Recently, I was thinking of getting an Analog Heat to be my interface for recording synths to a DAW and doing pretty much everything my Behringer interface could do but with analog saturation, EQ, filtering etc etc before it gets recorded into my DAW. Then I remembered that I wouldn’t be able to pass midi from my DAW to whatever synth via the Heat. Why is that? Why do all Elektrons lack this simple feature? My Behringer does it no problem.
I thought USB audio/Midi mode allowed this?
I haven’t really tried to use it to be honest but that’s how I interpreted the manual
This is a question that only Elektron can answer. Why not put in a feature request and see what they say?
2 Likes
Hrmm that is a hassle, and I guess probably explains why I somehow ended up using a small midi keyboard (which I never touch) as the main midi i/o between Elektrons and computer
When Virus TI is in usb mode, it shows 2 USB ports; one for the internal synth engine, and another for physical midi i/o. Maybe it would need separate port routing like that to function as expected
1 Like
Yea I assume the USB Midi is a different ‘Port’ to the Din Midi, so there would be no way to ‘thru’ from one to the other without some kind of internal midi interface to connect to the two.
1 Like
Can you trigger the digitakt’s midi tracks with USB midi? Then have those midi tracks set up for whatever din midi outputs you want.
1 Like
Sure but that’s a massive hassle and as is common with Elektron there seem to be too many weird workarounds and mental gymnastics to achieve a very simple thing.
Anyway, feature request sent. I will let y’all know if they get back to me with more information.
2 Likes
Yeah, that is definitely a thing about elektron stuff. You can do a lot, but often have to do it in roundabout ways.
1 Like
Would be cool to have an option but I suspect if it’s not there now it’s not possible.
Think of it a bit like a device that has multiple midi ports - you can’t thru the midi from Input A to Output B, at that point your device is acting as a Midi router.
2 Likes
On DN/ST/DT, you can send USB MIDI to a MIDI track, which then sends the incoming MIDI data to the physical output.
This requires you to set up an incoming MIDI channel for a MIDI track, I’m not sure what you can configure in the MIDI -> Channels on the AH though…
1 Like
Ah good to know! (Reconsiders DT instead of AH 
)
Ditch the DAW.
Solves all your problems, plus many more. 
1 Like
Or at least ditch midi, which is what I was doing before
Elektron cares more about latency for merging midi streams than Behringer does for the feature trade off, I guess?
3 Likes
I was waiting for someone to talk about the trade-offs.
1 Like
You can plug several machines via OB and record audio/MIDI streams through different ports. I don’t get your point. I record both MIDI and audio under Live or Logic without much trouble. The only thing I do is breaking one OB rule and activate MIDI ports in the preferences, or more specifically the IN or the OUT port to avoid MIDI loops. It’s not totally stable, but I can print any stream to and from my DN, even if there’s some latency which needs to be corrected.
Try sending midi from your DAW to the physical midi out/thru port of your Elektron. Doesn’t work (at least without convoluted workarounds)
I’ve always thought this was really stupid; especially, for the Analog Heat. You can have a laptop hooked up to the Analog Heat recording audio from a synth, but you can’t use the midi out on the Analog Heat to sequence that synth with your computer. What a dumb design.
1 Like
As much as I can see the appeal I don’t think this is unusual for an effects processor.
The MIDI ports are for interacting with the Heat itself, they’re not intended as an interface (same with the other devices).
Don’t get me wrong enhancements like that would be cool - but it would make it a different product. OB is kind of a bonus, it’s a bit harsh claiming the things it doesn’t do make it bad.
2 Likes