So I have a couple of synths I want to sequence with my Elektron gear and am seeking some opinions on the best way to do this.
I have an Analog Four MkII and a Digitakt as well as a DSI OB6 and a Mellotron Micro.
I am using USB Audio to connect the A4 and Digitakt my computer/DAW.
My goal is to achieve the following things:
Use the OB6 as a keyboard controller for both the A4 and Mellotron.
Be able to sequence the OB6 and Mellotron from either the A4 or Digitakt.
If I use the A4 as the sequencer, I get to take advantage of song mode. If I use the Digitakt, I get velocity and the other benefits of the Digitakt. I am leaning towards using the A4 but can anyone advise on which path might be better?
Right now I have MIDI out of OB6 into A4 which is working fine. MIDI out of A4 goes into Digitakt, which is great because I use start/stop on the A4 to control the Digi as well as to change patterns.
MIDI goes out of the Digitakt into the OB6 and THRU the OB6 to the Mellotron. I am able to control both the Mellotron and OB6 using the Digitakt, but I cannot use the OB6 to play the Mellotron.
So the question is, how can I ensure the MIDI signal coming out of the OB6 at the start flows through the A4 into Digitakt and into Mellotron allowing me to use the OB6 as the master keyboard for all devices?
a MIDI splitter, which is taking one MIDI-In to several MIDI-Outs and sending the MIDI to more instruments in parallel, or
daisy-chain MIDI gear by using MIDI-Ins and MIDI-through as needed.
If we want to sequence an instrument alternatively by more than one sequencer, I would prefer to use a MIDI-Merge unit. Both sequencers send to the MIDI-Merge inputs and the MIDI-Out is then transmitted to the instruments.
Beware of MIDI-loops, meaning MIDI is sent to a device or a chain of devices, which is echoing this back to the source.
That is, because a MIDI-Through only repeats, what was received at the MIDI-In. If the received MIDI and the MIDI-Out shall be sent to a chained device, a MIDI-Merger would be necessary. Sometimes modern synths have special ports, which combine MIDI-Out and MIDI-Through. Maybe the OB6 can do this.
It should be possible to do this without changing your connections or buying any additional gear.
Since OS 1.50, the Analog Four can forward incoming MIDI data to the MIDI Out port via one of its tracks if the applicable SEND MIDI setting is activated.
Therefore your keyboard can send to the AF, which can forward to the DT. If the AF sends on the DT’s Auto Channel, then the DT will route the incoming MIDI messages to the active track on the DT.
If the active track on the DT is a MIDI track set to transmit to the Mellotron, then the note messages from the OB6 keyboard will reach the Mellotron.
You can use the Analog Four’s Song mode to control pattern changes on the DT, so that you can use either sequencer for your needs.
Thanks for that reply, I will take a look into MIDI Merge boxes, I hear the Kenton stuff is good. I was hoping to avoid extra hardware, but I will look at this avenue.
When you say “Beware of MIDI-loops, meaning MIDI is sent to a device or a chain of devices, which is echoing this back to the source.”
What you say seems to be making sense to me, as at one stage before I had the A4 I was able to use the OB6 as a master keyboard to control the Digitakt and the Mellotron, so I figured it must be possible with the A4 - especially with the recent update.
I am on OS 1.51
I think I need to explore my MIDI channels a bit more. I think I will try setting all devices to use the same auto channel as see where that gets me.
Hi guys, so I am inching a bit closer I think but still not quite setup as I’d like to be.
I set all devices to Auto Channel 16 for simplicity.
I’m using Logic Pro X and have a track setup for each device.
I can control the A4 with the Ob6 without any issues.
I can control the OB6 and the Mellotron with the key pads of either the A4 or Digitakt. But I cannot use the OB6 as the controller.
So for example, I’ve selected the Mellotron track in the DAW and if I play the keys on the A4 it controls it perfectly. But if I start playing the OB6 I get nothing.
If I switch over to the Analog 4 Track in my DAW I can control it with the OB6, so the OB6 MIDI signal is coming in, its just not coming out of the A4…But the MIDI signal comes out of the A4 just fine if I am using its own keys.
an instrument is used to play a melody to a sequencer, where it shall be recorded
later the sequencer shall play this instrument using the recorded events
If the sequencer sends the same MIDI, which it’s receiving from the instrument, directly back to the instrument during recording, AND the instrument is LISTENING to the incoming MIDI from the sequencer, we have generated a “MIDI-loop”. In many cases this leads to confusion of the instrument and/or the sequencer and may generate unpleasent results.
To prevent this … IMO … the most common options are (which can be applied alternatively):
setting the instrument to “local off”, which means that the instrument is listening to the sequencer only, and not additionally to its own generated MIDI
setting the sequencer track “MIDI monitor” to “off”, which will prevent that this track is sending MIDI during recording
Thanks for the explanation, I’m new to midi so I’m learning as I go.
I will look into implementing your last two points with my setup.
With the midi loop issue aside, any ideas on what I could try to get the OB6 working as the master controller for the Mellotron when the a4 seems to be sending midi to the Mellotron just fine and it is also receiving midi just fine from the ob6
Generally yes, but it would be a good idea to describe your setup in more detail. Particularly, how are the instruments connected via MIDI? Which connection is directly gear to gear, and which are via the DAW? From your description I guess, each device owns its own MIDI-track in Logic.
Using a DAW means that internal routing options of the DAW can be used, but they have to be set accordingly. Most DAWs can filter the MIDI-In from a MIDI-port and re-route it to a MIDI-Out of a MIDI-port. Often the “active” track listens to MIDI from external devices only, if it’s set to “arm”, or the MIDI-monitor of this track is set accordingly to read incoming MIDI.
I don’t know Logic enough, but it may be possible to send MIDI from different tracks to a receiving destination track, where the MIDI is merged by the DAW.
If nobody else answers to this better, I would suggest to check the manual about setting MIDI routings in Logic. AFAIK Logic provides a couple of useful options.
Ok, so I’ve tried to set things up as simply as possible.
For Logic Pro I don’t have any MIDI coming in or out of it. I am using USB Audio to get my Digitakt and A4 audio into it, and I use line inputs 3 and 4 on my audio interface to get the audio in from the OB6 and Mellotron.
Each device, OB6, A4, Digitakt and Mellotron are all set to Auto channel 16.
Under MIDI sync on both the A4 and Digitakt I have everything checked. Clock send, Transport Receive etc are all checked.
Perhaps the above is my downfall?
For my MIDI cable Routing, it goes like this:
OB6 MIDI OUT > A4 MIDI IN
A4 MIDI OUT > DIGITAKT MIDI IN
DIGITAKT MIDI OUT > OB6 MIDI IN
OB6 MIDI THRU > Mellotron Micro MIDI IN
The most curious thing for me is I can play the A4 keys and hear the Mellotron in my DAW. So the signal is passing through from the A4 all the way to the Mellotron just fine, but if I try to control this process with the OB6 it doesn’t work.
I can confirm the OB6 is working to control the A4 audio however.
The A4 keys generate MIDI-notes at its MIDI-out. The DT receives MIDI notes from the A4, which are re-routed internally by the active DT-MIDI-Track to the DT-MIDI-Out. Then the notes are routed through the OB6 MIDI-Through to the Mellotron.
I’m not sure, but I think this re-routing function is common to most Elektron MIDI-sequencer tracks. But I can be wrong for the DT, which I don’t have myself …
To make this happen as you need, the MIDI from the OB6 must be routed to the MIDI-Out of the A4. Did you check out the option described by @PeterHanes?
I thought I had tried this, but what I needed to do was select a channel on the A4, in this case I used the CV channel, and I made sure the MIDI note out was set, but also made sure under MIDI setup that the CV channel was set to 16 instead of 6. Voila! It works now.
Thanks so much for all your help.
I am now thinking I’ll use the CV channel on the A4 to sequence the OB6 and the FX channel to sequence the Mellotron. However if I did that I’d lose the OB6 Master keyboard control that I just got working right?
So if I set the FX Channel on the A4 to be channel 15 the incoming signal from the OB6 on ch 16 will no longer work…hmm Likewise if I changed the CV channel to 15 or 14 or something I’d also lose the incoming control signal from the OB6
You are getting confused, because you don’t appear to understand the Auto Channel capabilities of the Analog Four and Digitakt.
While the OB-6 is not necessarily the best controller keyboard for your system, it is entirely workable.
You should be able to sort out the MIDI channel configuration of your devices to do what you want but, failing that, you have a fallback based on my earlier suggestion:
My understanding is that the DT is much better suited to be a MIDI sequencer than the Analog Four. You would combine the best capabilities of both by:
using Analog Four’s Song mode to control pattern changes in the DT, and
recording the sequences for the other synths in the DT.
You’re totally right about me not understanding the MIDI channels. I’m very new to it all so I think I will spend some time reading the manuals through today to help get my head around it.
I’ll also explore using the DT to sequence the other gear and use the A4 song mode at the same time.
Sorry for not really reading through the question (or the answers), but whenever I hear someone wanting to juggle midi, I recommend the Blokas Midihub. Check it out to see if it might cover your needs.
Thanks for that suggestion, I’ll have look into that as well. I am trying to avoid extra hardware if possible, but if it makes my life easier, why not!
a MIDI channel is dedicated to send/receive a dedicated data stream of events to/from a MIDI enabled device
a MIDI device can be set to listen to one particular MIDI-channel, sometimes to “all”
it’s common practise is to send a particular channel to one device only and to set the receiver to listen exactly to this channel only
it’s also common practise to use for each device of a setup a different channel
the aforementioned common practises are not a must, but they make things easier
if a device is multitimbral, like most of the Elektron boxes, each timbre/track can be addressed by its own MIDI-channel; the Auto-channel of Elektron boxes has Elektron specific functions; have a look in the manual for this;
on Elektron boxes each track can be set to send/receive on a particular MIDI-channel; I prefer to keep the factory settings and change the Auto-cannels only, if I use more than one box in the setup.
Elektron has one nice feature for MIDI-settings … we can store - IIRC - up to four different configurations, which is fine for different scenarios
a MIDI-port (In/Out/Through) can send/transmit 16 MIDI-channels
a MIDI-Through-port usually only repeats the MIDI commands received at the MIDI-In-port, but there are exceptions, where the MIDI-In and the generated MIDI are merged, after a port-mode selection in the setup section has been initiated.
I hope this was usefull, if not, sorry for the long post
This is actually very helpful, thank you for taking the time to write that out for me. Its starting to click but I think I have a lot yet to learn. Thats all part of the fun though right?
I’m hoping once I have it all setup I can forget about it to some degree, right now I’m spending all my time on the setup side and not making any music!
There is little chance, but it will become clear and easy to apply. The logic behind all of this isn’t complicated, but most of the time we dig our own pitfalls and get lost for some time … that’s IMO common experience
