Hi everyone,
I’m noticing a specific MIDI behavior with my Ribbons and wanted to check if this is an intended feature.
If I physically turn a knob on the pedal, then send a single MIDI CC value from my DAW to set that parameter to a specific value, the very first CC message is ignored and the parameter on the pedal doesn’t change. But, if I send that exact same CC message a second time it does change.
Continuous CC streams seem to work fine, like when using a controller knob via MIDI (probably because it sends another message quickly after the first one), but single static snapshots always require a double send to register if the physical knob was touched.
I’ve read in the manual and other posts here about how relative knob behavior is intended to prevent sudden volume jumps. Just wanting to confirm if my assumptions about this behavior is intended.
1 Like
Hmm. Sounds intriguing. Will try to check with my Ribbons.
1 Like
Howdy @gentlemanRabbit
You are correct. Ribbons does seem to do this. When you twist a physical knob, it “unlocks” and starts tracking the knob’s position. When a MIDI CC message is received, it should “lock” the physical knob and adopt the received value, but it looks like I goofed and got the order of operations wrong when handling that first message.
I think when we tested this behavior, we must have been using encoders rather than sending single CC snapshots. We also assumed that most people would be using either the pedal’s physical knobs or MIDI CCs, rather than switching back and forth between the two.
Anyway, here’s a beta patch you can try out. It should resolve the issue.
Note: This patch only works with the latest hardware revision of Ribbons, which has the input/output labels on the sides of the pedal rather than the face. If you have an older version, let me know. I can put together an update for that one too but it will take some time. Instructions for updating can be found in the manual.
1 Like
Hey @jaakjensen. Thank you for looking into it.
I have the hardware with the labels on the side so I was able to update it with the file you provided, and can confirm it’s working as expected now.
For context, I mostly use pedals as outboard sends from my DAW. I’ll essentially “save a preset” I use in a project via MIDI automation that I can just trigger to quickly reset all the parameters. I’ll use the physical knobs to try out different settings, and I’ll bounce back and forth between knobs and MIDI often.
Out of curiosity was it just completely ignoring the first MIDI message after any knob would be changed?
No, it was just a logic mix-up. The first MIDI CC message would update the setting, but the physical knob would overwrite it before being locked. Once locked, the knob would be ignored and the next MIDI CC message would work correctly.
1 Like