Hello Music Maven, welcome to the forum and you are not doing anything wrong.
Ctrlr is an application in progress, it is constantly being updated and enhanced and as such some features have changed over the years. As far as I understand none of the menu items under ‘Request from device’ in the ‘Programs’ menu are implemented. The forum Moderator Atom is the brains behind Ctrlr.
The Microwave XT panel is a demo with limited functions, it was created by a member called Msepsis. He sells the complete panels on his website: http://www.monstrummedia.com Considering the amount of work involved in creating such a complex panel they are very reasonably priced.
The Matrix panel was downloaded from the depreciated panels area. This means they it is out of date regarding running in the latest version of Ctrlr. To get the panel in a working state you will need to learn some Ctrlr basics and no doubt some Lua scripting. The forum here is helpful and engaging, but there will be an upward learning curve involved.
My first post was made on May 31, 2013 at 10:18 pm, I am still here, working at updating the panel that took my fancy. If you wish to take a look at my questions to the forum you will see answers that will provide you with some of the information you will require to get your Matrix panel updated.
Sorry the answer is not an easy or quick fix.
Here is some noise I organised into an acceptable format:
https://soundcloud.com/lfo2vco/a-dark-crystal