happening in Group A. Sure enough, the violin's volume now cuts in and out, as the Mod Data from Group B gets added to the Mod Data from Group A.

So that's the real weirdness.

The second thing was the quantization - I had my quantize grid set to 1/16 and all mod wheel "events" were quantized to that grid. So instead of the (relatively) smooth series of events you showwed in your screenshot, I was getting only events at the 1/16 marks.

I tried using my S61's mod wheel AND I used the touchstrip on the MK3 with Mod turned on to see if it was the external MIDI controller causing the issue.

I should actually record this whole thing on video just to prove (to myself!) that I'm not completely insane.

D-One

It sounds to me like you might have some of MIDI looping issue… Could you be sending the MIDI to some HW then receiving it back?

Maschine does not differentiate MIDI Channels for some things when its comming from a 3rd party / generic port, maybe thats what happening? I had a similar issue due to a IAC virtual port.

Check your MIDI prefs, disable all ports you aren't using, make sure you're not sending/receiving to those and check your Groups/Pad IO inputs. Or… zip an example project and upload please.

Tom Auger

I had to prove it to myself (also, NI Support asked for a video). Here's just a short capture of the result of recording Modwheel input on two different Instruments in two different Groups.

You can see how the Violin Expression control is jumping around even though the recorded modulation is a very smooth ramp. When I switch to Group B you can see where the additional modulation info is coming from.

Note that while Record was not enabled, I could modulate freely in Group B without affecting Group A at all. It was only when I hit record and started playing the Group B instrument that the modulation was also being picked up by Group A.

As a side note - you can also see the "quantization" I was talking about earlier - somehow the Mod Wheel input is being treated more as note input than Automation input.

ozon

Thank you very much for the video. That’s more insane than I expected.

As @D-One already suggested: Are you sure you don’t have a MIDI loop in your setup? It looks as if Group B sends the ModWheel data out and Group A receives it.

ozon

@Tom Auger tested and verified. This is a major bug. On which exact version of Maschine did you observe this behavior?

@D-One bug report filed. Maybe you can confirm it.

D-One

Quantize: If you draw with the mouse you get steps in whatever step grid value you have active, this does not happen when using an actual mod wheel or mouse drawing with Step Grid OFF…

What seems to be the issue here and what causes it is the actual mouse lane drawing — If I just use the mod-wheel its all good but once I mouse-draw all hell breaks loose but only with Kontakts fancy orchestral instruments, in my case i tried with Stradi Violin and String Ensemble and I can now confirm OP report but…

With for example Analog Dreams, Vintage Organs or Serum (3rd party) it doesn't happen.

Also, I can't be sure because I did not test a ton of instruments but in my case only Instrument #1 (String Ens) gets affected by Instrument #2's (Stradi Violin) modwheel's lane, not the other way around — in #1 there's no parameter pre-mapped for "Dynamics" (the big knob in the middle of the GUI, and one cant be created?) since this is what modwheel controls that might have an influence on the issue or root cause of the bug.

To make things even stranger I have none of these issues in Maschine 2, only in Maschine 3, but OP has a video of MAS2 🤷‍♂️

Tom Auger

Thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in this weird bug, and thanks for confirming that I'm not going crazy.

@ozon It's Maschine 2.18.4 that I'm running currently. Haven't upgraded to 3 yet.

@D-One I'll test to see if it's like you say - the CC data overlays lower-order Groups (like Group B adding to Group A).

@D-One I have never tried MIDI drawing, but I can see how that would add quantization to the CC data.

The only thing I've done to record modwheel CC data is use either the Mod Wheel on my S61 Mk2, and using the MOD mode along with the touchstrip on the MAS itself. (Haven't tried on my other NI keyboards yet, but probably won't make a difference).

I did notice one thing though - recording CC data using either the Mod wheel OR the Expression touchstrip (on my S61) gets logged as MIDI data in Maschine and is quantized, whereas turning on AUTO and using the knobs gets logged as Automation data and is NOT quantized. This holds true for instruments where the Blend/Modwheel is exposed as a parameter (usually on rotary encoder #1). I've even played around with recording BOTH Modwheel and Encoder 1 and the results were inconclusive.

I've logged a support ticket along with the YouTube video (here's the video: https://studio.youtube.com/video/vfwhQwzjs1w/edit)