Digitone II MIDI CC triggers not behaving reliably when controlling Meris LVX

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
1

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to use my Digitone II to create queued MIDI triggers for recording loops with my Meris LVX.

The idea is to have a pattern playing on the Digitone II and, somewhere in the middle of the pattern, “arm” a MIDI track so that when the pattern loops back around, it sends a MIDI CC message to the LVX and starts recording. I then want another queued trigger to stop the recording, for example after 4 bars / 64 steps.

I’m currently trying this with CC 101, set to value 127, on a MIDI track (e.g. track 14/15). However, I’m not getting the behavior I would expect.

For example:

  • I place the MIDI CC trigger in the sequence.
  • The pattern is playing.
  • When the sequence reaches the trigger, nothing happens on the LVX.
  • Muting/unmuting the MIDI track also doesn’t seem to reliably trigger the CC.
  • Sometimes the CC does get sent, but seemingly only after triggering the MIDI track manually multiple times.
  • The same problem happens with the stop message.

I’ve also found one very specific behavior that seems to be consistent:

  1. Press STOP on the Digitone II.
  2. Trigger the MIDI track (e.g. track 15).
  3. The LVX responds correctly.
  4. To trigger it again, I have to press STOP on the Digitone II again and then trigger the MIDI track.

This happens regardless of whether the MIDI track is muted or unmuted.

So it seems like the MIDI track/CC message may somehow be dependent on the Digitone’s transport state, but I’m not sure if this is expected behavior or if I’m misunderstanding how MIDI CC sequencing/triggers work on the Digitone II.

What I ultimately want to achieve is:

Digitone pattern loops → MIDI CC start trigger is sent at the beginning of the loop → LVX records for 4 bars → MIDI CC stop trigger is sent → LVX stops recording.

Ideally, I want to be able to “arm” these triggers while the pattern is already running, so that they happen at the next loop point rather than having to manually stop/start the Digitone.

Has anyone successfully used Digitone II MIDI tracks this way, particularly for sending CC commands to pedals such as the Meris LVX? Is there something about MIDI CC sequencing, parameter locks, track muting, or the Digitone transport that I’m missing?

Thanks!

2

does the trig length have anything to do with it ?
it is too short? too long ?..
id say muting a track would stop it being sent (probably obvious) , there are multiple mute modes.

plus they should work fine with conditional trigs … 1:4 , First , Fill etc

3

I’m using the Pattern Mute trig (purple) to arm/disarm the MIDI trigger. I also tried different trig lengths, including the shortest length and INF , and both behave the same way, so the trig length doesn’t seem to be the issue.

The important behavior I’m seeing is this:

  1. I press STOP on the Digitone II.
  2. I press PLAY to start the pattern.
  3. The MIDI trig sends CC101 = 127 correctly.
  4. The LVX responds by starting the looper.
  5. The pattern continues and eventually loops back to the beginning.
  6. The same MIDI trig is now reached again, so I would expect another CC101 = 127 , which should act as the LVX’s Play/Stop command and stop the looper.
  7. Nothing happens.
  8. If I then press STOP on the Digitone and press PLAY again, the next CC101 trigger works and stops the LVX loop.

So essentially:

STOP → PLAY → CC101 → works

but then:

pattern loops → CC101 → doesn’t work

and then:

STOP → PLAY → CC101 → works again

This seems to happen consistently.

4

that does seem weird if its just a normal trig , no trig condition (eg 1st) .
did you try a midi monitor ?
i presume if you use trig preview (hold down step and yes) it might also turn it on and off , assuming trig preview works on a midi device.
if microtiming works on midi , perhaps nudge it off beat a tiny bit ? i dont know if you can do that to cc separately to a note assuming its a trigless trig ? … perhaps it also needs a note to be sent ? to be more reliable.

essentially it seems like youve got things setup properly .
turn it turn on / off if you put in more than one cc101 on the 1st step , like if you turn it on / off every 4 steps ?

5

First off, I need to correct something from my previous posts: this is happening with the Digitakt II, not the Digitone II. My brain was clearly cooked when I originally wrote the post. :sweat_smile: I have to mention that i tried the exact same setup with the Digitone II and i get the exact same result, so i guess we can treat is as a Digitone II post, instead of moving it.

I did some more testing and finally monitored the MIDI output directly from the Digitakt II using MIDI Monitor, bypassing the DOREMiDi MSC-10.

And wow — this made the problem much clearer.

When I have a MIDI trig sending:

CC101 = 127

the Digitakt sends it the first time, but when the same trig is reached again, no CC message is sent at all. The MIDI note/trig itself is still being sent, but the identical CC value is not transmitted again.

Then I tried placing:

CC101 = 0

at step 16.

What happens is interesting: the LVX briefly responds to that as a loop stop, and then when the pattern reaches step 1 again and sends CC101 = 127, the loop starts again.

This also explains the weird behavior I was seeing where everything only worked after pressing STOP on the Digitakt.

When you press STOP, the Digitakt sends:

CC120 = 0

So the CC value has changed. Then when I trigger the MIDI track again with CC101 = 127, the Digitakt sends the message because it’s a new value/state.

So I think the actual behavior is:

CC101 = 127 → sent

CC101 = 127 again → not sent

because the value hasn’t changed.

But:

CC101 = 0 → sent

CC101 = 127 → sent

because the value changes.

My question now is: is this expected behavior on the Digitakt II MIDI sequencer? Is there a way to force a MIDI CC to be sent on every trig even when the value is identical to the previous value?

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6

personally i would expect it to be sent each time, not only when the value changes.
there are many many ways a midi cc is used , if its to trigger something, it needs to be sent each time … eg it could be to trigger a sound , trigger note slide on a tb-03, trigger something to record (like your example) . its not just to wobble a filter up and down which would have lots of values that change.

its useful to know whats its doing (or not doing) atm …

7

Yes, exactly. I’m curious if there is a setting for that, but I didn’t find anything in the manual.
Do you have any of those devices? If so care to give it a try?

8

Just to be clear, are all the trigs “locked” (ie. does the value show in white?)

9

I just tried it on a Digitone 2 with same CC value on four different steps,

It sends it four times every time around the pattern.

I tried ordinary trigs and lock trigs, same thing.

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10

Wow, now i am entering madness realm, haha!
I tried with both ordinary and locked trigs. After the first time it only sends the note on/off message and not the cc.
I’ve tried the same both on digitone ii and digitakt ii. And ofc i have disconnected everything else and going only midi straight to the pedal.

11

I also tried an old Digitone 1, it works there too. :slightly_smiling_face:

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12

So there should be an option of some sorts, cause i have my dtii like a year but my dnii is brand new. And both behave the same, so maybe im missing sth.

In your try you just added 2 identical trigs to 2 steps and it worked fine, right?

And also without placing anything in the sequencer you can manually trigger the track by pressing it and same cc will fire again and again?

13

is the default value of each cc the same as the trig value?
eg the encoder for cc 101 is already on 127 via the encoder on the midi cc page.
so when you place a trig with the same value … it does nothing ?
if the default dial is 0 , and you set the trig on a step to 127 … does it behave differently ?

have you tried another cc value just incase its something weird with 101 ?.

14

If i press stop so everything resets (doesnt matter if seq is playing or not) and trigger it it will work just for once. So if i have 2 identical trigs on a sequencer, the second cc wont fire.
If i change val to 0 lets say on the second trig, then everything works. Its not the intended behaviour but sure.
If i go to cc page and scroll for different ccs while triggering nothing triggers after my first.

15

i meant the default value of the encoder for the corresponding cc… but its seems like its doing something weird.
next time i turn on digitakt, i’ll try it.

16

Note: I locked them all.

ie. Hold down the trig key and turn the CC knob. The CC value shows inverted color.

17

Wow! Perfect. It worked!! Its a nice hack around the problem. Still cant do it by manually hitting the track 2 times, but i can work with that.

18

Slightly off topic, but how are you liking the LVX with DT2/DN2? I have those two boxes and am looking at the LVX. I have a Mood Mkii (which I love) currently but looking to add something else, possibly with more robust midi control. I really haven’t used those boxes to control anything else yet, so I’m not sure about the midi side of things. Would love to hear your impressions of this combo so far. @shadowvault

19

It’s how it works. :man_shrugging:

20

i havent tried with them. I have a guitar rig and thats what im trying to sync up for loops. I love it. It can make any delay sound you can think of and it has synth like modulation options, which i can sequence with the digitakt/digitone.

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