Hi, Im new to the Elektron world and having some difficulty getting my rig to work the way I would like. Im hoping its possible and would appreciate any help. I know its a lot to ask but please respond with step by step instructions.
So my set is a Moog Matriarch and an Elektron Digitone connected via two Midi cables. What I’d like to do is:
Set up my Matriarch as a midi controller. Then select track 1 on my Digitone, select a sound and use my Matriarch to record notes into the sequencer. Once I have something on track 1, I’d like to select track 2, select a new sound and again use the Matriarch to record notes into the sequencer. Same for tracks 3-4. When played, the Digitone plays the sounds.
Set up sequences on tracks 1-4 using the Digitone trigs or using the Martriarch and when played, the Matriarch’s plays the sounds.
First I’d set up the Digitone
Each digitone track responds to a different midi channel (by default these are channels 1-4) and the digitone MIDI tracks by default respond to MIDI information on channels 5-8.
To do what you want to do you should use the digitone “auto midi channel” which by default is set to channel 10 - if you go into the Settings menu, then MIDI config, then channels you can check or change all of these settings.
The auto channel will transmit incoming MIDI information on that channel to whichever digitone track is currently selected.
Next, set the matriarch MIDI OUT channel to output MIDI data on channel 10 (or whatever you have chosen as the digitone auto channel), and the matriarch MIDI IN channel to channel 5, which allows the matriarch to receive MIDI information from the digitone MIDI track 1.
Finally, if you turn the matriarch’s local keyboard control OFF, it won’t send any keyboard information directly to the synth, only via MIDI - so if you have a digitone track selected it won’t play the matriarch at all.
You adjust all of these settings using the global settings of the matriarch. Instructions to do this are on page 61 of the manual (here)
This way you can choose whether to play each digitone track or the matriarch by selecting the relevant track in the digitone, and sequence the matriarch using the digitone.
Just to be complete - make sure the Matriarch MIDI Out is going to the Digitone MIDI In and vice versa, then in the digitone MIDI config menu make sure that it is set to input from / output to MIDI (or MIDI + USB which would also work)
For point 2. the Matriarch is monotimbral so you are not going to be able to generate four different sounds on the Matriarch across four different sequences, if that’s what you’re trying to do.
Damn it…I had the Digitone trigs playing the Matriarch sounds and then I was mucking around with Banks & Patterns etc and when I tried to play the Matriarch again via the Digitone trigs, it stopped working. Does changing Banks and Patterns affect the settings? I’m not sure if I did something…I set it up as you instructed…could the Matriarch have reset its midi settings (without being turned off/on)? Thanks.
I can continue on that bank but suppose I wanted to set it up on a new bank and pattern? What would I need to do…just set everything up midi the way I did the first time? But I tried doing that and it didnt work…I wonder if that was because I was trying to do it on Bank A, Pattern 1…and maybe that is taken?
I was using Bank H, Pattern 1 and that worked. So I will check what is on other banks and patterns so I know which are free for me to use. Thanks so much, that has actually cleared up alot. So I have read the manual but am I right in saying the following:
To create something from scratch, I start a new project and save it with a name. That new project automatically has 8 banks each with 16 patterns I can use. Then I need to load sounds into that project’s sound pool. Then I select tracks and do my sequencing etc and then finally save it. There are 128 projects I can save on the Digitone.
Edit: Of course this applies to the internal sound tracks and the midi tracks assuming I had four external midi devices attached to sequence.
Ah okay so the midi settings are set at project level. So can I load up a project I created, change the midi settings and then save it (silly question?)