Beyond sampling, I’m wanting to use the OT as the MIDI brain for my live setup. It works perfectly with my Moog Little Patty, but does not get along with my Modal 001 at all.
So I’m considering replacing the Modal 001, and looking for suggestions for a new 2 to 4 voice analog/hybrid synth confirmed by community experience to work reliably as a slave to the OT midi sequencer.
I’d love to hear your setups and suggestions.
Thanks.
I have OT+A4+Blofeld. A Pulse 2 would be nice too.
My favourite is A4. It can be great for analog drums too.
Cool. I was curious about the Blofeld. I’d prefer keys, so I’m going back and forth between that and the Mopho x4.
Maybe AK. The workflow is logical and familiar with another Elektron.
Check Analog Keys vs Mopho 4.
4 individual outputs, great sequencer, Multi Map, maybe easier to program…
May I ask what the problem with the Modal 001 is in terms of use with the OT. Is it something we can help with?
I’ve exhausted all possibilities, but I’d love a second opinion.
Completely new OT Project/Pattern.
1/4 note trigs input manually on MIDI track set to ch. 11
MIDI track is active.
OT MIDI auto ch. 16
001 ch. 11
Audio track MIDI channels off.
MIDI connection loop between OT and 001.
001 local off.
CC Direct Connect enabled.
001 Transport is disabled to avoid triggering internal sequencer.
001 will respond intermittently. Playing from 001 keyboard works relatively well, but frequently getting hung notes. 001 triggered by OT is hit or miss whether the triggered notes play, and it’s completely random as to which notes respond.
Same settings work flawlessly on my Moog LP and Mininova.
The 001 has been buggy in the past but it works fine with my ES2, so I’m left scratching my head.
For some reason I thought AK had micro keys or only two octaves, but yeah that looks pretty great, and obviously I’m on board with Elektron so I might go that route.
My fave setup is a multitimbral synth on the OT’s CD input and external effects on the Cue out and AB input. Right now I have a Blofeld on the CD ins and an iPad on the AB ins, though sometimes I’ll replace the Blofeld with a Micron and replace the iPad with the Biscuit or the SU700’s super effects.
A streamlined, versatile setup lets me focus on creating interesting, complementary sounds and arps as the foundation of my songs. After each song, I use the OT to slice and dice the stems to make 2 or 3 remixes. Using the whole buffalo, as they say.
A lean and limited setup keeps my choices to a minimum, forces me to devise workarounds that teaches me my gear inside and out. That keeps me constantly moving forward and discovering new tricks every day. Fun, rewarding, productive and GAS-free. For now…
IMO every midi capable synth should work pretty well with the OT, because the OT just sends and receives standard midi data. I had never a problem, using the OT as the center of a setup.
If the Modal 001 seems to have midi-implementation bugs, I would contact service and talk to them. Maybe they have an idea.
I would suggest to define your sonic needs. Machines like AK, Mininova, Blofeld are quite different beasts taking you to very different sonic territory. If you are already in the price league of the Modal, you could also consider the new Novation Peak.
Very true. Ruling out user error with other synths puts the midi issue on the 001, and I’m in the process of working that out with their tech support. This experience just has me cautious to prevent a similar situation with a new synth that should work properly but doesn’t.
My hope was to only use the 001 for my live setup to keep it small. The 001 has a performance mode that lets you split the keyboard to assign two patches similtaneaously. So far, the AK seems to be the synth to fulfill that using the 4 track mode to assign different mono patches to different MIDI channels.
And much more ! Plock different preset sounds on the same track, plock fx, 10 macros controlling 5 parameters each, same for Pitch Bend, modulation, Aftertouch, override the AK notes with polyphony from OT, Multi Map (one note=one sound on the keyboard), conditional trigs…
If you are looking to the AK, I would recommend, don’t use the OT as the sequencer. The AK has four independent tracks with four sequencers, which are more flexible and versatile, then many other hardware sequencers. All those p-locks, conditional trigs etc. are available internally only.
If I set-up my Dark-Trinity, the AK is only started, stopped and synchronised by the OT via midi and does all it’s sequencing internally 
If you like the sound of the AK in general, check it out. This said … be aware … the AK sound is AK and does not replace a Moog, DSI, Oberheim etc.
Yeah, it’s pretty impressive. I definitely started looking deeper into after your recommendation. It’s so good that some features feel redundant along side the OT, but that’s just going to allow me that much more flexibility.
Blofeld keys or Analog keys
So OT plocks can’t control AK parameters? Did I understand that right? Or it’s just better to take advantage of the AK’s internal, more complex sequencing capabilities?
This might be a hardware interoperability issue where the 001 has trouble properly recognising the MIDI signal that comes out of the OT. Sometimes you can come across a combination of gear where the edges of the digital signal aren’t sharp enough for the optocoupler in the receiving device to make sense of.
Have you tried using an active midi thru box or midi merger in between the OT MIDI OUT and the 001 MIDI IN? That might resolve the issue you’re seeing.
You can also try with a synth that has a dedicated hardware MIDI THRU port in between the OT and the 001.
It can definitely but internal seq allows for deeper modulation. One way could be to do a hybrid, for example do all basic seq in the AK but use the OT in parallel to seq performance parameters and multi map features (for example root note for seq).
Yeah. Both of course. From OT : Multi Map, Performance macros, variations with different sounds, even polyphony. If you already have an OT, you have the choice. You can’t plock (or control with lfos) arp settings with AK, but you can do it with OT.
Anyway, it is not complicated to add control from OT to AK.
Alas, my options are limited but I did give it a try. I don’t have a dedicated MIDI THRU box. My Moog LP doesn’t have a dedicated thru, but it does merge out/thru which produces similar results.
The only other gear with Thru is my MIDI iRig 2, which produced the same results.
The issue seems to be with the 001 not cooperating properly within a MIDI loop. As a slave, I can play it flawlessly from anything other gear with X MIDI OUT -> 001 MIDI IN. But as soon as I complete the loop (001 local always off) unregistered and hung notes abound.
If you get the same result while using those devices in between, then what I described is not the issue.
The only other thing I can think of is that the OT and the 001 might both be sending MIDI Clock messages on the same loop.
It sure is a strange issue you’re having. 