Hi,

I'm using midi program change events to scroll through Microtonic presets/programs, which works pretty well. As the events come in the Microtonic UI updates to show the new programs and associated parameters.

However I've noticed that on my Push 2 the microtonic parameters are not being updated when program change comes via midi. However if I change the program manually via the menu in the Microtonic UI the Push updates as expected.

So it looks like maybe some kind of update signal isn't being sent when the program change comes via midi?

The problem is, when the parameters on the Push are in this out of date state, as soon as I try and change a value on the Push the Microtonic setting resets to the out of date value shown on the push, so it's actually breaking the preset.

Is there any possibility of a fix?

Thanks!

Just one other thing I noticed. Changing program via the menu in Microtonic also causes the generic Live VST preset menu to update, but this doesn't happen with midi program change events. I guess this could be related to the lack of Push value updates?

I encountered the same problem, configured parameters won't update via program change, but update via manual preset selection over the arrows. Any solution to this problem?

Sorry for pushing, but anyone who could help me here?
This problem only occurs with Microtonic, other plugins behave as they should.
And this issue isn't push related at all. There is no need to have a push involved to reconstruct the issue.

I don't know what other plugins you have tried, but there is a perfectly good reason why MIDI program changes in Microtonic does not request Live (or Push I presume) to update its display. Whenever a plugin does this, Live disables automation playback for the plugin in question and highlights this button:

This behaviour would be terrible if triggered by a MIDI clip during playback in my opinion. It is only acceptable if the user is actively working within the plugin editor, e.g. if he/she wants to try out different patches on a track without having automation data messing up things.

To be honest I am not sure Ableton made the right decision here after all. I was quite surprised the first time I discovered that they disable automation like this, but at the same time I see the point. Most other hosts do not work like this, but I have decided not to take any chances and our plugins only call "updateDisplay()" from the GUI thread and never from the audio/midi thread.

This is what I would prefer from Ableton Live:

1) Support changing VST programs from MIDI program changes natively (and then naturally expect all parameters to change and update itself + Push etc) and also allow the user to automate program changes (this is handled horribly in Live still to this day, it records automation for all parameters of the plugin instead of just recording the program change).

2) Whenever a MIDI program change message is sent to a plugin simply assume that parameters might change and update itself + Push.

Not sure if there is anything I can do to improve this from my end otherwise. If you have other plugins that do update Push on MIDI program changes as you say, could you please check if they also disable automation in this case. I would expect that. And I wouldn't approve. And probably not Ableton either but I have actually never asked. ;)

Hi Magnus,

thanks for the reply!
Ok, now i understand your point.

The other plugin i tested was minimoog from arturia, and i guess other plugins from arturia will behave the same. And i just tested if the pgm will disable the automation and it did with the minimoog.I guess this is just a different approach from them to do this, but i totally understand your choice as well now.
But for example when playing live with microtonic and you don't need any automation, then this would be a draw back.
I'm using a m4l device which is mapped to certain parameters of microtonic and it is crucial for the device to read the values after a program change happened. It's basically a modulator which is just offsetting the orginal microtonic value in a bipolar way, which is then mapped to a midi controller. So if my controller is set to the middle and a program change occurs, then the original microtonic values are untouched. Pretty hard to explain, i hope you understand what i mean.
But anyway, do you think it is possible to add an option to switch between these two different behaviors or is this out of question?