Question about an "outboard" sustain pedal and Cakewalk recognizing it...

[minminmusic]

Ok...so I have an Arturia Keylab 49. The sustain pedal port crapped out on me awhile ago. I just got the Icon P1-M controller and got it to more or less work with Cakewalk and Sonar. The Icon has two quarter inch inputs on the back for Expression Pedals. I've assigned pedal A's input jack a midi message of CC on channel 1 and a value of 64. When I use the sustain pedal I can see Cakewalks activity light for input turning on in correlation to me pressing the pedal. Now, when I open a soft synth...it does not seem to be controlling the sustain. I've assigned the midi input on my soft synth track to "All External Inputs" but it does not seem to be pick up. Anyone able to maybe offer some suggestions? Is it possible to have Cakewalk listen/record to both the keys being played from the Keylab but the sustain info coming from the Icon jack? Thanks!

[Promidi]

Which soft synth?  

What happens if you create a second MIDI track, enable its input echo, specifically set the Icon P1-M controller as its input, and then route that MIDI track that soft synth? 

Is input echo on?

Have you used a MIDI monitor (like ShowMIDI 0.9.0 https://github.com/gbevin/ShowMIDI/releases) VSTi to make sure that CC64 > 127 is actually being sent when you depress the pedal?

[minminmusic]

2 hours ago, Promidi said:

"Which soft synth?" ...

"Which soft synth?"
Toontrack EZKeys 

"What happens if you create a second MIDI track..."
Tried that and it didn't work.

"Is input echo on?
On EZKeys...yes.

Used the MIDI Tools standalone program and can see that the Icon is sending out a CC message to Windows of 64 alternating between 0-127 every time I stepped on or released the pedal. I took a look and installed ShowMIDI but could not get it to work in either standalone or as a VST3.

I have to imagine there's a way to do this. I talked to Arturia about repair of the sustain jack hole (lol). It would cost as much as buying a used controller?!? When I picked up the P1-M and they had those jacks and allowed you to configure them to accept CC input it got me thinking.

Edited July 4 by minminmusic

[ptheisen]

You should check whether the specific EZKeys instrument you are using is programmed to respond to CC64 as a sustain pedal. Some are intentionally not programmed to respond to it. For example, a Hammond organ emulation may intentionally not respond to CC64 because a real Hammond organ does not have a sustain pedal input, so a faithful emulation might not either.

If the instrument allows the CC64 input and has it mapped to sustain functionality, what you are trying to do should work. I have successfully done something like this. I had two separate keyboard controllers, each with just one pedal jack. So I assigned one of the controllers to send CC64 and the other to send  CC07, or CC11, for volume. As long as the input setting in Cakewalk for the instrument's track is set to omni (not a specific midi device), it listens to all midi data being generated, and can respond to the data from both controllers at the same time.

[minminmusic]

Just tried TTS and it's still doesn't seem to be receiving that data. You would think a GM module would certainly not be trying to replicate "authenticity" on any of             those sounds. Tried both setting the main TTS to MIDI Omni and nothing...then setting up a secondary MIDI as suggested earlier and that didn't work either. I wonder if it's  something in preferences.

Got it to work within Reaper so I know it's working and it seems to be a Cakewalk issue.

[David Baay]

Your setup should be working as expected if channels and ports are correctly assigned.

If you record MIDI, do you see CC64 messages in the PRV controller lane and/or Event List, and they're on the same channel as the Note events?

If so, try playing back that recorded MIDI to EZ Keys.

If not, double-check that the track Input is including the Icon controller port with no channel restriction (Omni) and the Arturia and Icon are both set to transmit on channel 1, and retry recording.

 

[minminmusic]

No...no CC64 message recorded either on the MIDI track  for Toontrack or a secondary MIDI track pointing at the iCon in Echo mode.

I'm wondering, because the iCon P1-M is using the Mackie Protocol, I'm using the MMcL Mackie Controller option. Now...in the iMap software for  Expression Port A, I set that to CC64 on channel 1. Now the MMcL window ALSO has a Foot Switch drop down for A. I wondering if that's where the conflict might be happening? I think by default it goes to "Play/Stop". Now the sustain pedal doesn't actually Play or Stop the transport. iMap doesn't have an option to do that and the MMcL Mackie driver doesn't have an option within it's drop down for either "ignore default and listen to the controller" or mirroring the same CC64 message. The little MIDI input light turns on when I depress the sustain pedal, so Cakewalk is getting something. I just don't know where it's going or that it might be ignored.

[Promidi]

How many MIDI input ports for the iCon P1-M appear in Preferences - MIDI - Devices and are selected under inputs?

If one is being used as a control surface, the other needs to be used for normal MIDI input.

[minminmusic]

Ok...that's a tricky one but I'll give it a go. I have an iCon P1-M and P1-X. Each one of those gets 4 MIDI IN/OUTS. MIDI 4 IN/OUT is dedicated for the iMap software running between the controller and your DAW. The iCon P1 series can control/have mapped 3 different DAW mappings. So your 3 DAWS need to me mapped in the order in that they are in the iMap software and the P1-M. In my example, CbB is the first assigned DAW in the PM-1, it gets MIDI 1 IN/OUT. Luna the second, it gets MIDI 2 IN/OUT. So on and so forth. So right now, within the iMap config...in the Cakewalk profile, I assigned Pedal A to CC64.

Now...I haven't tried to get the P1-M to communicate with Reaper as a controller and THEN run the sustain test. But...I did run the sustain test in Reaper with Toontrack and Reaper picked up me playing the keys from my Keylab and the sustain peddling through the P1-M. So both MIDI streams were being captured.