Why a Controller Bought in 2022 Still Gets Today's Firmware
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A customer bought a two-encoder controller from us in the summer of 2022. We discontinued that model years ago. Last week he wrote to say it now does something he had asked us for back in 2023.
The email, September 2026
"Forget to give you feedback. Everything working just fine and the banks is genial! Have one push button for bank shift of consumer vs MIDI so I use Cubase and [play] guitar with Spotify and change volume with just one push on the button! Very nice!"
He added one more thing and asked us to mention it:
"Cubase volume works even in background with Chrome in front, and opposite of course."
There is a small box on his desk. He presses the button and the two knobs are a MIDI controller for Cubase. He presses it again and they turn into Windows volume and media keys, for playing guitar along to Spotify. Nothing to open on screen, no window to bring to the front.
Why that email meant something to us takes a conversation from three years earlier to explain.
November 2023, two batch files
Back then, changing the same device from MIDI for Cubase to media keys for Windows meant flashing it again. He had worked out his own way around it, keeping two batch files called midi.bat and windows.bat and running whichever one he needed.
"It works with MIDI but how do I change to Windows? I have two bat files, one midi.bat and one windows.bat to switch between. [...] It's a pain otherwise to reconfigure it every time I switch between Cubase and Windows."
We told him to stop re-flashing it and change the mode in the web configurator instead. He saw the catch straight away. Every knob and key is set individually, so the more controls you have the more clicking it takes.
"So if I had an 8 pot controller I have to click apply 8 times to switch?"
Then he wrote this:
"Yes I can get used to it even if I prefer an offline switch."
He wanted a switch on the device itself that changed the whole configuration at once. We did not have one in 2023. He has it now, on the hardware he bought in 2022.
Banks became that switch
A bank is a complete copy of the device configuration, and the device keeps several of them. Every knob and key stores its settings separately in each bank, and it is not only the value that changes. The same control can be a MIDI CC in one bank and a media key in another.
Assign one key to BANK FEATURE and that key becomes the switch. His setup looks like this:
| Bank A | Bank B | |
|---|---|---|
| Two encoders | MIDI CC, controlling Cubase | Consumer Control, system volume |
| One key | BANK FEATURE, moving between the two banks | |
The settings live in the device memory, so they survive unplugging, and switching between them does not involve the computer at all. That is the offline switch he was asking about.
Why it works with Chrome in front
There is no trick here. MIDI and USB HID simply work this way. MIDI messages go to whichever program has the port open, so Cubase receives the knob even when its window is behind something else. Media keys and volume are standard USB HID, handled by the operating system itself, so system volume responds whatever is on screen. Neither one depends on which window is active.
It did not go smoothly in the middle
Read this far and it sounds like a clean story, but his device did not work properly for a while. The cause was a change we made.
Around the time he bought it, our firmware had no concept of a hardware number. There were only a handful of products, so each one got its own firmware and that was the end of it. The device never had to say what it was, because whoever flashed it already knew.
That stopped working as the range grew, so in June 2023 we introduced hardware numbers. The device carries its own product number, and the update tool reads it to pick the right firmware and the right configuration screen.
The problem was the devices already out there. His unit had been in his hands about a year before the number existed, so it had never been given one. New firmware read whatever happened to sit where the number belongs and took it at face value, and the device decided it was a different product. The name came up wrong and the knob mapping was off. The hardware was fine. It just did not know what it was.
We had a way to fix that
We expected this to happen. When we introduced hardware numbers, we also added a way to write a number into a device afterwards, called Set Hardware Number. That is what rescued his unit three years later.
June 2026, a few emails
- Open Global Variables → Advanced - Set Hardware Number.
- Click "Show all profiles", choose the correct product and press Apply.
- Run Auto Update in ParksTool Uploader once more. The uploader picks the firmware based on this number, so it has to run again after the number changes.
The full procedure with a screenshot is in the manual. Over a few emails, a device built in 2022 was running current firmware and had banks.
Four years, in short
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Spring 2022 | Two-encoder model released, before hardware numbers existed |
| Summer 2022 | He buys one |
| June 2023 | Hardware numbers introduced, together with a way to write one into an older device |
| November 2023 | Two batch files to change modes. "I prefer an offline switch" |
| June 2026 | His device gets its number and current firmware |
| September 2026 | One button between Cubase and Windows volume |
We try to keep supporting old products
His model was discontinued years ago. We do not build it and we do not sell it. When new firmware comes out, firmware for his device comes out with it at the same version. His controller has gone from 6.x through 7 and 8 to 9 today without the board ever changing.
New features come along with it. Banks, scenes, custom SysEx, 14-bit CC and octave modes did not exist when he bought his unit, and they reached his device by plugging in a cable and pressing update. We intend to keep doing this for as long as we can.
If you have an old ParksTool device in a drawer
- Download the ParksTool Uploader. Windows and macOS are both supported.
- Connect the device with a USB cable and press Auto Update. Detection and flashing are automatic.
- If the product name looks wrong after updating, set the correct product with Set Hardware Number and run Auto Update again.
- Set up your banks in the Configurator tab, or at config.parkstool.com.
If something does not work, send us an email. That is how this story started.
Quotes are published with the customer's permission, with personal details removed.