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[Chip Roberts]

I have been encountering a problem during rehearsal and live performances where the MIDI program change messages are all jacked up.  Here's what's going on:

During at-home practice, I have a MIDI out going from my Studio One session sending program changes to the MIDI In on the MP1, then the Thru goes to my Roland GP8, then thru to the Midiverb II.  It always works without issue.

During band rehearsal and live performances, we run the program changes out of Ableton into our keyboardist's Yamaha TX81Z, Thru to Roland SE-02, then iPad, which is all on its own MIDI channel. 

I have a program change coming out of Ableton on Channel 4 into the MP1 outlined as above.  No continuous control or any other messages (yet).

The issue we run into is that sometimes a change will occur only on the MP1, but not carry over thru to the GP8.  If I turn everything off and on again, this sometimes helps (except last night I turned it off and on, then a program change selected a completely different patch that wasn't even programmed).

Our keyboardist thinks it could be an issue with the MIDI buffer being full, which I've read is common with the TX81Z.

Has anyone ever had this problem with running a sequenced set with automated program changes sending out to multiple pieces of hardware?  Curious if anyone has a workaround or solution.

[Harley Hexxe]

That sounds like an oddball thing to happen but let's try a few things with the most obvious before we jump to any conclusions.

   1). Check each MIDI cable to each unit in the chain with a known good cable to be sure that none of them are failing. Try several program changes with the replacement cable to be certain it's functioning like it should.

   2). If that doesn't correct the issue, then check the MIDI channels in on each MIDI unit in the chain to verify they are transmitting and receiving on the channels they are supposed to. Hard reboots can sometimes cause MIDI systems to refer to default which is commonly OMNI mode.

MIDI Continuous Control messages will be ignored by the MP-1, but will be passed through to the next MIDI device unaltered. The MP-1 has no CC functions but will respond to program change messages on it's assigned channel.
Another thing you can try, although this seems like it wouldn't make any difference, I have experienced this with my Ground Control when I had multiple MIDI units in the chain, and each one was on a different channel:
If the Sequencer transmits to multiple units on the same chain, but with independent channels for each unit, then try to assign the channels to either odd or even number channels on the chain. For example:
If the 1st MIDI piece of hardware is assigned to MIDI channel 1, then the next piece should be on MIDI channel 3, and so on...
With certain MIDI hardware, I had experienced unresponsive or mistaken MIDI commands when the MIDI channels were consecutive. It wasn't a consistent problem, it happened randomly, but that helped my issue out.

I hope this gives you something to go on.

Harley