Custom Midi Tempo problems, am I missing something? Band Helper with Lightkey

[neilnotts]

Hi everyone. My set up is as follows; Mac Mini running Band Helper & Lightkey (lighting software) & a Behringer Flow 8 Digital Mixer.
I set a song tempo in Band Helper and transmit MIDI Time Code to Lightkey to sync the tempo to the lights This is sent to the Lightkey Input port. I have created a number of MIDI presets in Band Helper to trigger the various lighting scenes I have set up in Lightkey (these are just a channel and a program change).
The problem I have is that the FLOW 8 mixer does not use MTC so instead I have to send a Custom MIDI message which is Channel 16, Note 0, and a velocity over 1. The Hex code for this is as follows: 9F 00 7F. This is sent by Band Helper on the downbeat for the duration of the song to keep my delay effects in sync. Because I am not able to designate a port for this message, I assume it's sent out globally. This then randomly triggers preset scenes in Lightkey making the setup unusable.
Is there any way to designate a specific port for the Custom MIDI message so only the Flow 8 will respond, not effecting the lighting?

[arlo]

You're putting that Note message into the Hex Code field of a MIDI Preset, right? If so, you can set the MIDI Device right above the Hex Code field, and set the MIDI Port of the MIDI Device, to control what port the message is sent to.

Note messages are channel-specific, so another approach would be configuring Lightkey to only respond on a specific channel, so it ignores the messages you're sending to the Flow mixer on channel 16.

[neilnotts]

I put the code in the Tempo & Pitch screen as attached. I understand that the code is sent on each down beat to set the delay tap tempo on the Flow 8.

Lightkey is configured to receive MIDI timecode to keep the sync which is sent by Band Helper.

[arlo]

Oh, gotcha. You can't set the port for that, but it will only send on channel 16 as you've entered it; does Lightkey need to listen to note messages on channel 16? Can you configure it to only listen to the channel you're sending its program changes on?

[neilnotts]

Thanks Arlo. I appear to be a bit stuck then. All the MIDI messages to select the
Lighting presets are on MIDI channel 2. I have raised the issue with LightKey because I think it must be a fault in that software. As there is no way to monitor MIDI going into LightKey, I can't diagnose where the rogue element is coming from.
Turning off the custom MIDI message in BandHelper stops this issue happening but then I lose my tempo for my delay effects on the Flow 8.
These things are sent to try us 

[arlo]

I just checked the code and the Send Custom MIDI function should use the port set in Send Beat Clock to Port. Can you give that a try?

[neilnotts]

Thanks Arlo. I finally had a response from the LightKey people. It Turns out that the 'Live Triggers' feature in LightKey uses channel 16 and cannot be changed. Turning the feature off resolved the problem. As I don't use Ableton Live, this is not a problem.

Again, as always, thanks for your time 

[arlo]

Cool.