MIDI program to control external device is not working properly

[Vic Zambon]

Hello everyone,

I've spent many hour trying to midi program external device (line 6 pod pro, kemper, whammy pedal and now quad cortex) with CC controler.

Every time I have the same issue : the changes are not on time, and it triggers random features.

Am I the only one struggling with this ?

Thanks for your time,

Vic

[JnTuneTech]

I have used Cakewalk to control PODxt, Eleven Rack, and many other external devices successfully over the years, and the only tough part for me was setting up patch & control mapping (I used Instrument Definitions for that eventually) to make it easier to use. -The only time I can remember having issues with similarities to what you describe, is when I had a very poor MIDI output device & driver setup. -Bad MIDI I/O setup will definitely cause timing issues - check your latency, but garbled commands would likely point to bad MIDI communications between Cakewalk and your devices in general. You might try using a different MIDI output device, and see if that clears things up.

[Vic Zambon]

Thanks so much for your answer.
I'm glad to know that the issue come from me and that people use cakewalk to control external devices.
I'm gonna check for any latency issues and see how I can improve my midi setup. 
Maybe my GPU and latency can cause some issues I guess.

When you talk about setting up patch & control mapping, what do you mean you did exactly ? 
You kind of replaced the number for names to make it easier to program ?

And thanks again for your answer

Edited June 3, 2023 by Vic Zambon

[JnTuneTech]

4 hours ago, Vic Zambon said:

I'm gonna check for any latency issues and see how I can improve my midi setup. 

I hope that it will not be too hard to update, but some equipment just needs to be working properly for it to do the job right. And, nowadays, most of the newer MIDI-capable devices that will work for what you want are not necessarily so expensive.

I highly recommend you check out some further information on latency and other issues when using Cakewalk - there are some great tutorials from some of the other members of the forum here. One to check is https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/56885-cactus-music-tutorials/ - There should be some great info in one or  more of the YouTube playlist chapters he links to there, so check that out for sure.

4 hours ago, Vic Zambon said:

When you talk about setting up patch & control mapping, what do you mean you did exactly ? 
You kind of replaced the number for names to make it easier to program ?

That subject is a bit tougher, and I would highly recommend making sure the basic MIDI connections work for you first before even trying to create those mappings, but yes, basically you can find or modify mappings (for older hardware mainly) to help select MIDI patches with names instead of numbers, and clearer - custom naming for the MIDI CC controls you can automate from Cakewalk to your MIDI device, but it's not necessary, -numbers work fine too right out of the box! And again, best to get the MIDI connections working properly before any of that.