I want to use my Octatrack as a brain and sequencer for external gear. At the moment, I only got the Grandmother - but I will get additional stuff to connect to it (e.g. a poly synth and a drum machine).
So, the Octa has 8 MIDI tracks. Does that mean I could split the MIDI signals to 8 pieces of individual gear? How would I do that when theres only physical 1 MIDI output?
If I’m thinking about this all wrong, what would the ideal situation be in order to get to use those 8 MIDI tracks on the OT?
some gear has midi through. that means: you can chain gear.
if not it’s possible to get a “midi splitter”. those boxes copies midi signals to multiple outs.
Yes you can sequence 8 pieces of gear or you could sequence more than one voice in one piece of gear if the voices have different midi channels.
The midi signal can either be splittet by a midi splitter box to route them to more then one piece of gear or you can make a chain. Most gear has what is called a midi trough port, so what gets in gets out and can be used in the next piece of gear.
I think I understand. If I chain the MIDI signal, all I get is that same signal. So I could have 35 analog synths all playing the same sequence
OR, I could chain that MIDI signal through various pieces of gear with different MIDI channels. This way I could utilise the Octatrack MIDI sequencing.
Let’s say I sequence something on each of the 8 MIDI tracks from the Octa, would I be able to chain that MIDI signal through several pieces of gear, still retaining the data on different MIDI channels? I could make the first synth play on MIDI channels 1-4, then the second one could do 5-8?
for example:
my digitone is multitimbral, it has 4 tracks.
i could program it so that track 1 and 2 listening to channel 1 and the other two to different channels.
perhaps a pad and and arp, played with one midi channel.
Through port means: what comes in should come out, unaltered.
Lets pick the gear what it should listening to.
Yes! Through port always carrys all the midi data there is and you can use whatever you need from it in each piece.
To use it you just need to match the midi channel of the sequence you are using with the piece of gear you wish. You can change the channel per sequence on the octatrack and you can mostly change channels on most gear.
And then you can look in the manual for Midi CCs. Most gears parameters can be controlled via midi. Octatrack can send those massages you can set the faders to different Midi CCs that you like. There should be a list what each CC controls in your piece of gear. This can be sequenced too via octa.
Does synths usually come with different MIDI channels? I’ve been looking at those new KORG synths (Opsix, Modwave, etc.) wondering how many channels they might have - but couldn’t easily find any information (yet).
I bet it would be cool (if possible, most likely is) to get a MIDI to CV splitter of some sorts to use in a modular setup. This way, the 8 MIDI tracks on my Ocatrack could serve as CV sequencers too maybe?
…most external gear offers midi through…so, daisy caining such gear can be inidvidually adressed per inidividual midi channel with 4 notes each at once…
so, any poly synth can do chord progressions within 4 notes max…if this synth can do more than 4 voices at once AND is multitimbral, wich means, this synth can offer more than one sound at the same time, u can also adress more different midi channels, to adrees those other sounds also…
so, u actually can tell up to 8 different external midi devices, each on their own, if daisy chained, what they should have to say…BUT u can only host up to 4 external devices at once also audio wise, since u got 4 mono ins, respectively 2 stereo ins on the ot…
I don’t want to sound rude, but you should really invest time to learn for yourself too - you seem to be very interested, but a lot of your questions are very, very basic and should be easily adressed with beginner tutorials.
This is true. Occasionally you find gear that only responds to a fixed channel. My MS-20FS only responds on Ch1, for example.
I think it’s worth mentioning that most instruments only have one “voice”, so they only respond on one channel at a time. They might offer “omni” mode that lets them respond on all channels at the same time, but I’ve never understood how that was useful to anyone. So your sequencer can send out data on 16 channels, down a chain of instruments connected by MIDI THRU, and each instrument responds just to its own channel (or channels, see next para).
Instruments with multiple voices (e.g. some drum machines and “multi-timbral” synths and sound modules) typically let you specify which channel drives each voice/layer/timbre.
The old rule of thumb was that daisy-chaining more than three or four instruments could introduce audible latency, so the box at the end of the chain might play out of time with the rest. In practice, “no-one” experiences this any more and the guidance probably originated in the 80s when processors were slower. It’s explicitly mentioned in the Juno 106 manual so my guess is that it was A Thing then, but isn’t now. I’ve had about 6 instruments in a single chain play just fine (to my ears).
Ok, so it seems like a practical and easy thing to do would be chaining the MIDI signal flow from the Octatrack to various devices - then setting the MIDI channels on each one of those to correspond to the sequenced Octa MIDI tracks. Or go the modular route and get some MIDI to CV converter module in there.
