Why am I seeing a massive flood of sysex messages using s88mk3?

B4Time · 2025-03-24T20:50:29+00:00

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For no particular reason i turned on the Midi Monitor function in Studio One 7 and discovered that there was an absolute flood of sysex messages streaming way faster than one could read. They are all "Sent" sysex messages. If I filter out the Sent messages the sysex flood stops. The DAW is otherwise silent - no running projects just a blank generic Studio One 7 template on the screen. No reason for tons of sysex to be pumping out as far as I can tell. The keyboard functions fine. No hint that anything is definitely wrong although I have noticed some small delays or decreased responsiveness in the DAW when using the S88 (which is to say all the time). I noticed that if I go into External Devices in Studio One and disconnect the "Send To" midi from "Komplete Kontrol DAW" the sysex stream stops cold.

With just limited testing I haven't found that disconnecting the Send To has any detrimental effect although Native Instruments clearly indicated that Komplete Kontrol Daw should be connected to both Send To and Receive From in Studio One external devices.

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B4Time

Got a reminder from NI asking if this was resolved. The answer is YES. The massive flood of sysex has stopped cold. Why? I'm not sure. I had stopped bothering with trying to figure it out cuz (although it kind of bothered me😂) it did not seem to effect performance. Then one day I checked and the sysex had totally stopped. I think I changed the keyboard to a different USB port in the interim so maybe that was it.

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B4Time

Ok. So totally wrong about maybe not needing Send To connected. If you do that it will send messages from whatever plugin window is open but once you move off that plugin all conection to the keyboard is lost.

So back to orig question which is basically why is there this flood of sysex data in my midi monitor that stops cold if Send To is disconnected?

Skijumptoes

The 'Komplete Kontrol DAW' port is used to screen functions and such like, that's what the SysEx messages are. I've not used the MIDI monitor in Studio One to know if you're just watching those usual communications, or if this is data that's spilling into your timeline.

So just check your Studio One MIDI setup screen (External Devices), and ensure that you have the two standard entries:

Keyboard entry for 'Kontrol Mk3' In+Out and
Control surface entry set to 'Kontrol DAW' In+Out

Then you're good.

If you've accidentally set up the 'DAW' port as a keyboard entry then it could cause problems, and you'd be best to refer back to the manual and check that Studio One is setup correctly.

B4Time

Thanks for responding. I was wondering if this is just the necessary communications between the mk3 and Studio One to keep screen updated etc. I am just surprised that the stream in just flying and it seems to be "mostly" the same message which I cannot decipher.

Skijumptoes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/218100#Comment_218100

Mainly it's just ASCII character codes converted to hex for the track names when they're changed or you navigate the project, but the VU Meter positions will be constant across all 8 banks. i.e. 8 channels of dancing meters will see more variance across the SysEx data than 1 channel.

B4Time

I really appreciate your thoughtful input. It all makes sense except the volume of constant messages makes me think there may be an issue. I read elsewhere that issues with messages not incuding a string that terminates or devices not recognizing the termination code can result in massively repeated messages. I think you know more about this than I do. Would that make sense for explaining the essentially constant message stream?? Or is it simply normal with the mk3 devices to have a constant stream of sysex?

B4Time

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