I’m trying to make a little corner where I connect only my Digitone and Summit. Sequencer and synth.
It’s been just a never-ending string of headaches…
Right now I have a functional but insane setup with my Midihub where I need to:
Merge Midi Out and Midi Thru, because Digitone otherwise won’t pass through the original midi and cc tweaks (So I can just play the Summit on its keys).
Transform the midi channel of the Summit to the Autochannel on the input, because Digitone otherwise will play two notes for every one key I press
Do this twice, because somehow the previous step means it once again won’t pass through cc’s, PB, AT etc…
And filter out the relevant messages per copy of this setup.
I’m using three inputs and two outputs on the Midihub to do this, which seems insane for possible the most simple and obvious setup ever.
Anyone else here who’s actually made a setup like this and has insights into what ways could be better?
Ideally I’d like to be able to do this without the convoluted bird’s nest of midi cables and using up my Midihub.
edit: I’m anticipating a lot of responses that I’ll have to reply to with ‘no, have you tried that? Because it doesn’t work’. Please try to only respond if you’ve tried this yourself, because a lot of things that seem like ‘this should just work’… don’t.
This is just dumb. This limitation is just so ridiculous it’s beyond words. It’s the same for the Digitakt.
Besides the monumental stupidity of having to merge the out and thru to get your mod wheel etc to work, I’m trying to understand why you have to transform the summit midi channel to the auto channel.
Also, if you just want to play the summit (without having to run it through the digitone [see above]), could you just turn on local control of the summit and play it that way?
Hah. Here’s the fun part: Every solution you come up with is just another source of problems . So yeah: why I’m changing the channel: because otherwise it sends the original key I’m pressing (channel 1, goes through thru, towards Summit), plus the result (selected midi channel: set to channel 1, goes to through Out towards Summit)
As for Local, that’s just a whole bunch of other issues, plus: trying to play the Digitone’s internal channels with the keys then also sounds the Summit.
Does anyone know if it’s this way for the Analog Four? I already know it sadly doesn’t allow to p-lock the arp like the OT does, so it’ll still be that all too familiar situation of having five boxes that all almost do exactly what you want, but not quite, and combining them won’t do. (When it comes to midi sequencing)
What are you trying to achieve here? You’ve detailed your setup but don’t talk at all about what it is you’re looking to do.
Can you talk in brief about what you’re trying to achieve? For a two device setup, one is usually wanting to control the other. Either of the two scenarios should be dead simple
DN MIDI OUT to Summit MIDI IN
or
Summit MIDI OUT to DN MIDI IN
Are you trying to create a scenario where everyone can control everything at all times?
With the setup you describe, you can’t record the Summit’s keyboard. You’re stuck with the DN’s one octave of tiny keys without velocity or aftertouch. I think it’s obvious that I’d like the Summit to output to the Digitone for that reason, and that I’d like the Digitone to sequencer the Summit.
And even with such a simple mission statement, straight away you run problems.
Hence the part of the title that says ‘keyboard synth’. There are no problems if all you’re doing is sending Midi out.
But with local on it triggers itself, so if you want to play only digitone via the keys it doesn’t work. I ran into the same problem with my Pro2 and digitakt but my ultimate solution was to just use a different midi controller for the digitakt as it seemed the simplest option, but I feel like if I had a huge keybed like the summit it might feel like a waste not to use it all the time.
Looks like Summits key split can be set to separate midi channels. So, with that send Part A to DT to play the DT on the correct track channel. Then send DT sequence to the sound on Part B on the Summit. Fortunately you have the split that might make this possible.
Otherwise…you can’t both play each other or you create a crazy loop of one playing the other…playing…the other…playing the other…playing the other…playing…the other…playing the other…playing the other…playing…the other…playing the other…playing the other…playing…the other…playing the other…playing the other…playing…the other…playing the other…playing the other…playing…the other…playing the other…playing the other………
Ah yes, you’d need to toggle Summit local on and off, which could be annoying. I remember I had the same problem with my Digitakt, and it was one of the reasons I sold it. Now I’ve got an MPC Live which doesn’t filter out midi cc and all my synths work nicely with local off.
What Elektronauts call a crazy loop, other manufacturers just call ‘working with Midi as intended’ @bwo Midihub is proudly displayed in the picture, it’s what makes this possible at all!
So yeah, I guess to future googlers who end up here: the way I found works. I had just hoped there’d be a better way!
I’m still curious to find out if Analog Four functions differently (and so: more like the OT) in this regard. Eliminating the need for merging Out and Thru would help so much already!
If so, I’ll get that and just continue to use my Digitone self-contained (and with Midi loopback) , which, to be fair: I do love. It’s a fantastic selfcontained groovebox.
I love my OT as a sequencer as well. It would be so good if it wasn’t limited in polyphony (it sends a note-off before every trig, so you can’t have a long held note and play shorter ones over the top.)
The Midi Arp is brilliant!
I just wish Elektron didn’t artifically hobble their boxes. Every one of them is lacking something another one has, and it’s always a big thing. If they’d come out with a pure sequencer it’d sell like hotcakes, but as it stands they have a lot of ‘almost great’ midi sequencers.
This is a frustrating limit, to be sure. You can use a second, or even third, MIDI Track set to the same channel, as a workaround. I’ve done this with my Rev2 a few times.
I would just turn local off when controlling digitone and local on when you want to play the summit. And turn off any kind of midi echo on digitone on the midi tracks. And assign the summit to different channels than the digitone and turn off midi output on the trig buttons. (Int rather than int+ext)
Generally though you don’t use a synth as a controller for other synths plus itself. Doing this on Nord lead 3 required giving up a slot to be the missing “controller mode”. It doesn’t lend itself the task anyway so I gave up on the pursuit … nothing is programmable.
On a side note I wanna say that local off is the stupidest idea in all of creation.
If you have to use it with one synth for one reason or another, you end up having to use it everywhere, which might lead to latency. Or in the case of some synths CC not working and stuff like that.
And if you want to process your events as you record, unless you only use a dedicated controller, you have to use it. So you have to remember to turn it back on when taking a synth outside the studio.
On top of that, if you want to use a dedicated controller to play processed notes but leave the synth with local on but still be able to record playing directly on it, if your sequencer doesn’t support input channel selection per track you’re SOL.
The norm should be select a channel to use as the controller channel. Other channels do not echo unless you want it. Instead we have all this loopback stuff being considered perfectly fine. I think it’s nuts considering the slowness of MIDI over DIN. And it violates the concept of a musical instrument. Imagine your guitar requiring authorization to make sound. That’s essentially what local off is.
. So yeah: why I’m changing the channel: because otherwise it sends the original key I’m pressing (channel 1, goes through thru, towards Summit), plus the result (selected midi channel: set to channel 1, goes to through Out towards Summit)