A4 MIDI Routing Assistance

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Hello Nauts! First post. Long time reader and learner. Appreciate you all immensely. I will try and keep this short in hopes that someone can tell me where I’ve gone wrong/mad.

My goal is to sequence and live record all my synths with my A4 MkII. In addition to this, I’d like to have a separate midi keyboard that can control/live record the A4 synth, as well as my Moog Minitaur. I know this is a common issue where people get stumped, but I am 95% there as of now. Just one thing I can’t seem to figure out.

I’ve created the diagram below for your reference.

Elektronauts-Midi-Map-Help
Elektronauts-Midi-Map-Help2377×1366 236 KB

Again, 95% there. Everything runs smoothly with sequencing and live recording between the A4, OB6 and Prophet 6. Everything is receiving clock and transport as intended, and the Korg, serving as a midi controller, is able to control the A4 synth and the Minitaur.

The only thing that is not happening is that the Minitaur is not receiving/playing the sequence from the A4—even after I’ve successfully live recorded the midi controller, playing the Minitaur, into the A4.

In summary: Minitaur responding via Korg (midi controller), A4 logging the MIDI to FX track upon live record, Minitaur not playing it back from the A4 sequence.

I’ve tried a number of different routing solutions, scanned the forums, but I continue to come up short.

Any ideas about where I’ve gone wrong?

One other note, because I know auto channel is a common topic: with the current routing, when playing the A4-assigned auto channel on the Korg, the FX track (which is assigned to the Minitaur), does not respond. The auto channel works on the other tracks which are assigned to OB6 and Prophet 6.

Thank you for your time. Sorry for rant!

#2

I don’t see any midi routing from A4 to Minitaur that would cause the A4 sequencer to play the Minitaur.

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#3

Thanks for your help! I figured the A4 midi is running to OB6, Prophet and eventually (through the mergers) makes its way to the Minitaur. Is that not the case?

#4

You appear to have connected the MIDI Out of the P6 to the merger. The messages that arrive at the P6’s MIDI In are not passed to its MIDI Out.

My suggestion would be to connect the MIDI Thru of the P6 directly to the MIDI In of the Minitaur. You will lose the ability to have the “Korg” directly play the Minitaur, but gain what you are currently missing.

Your system is eccentric because it has multiple keyboards and because the Analog Four is not a fully-featured MIDI sequencer. You could make the system a little more flexible by using a more sophisticated MIDI routing device instead of the two mergers and all the MIDI Thru connections.

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#5

In such a setup I would definitely want some MIDI router with selective message routing and filtering capabilities to prevent MIDI loops and timing issues (introduced by MIDI mergers).

A router which can additional transform messages into other ones is also quite helpful.

Something like:

A spare/old laptop with a multiport MIDI interface running something like MIDI Translator Pro does the job, too, of course.

Additional benefit of a router:

You haven’t to rewire the setup, but just reprogram the router to send messages from any device to any other one.

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#6

That makes sense. Doh!

I guess I was hoping the Korg (MicroKORG) would be able to retain control of Minitaur as well as having the A4 sequence the Minitaur.

I’ll take your advice and look into a more robust midi interface in hopes of making it all work. The mergers just sort of happened and I thought they’d be a quick fix.

Appreciate it, everyone.

#7

Hi there! so you are way further than I am, and my desired setup is even easier. Just wondering, how do you use the sequencer on the A4 to sequence the OB6 and prophet? (which tracks do you use?)

#8

It’s pretty simple! You can find info on it in the manual around page 55 and there is tons of help on this forum if you run into issues but my basic understanding of it is:

  1. Assign a midi channel on your external synth so it’s sending and receiving midi on a specific channel. For example, let’s assign it midi channel 10. On the OB6 and Prophet 6 this is done in Global Settings.

  2. On your A4, make sure that same channel number is assigned to the desired track you want to sequence it with. This can be done in settings > midi > channels. For example, if you wanted to sequence your synth on track 3 of your A4, you would assign channel 10 to track 3 in the midi channel configuration.

  3. Lastly, on the A4, make sure you have “send midi” checked on the “Note” settings for that given track.

Assuming your midi cable routing is correct (mine wasn’t hence this post) that’s about it—as far as I can remember off hand.

I personally use tracks 3 and 4 for my Prophet and OB6 but this could be done on any of the four or the FX channel.

Good luck @tendingtropic

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#9

thank you! got it to work.

didn’t actually realise that you can ofcourse also use the A4 Track 1-4 to sequence other gear too.
(I instictively thought it would be best to fill those tracks with A4 sounds). A lot of possibilities!

Only downside is that you can’t use the built in A4 mixer on the external gear I see, or can you?

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