Helix Midi control...few questions

[themetallikid]

-- press the Helix button. You should see something in the Monitor window. DATA1 should be 50-53 (hex values corresponding to decimal 80-83). DATA2 should be 7F (decimal 127) and CHAN should be, in my case, 5.

I was good til here.  I get nothing when I step on my Prev/Next Song buttons.  Using channel 5, and CC 80/81.  I exited 'stomp mode' and changed presets and the Midi Input Monitor went nutz...I switched back to my preset I want to use and it again went nuts.  One time not stopping...it literally scrolled for about 5 or 6 seconds before I killed the application and exited. 

Hm....

in the android app, I get the same response, both set to channel 5, and 80/81 only setup for prev/next song buttons and I get nothing in the activity log under the midi status. 

Only thing left would be to try a new cord...but this is with the USB cord, not the MIDI 2x2 I was trying before....i unfortunately get the same thing with the midi 2x2....

[iguana]

Hmm... Sounds like the Helix is going into some kind of MIDI feedback loop...

Check the MIDI settings in Helix Global.:(going by memory here, I'm now 1000km from home)
- MIDI Base Channel should be anything but the number you assigned to BH. If you gave 5 to BH, make the Helix 3, say.
- MIDI Thru should be Off
- MIDI over USB should be On
- MIDI PC Send/Receive should be Off. (**)
- Tempo Select and Snapshot BPM settings are irrelevant to this

** For now. I think you'll want this to be on for your use case, but just for testing, make sure it is off.

Also, because I'm going from memory, I might have one or two of those parameters wrong. If so, post a pic of the Helix MIDI settings screen so I can refer to it.

Once you've confirmed the Helix settings, try the MIDI-Ox test again. And if you can, post a screen shot of the input window - it would be nice to see what data is being sent.

One more thing - make sure HX Edit is not running when you use MIDI-Ox...

[arlo]

Also, BandHelper has Settings > Audio & MIDI > MIDI Thru that should be off unless you have a specific need to use it.

[themetallikid]

yeah for Midi global settings:
Midi Thru Off (was turned on, but didnt change anything)

Midi Base channel I had set to 5 same as BH, and I was getting the CC information in the Midi Android App you instructed earlier, showing my 80-83 CC/127 values...if I change this to channel 3, I get the same reaction/feedback. 

Midi over USB - On
Midi PC REceive - MIDI + USB
Midi PC Send - MIDI + USB

In the BH app, I do have the 'Thru' setting off....

In the BH Midi Status Window (when you touch the Midi jack icon), it shows MIDI RUNNING in green, and shows connected ports BH Input/Output RCT6513W87 for both.  The Activity Log shows Midi Started and some other information of 'found RTP port BH', 'adding port BH' etc...but nothing when I push the stomp buttons on the Helix. 

[iguana]

Looks like all those settings in Helix and BH re: MIDI setup are good.

So, just to get this straight - MIDI Commander shows the button press from the Helix.  Correct channel, too?

Then the MIDI log in BH is a bit puzzling. Did you scroll the log window down to see if there were any other messages? (And I apologise in advance if that sounds like I'm asking the blatantly obvious...) The reason I'm asking is that the RCT6513W87 device, I when I googled it, appears to be the tablet itself.

When you go into the setlist, is Android ever asking you to allow a connection to another device? Like a "Line 6 Helix" or a "2x2"? I'm guessing not - what is showing in the BH MIDI log is only the BH is talking to the tablet's internal MIDI, rather than an external device.

Try to force the issue by opening up the BH MIDI status window. If the big button is green and says  "MIDI Running", press it. It should turn grey and say "MIDI Stopped". With a grey button, press it to activate MIDI. At this point, Android should ask if you want to allow access to one or more devices - one of which should be your connected device, either the Helix or the 2x2.

If BH can't ever find the external MIDi device, but MIDI Commander sees data, I'm at a loss..

What Android version is the table running? 6.0 (Marshmallow)? My experience with BH starts with Android 7, so I don't know if what you are seeing is normal. Maybe Arlo or another Android 6 user can comment on expected behavior in this scenario undrer Android 6.0?

It is also possible (though unlikely) that the Android port running on your tablet has a buggy MIDI implementation. But MIDI Commander sees data from the Helix.

Hmm... Try rebooting the tablet and going into BH without ever going into MIDI Commander. Is the BH MIDI log showing any other data? Is it asking to connect to the external device?

[arlo]

iguana is right -- you should see your external device or MIDI interface in the list of connected ports in the activity log. The Android version does matter, since Android didn't support MIDI natively until Android 6, and some hardware still didn't support it until Android 7. This page has the best collection of info about getting the MIDI connection working on Android:

http://forum.arlomedia.com/index.php/topic,739.0.html