AR, A4, Unitor, Ableton... without Usb-Midi Iam nailed down

Hey Guys

I just got me in real trouble here (all it took is 1300€ and a Unitor mk2)

my Question has three episodes of drama…

I want to use all of my Synths and sequencers without hooking it up to USB-Midi…

NOW its just semi giving me what I want! I have problems with some scenarios like: I have selected the “BD1” Track on the AR But if I hit play on Ableton it plays the “SD2” Track… I didn’t get the Hint behind it… I would love to Copy and paste If you have any Screenshots of your set up!!!

I have a Unitor 8 Mk2 which is my Midi I/O Bus with 8 Ins and Outs / (input 8 is my Usamo Midiclock that Handels and makes sure that my midi clock coming out from Ableton is Stable)

I have My ARs Midi Ins plugged to the Output 1 of the Unitor and my AR Midi outs to the Input 1 of the Unitor.

…same for my other outboard gear (just going up in Numeric Order)!


I have no Idea what to do in the AR Midisettings to Work proper

I have red the Manual several times I just don’t freakin get it…

The SYNC Section of the AR is cool and I feel home with the settings!
Same with the Port Config. That Subject is cool, too with some exceptions (I have the first 4 settings set all to Midi and to Usb-Midi
—Out Port=Midi
—Thru Port=Midi
—Input from=Midi
—Output to=Midi

—Output Ch= ? / ?

The Track Channels is the region where I the most Trouble with!
What should I do here?

what I want to do with all of my devices and Ableton is the following workflow…

…I want to feed all of my Sequencers the same Clock and my Outboard stuff with the accurate clock that goes into the 8th Input of the Unitor(that should give, the same Clock to all of my Unitor outputs from 1-7… IS THIS RIGHT? CAN SOMEBODY CONFIRM that this right!? Does every output give out the clockinformation automatic as soon I plug a clock in into one of the Unitor Inputs?) WHAT I MEAN IS: IF I SET THE AR TO RECEIVE MIDI BUT DESELCT SEND MIDI… DOES THE AR TOOK OVER THE CLOCK COMING FROM UNITOR MIDIOUT 8— HOW CAN I TEST THIS?

As the Outputs should put out Clock now! I have plugged In the AR!
I used the AR MIDI OUTPUT and Plugged it to the Unitor MIDI INPUT 1 and the INPUT of AR I Plugged to Unitor MIDI OUTPUT 1

Now the AR Should hooked up into my system perfectly!


In ABLETON

As I don’t have the AR connected over USB my Midi ports are named other than yours… So the right name to choose must be “Unitor Port 1”

In the INPUT section I have just “Track” ON, the “sync” and “Remote” is OFF
In the Output section I have “Track” ON and “Sync” ON

I DONT THINK THAT ANYONE WILL GIVE ME A NICE HELPFULL ANSWER ON THE MESS I JUST WROTE HERE… BUT HOPEFULLY IAM GETTING ANY LITTLE BITS OF HELP THAT WOULD TAKE OFF SOME PAIN I GUESS

THANK YOU for reading!!!

Iam sure that my Usamo clock is Generating 300 ticks in a minute if I watch his led blinking! but I just want 123Bpm out of it, 123Bpm that Ableton Live should send to the Usamo… and 123Bpm is written in Ableton…

I guess that Usamo I blinking so often to hold the accurate timing!

How can I tell Usamo to give away 123bpm and not 300bpm…?

Or what could be the problem?

I have got usamo running into a Unitor8 and from there every MidiOut should get 123Bpm!

In The Rytm Display it says “midi” “300.0BPM” if I push on “tempo button”

Rome’s great working MIDI setup wasn’t built in a day… :smile:
I suggest slow down, unplug everything, and figure out one part at a time until you know how it operates and that its functioning correctly, then add another, repeat until full setup works. Consult the manuals for all devices…

-For episode one, sounds like you want to use the autochannel on AR if you want Abe’s to control the selected track, you’ll need Abe’s to send on that channel as well. Track channels control the tracks at all times, autochannel controls the selected track…

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hey Thanks for replying Mike… I think they’ve build rom for long before I get this subject played down for me…

Naw its not that worse…

I found that problem tackling the 300bpm! it was that I checked “sync” in every “unitor out” it is fairly enough just to Sync my Clock Out on “unitor out8”

what I have problems with is: why is the snare playing and not the kick, I have surely selected the “Kick pad”
It must have to do something with the “Track Channels” or “auto channel”
could you help with that case to lift up please?

AAANNNNDD I got I little pissed here! because I have bought me a Usamo to regulate the Timing… AAAAANNNNNDDDD Still its fluctuating somehow…! I have 123 coming out my Daw and the rhythm is tickling somewhere between 122.9 and 123.1 BPM!

And even when I use the AR to send his own clock its fluctuating but the AR Rytm is not showing the Fluctuation in his Countings I just see it when I record a track and Magnifie the recording!

any help anyhow?

Thank you

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Veni, Midi, Vici …

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I did mention the autochannel and track channel in that in the post above…
What part doesn’t make sense?

the part that don’t make any sense is that… I already Have BD1 Selected and to my understanding (seen in a video) is that I take auto channel 1 than I can play the current chosen track with my Midi keyboard… so if I chose BD1 I have Kicks chromatically on my midi keyboard keys! And if I chose another track in AR I can play that instrument chromatically…

but what are the other numbers/counts? what are/is Autochannel off,Autochannel 1, Autochannel 2, Autochannel 3… and all the track channels too… I really studyed the manual… but I need the explantation that I Kindergardenkid would understand… Can you please help

Alright, you seem to want to control the track you currently selected on AR. This is not your only option as these devices are flexible, but let’s roll with that for now…

MIDI has 16 channels and you can set which channel a voice responds to on the track channel settings. This way you can send MIDI info from a sequencer, say Ableton, and control up to 16 MIDI voices from it (AR has 12), the info is separated by channel so you can play more than one thing at the same time. The autochannel is used to control only the currently selected track and you can set it to one of the 16 channels.

The simplest way to do what you want would be to set the “autochannel” in AR setting to channel 1 and set all the other channels to off for now. Now by sending info on MIDI channel 1 from Ableton it will control the track selected on AR…

The track channel settings are for controlling tracks without them selected. For example if you have Cowbell on channel 12, by sending midi from Ableton on channel 12 it will control Cowbell regardless of what track is selected on the AR.

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HALLELUYA I KISS YOUR FEETS!!! Thank you so much man

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Aw Shucks… :blush::joy:

everything is runnin now and everything under controle! Thank you!

1 questions left to last:

as the usamo takes ableton clock out to the unitor input 8 means that the clock should just come from the outputs of the unitor… and that means that theres is no need for for checking the „sync boxes“ in abletons midi config… because no device get the ableton clock directly from the daw… ecxept the usamo, but this is getting clock via Audio and not via Midi. So theres really nothing to check with „sync“

if i uncheck the boxes my analog rytm is getting in a waiting position and it wont play!

how can i tell the rytm and other devices to get the clock from the Unitor output and not from the Daw?

i hope you can tackle this last disturbing case with me!

thank you very much

I don’t have any experience with a Unitor or Usamo, or Ableton for that matter…
Is Unitor outputting to old school MIDI din connector I imagine?
Make sure in AR under MIDI PORT CONFIG that INPUT FROM is MIDI+USB and not just USB.

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