I have a small-ish home studio with a few devices – OT, DN, a Monologue, an Organelle, an og Circuit, an old Roland EP-50 and a Typhon. I use a DAW (Ableton) most of the time.
Typically for sequencing, I’d go between a MIDI keyboard, a DAW-based sequencer, or the OT.
Curious to hear your thoughts – what is the best way to rig everything up so I’m not continually plugging MIDI cables depending on my configuration? Daisy-chaining and MIDI thru? A MIDI interface like the MOTU Midi Express 128? Blokas MidiHub?
I don’t have a specific solution for you, but I have a similar number of devices, some older gear running via din midi, newer Elektron boxes, sequencers/controllers via USB, etc.
I got the MidiHub because at the time I was mainly just using hardware, hardly ever opened up my DAW. In that use case it worked really well, I had different presets I could switch via the button. However, I also was using less gear, 3 or 4 pieces, 5 top.
Even with 5 it got kind of difficult to manage, and once I wanted to go back to incorporating a DAW or other software gear, I personally kept running into issues.
I ended up reconnecting my old MOTU Micro lite and using some midi patchbay software and calling it a day and it’s been much, much simpler since I made that change.
The con is I need to have my computer on to use more than 1 device, but honestly in those cases I want to be able to more easily record stuff anyway, so for me that works.
I like the MidiHub a lot, but I’d just say that it does add a layer of complexity to what you’re doing, and I’d recommend to just be sure you want what it does well.
Not sure how you would want to use everything together but I used to have all my synths connected through MIDI DIN using their THRU ports if available. If not,a MIDI merger would help. To keep it all in sync with Live, only one of them has to be connected through USB port to your computer.
Ideally your DN to be able to receive/send MIDI clock/transport from Live.
I use a MIDIHub, with some MIDI Thru ports on gear utilised to deal with ‘only’ having four MIDI outs on the MIDIHub. I really value it (and this could apply to other MIDI routers with processing capabilities, I just have personal knowledge of this one) for the amount of problems I’ve been able to solve by changing my preset a bit to do some transforming/filtering of MIDI messages. The MIDI cables are set and forget now, and whatever MIDI processing is basically set and forget, with slight augmentations every so often whenever I refine my set up.
getting the MioXL was pretty life changing for me and my setup. Has tons of 5-PIN and USB MIDI ports, ability to save presets of routings, and a stupid easy plug in and play interface. Literally just tell it what ins you want connected to what outs and your off.
Also has an ethernet port for additional MIDI over ethernet ports. Takes a second to set up, but is straight forward and is nice to have if your setup is large or spans across a large space.
Its a bit of a up-front cost, but totally eliminates the need for hubs, splitters, mergers, etc and saves a ton of time so in the end its considerable value.
Since it’s supposed to be midi over USB, I assume it means you cannot use Overbridge or class-compliant audio with Elektron devices over those USB ports?
I often like to be able to change patch routings and other options without using a computer, so I still stick to old/ancient devices with front-panel buttons & a display … JLC MSB+ or DMC MX-8 … other cheap second-hand options include some from Kawai, Akai, Ensoniq, and Roland. Most can filter some message types out. Most can merge two inputs and then route that merged input to any output. More contemporary devices can merge more than two inputs. These often have beautiful (and useful) PANIC buttons.
But I can understand how the iConnectivity devices are great for folks wanting newer equipment and don’t mind clicking things on their computer to change routings (assuming it hasn’t got a touch interface like the cool one on the Audio4c)
Ya as far as I know the host ports on the MioXL are only for MIDI. I do not believe they have any audio capabilities. They do however provide a healthy power source for MIDI devices that are USB powered.
In the situation you described with overbridge, I would normally just have the OverBridge hub as a seperate thing for elektron boxes. I don’t really ever run into that since I prefer to have everything audio at line and I dont really ever use the Overbridge interface too often. That way I can really easily send stuff around for external processing via patchbays
Blokas Midihub is a good utility device especially if you need to do anything like filter out messages or route in a way that prevents a loop.
I’ve got the couple input controllers hooked into the Blokas inputs and I use a Doremidi Thru-6 to run cables from one output to a bunch of devices. I don’t even need to hook it into USB power as the MIDI cable power is sufficient. One of the devices going in is isolated on a separate output port so other controllers can still talk to it but it can only talk to the output destinations.
If I do need to do anything critical like firmware updates though I go grab a usb cable and hook it directly into the computer.
I pretty well just go through the Blokas for MIDI input into the DAW from one of the USB ports. If I was going to try sequencing from the DAW I could send to a USB port but I haven’t played with that yet. There’s also some other things like scale remap/micro tunings/harmonizers that I haven’t really explored yet in there.
If you can stay in 5 pin land, there’s tons of utility options but if you start having a bunch of devices with only USB MIDI it starts getting to be a pain unless you use your computer as a bridging device.
I find the RK-006 works well for smaller setups.
– A 12-port individual bus USB MIDI interface
– Full MIDI Support, Ultra fast MIDI handling
– 10x Out, 2x MIDI IN (with auto-merge in standalone mode)
– Standalone USB Host for Multiple USB MIDI Devices
– Configurable outputs: TRS-MIDI-A / Gate / PWM
– Per-port MIDI Filtering
– Per-port Clock shifting and Clock Processing
– Built-in polychaining of MIDI devices
– Master Clock Generator
– Presets (works without a computer)
And as stated above midi hubs work only with USB MIDI and don’t transfer anything else (audio, NKS, etc.).