One thing that Roland did right with the Aira Compact series is make it convenient to chain devices. Simple stereo/TRS cables for patching audio and MIDI and you are ready. They even ship units from the factory with preassigned MIDI channels. They even coordinated their example patterns on various devices so that when you do a program change on the master device, the other devices change patterns and they fit together.
So I started wondering what other devices worked well chained together and found a couple post on how to set up Digi pairs chained with master and slave. Following suggestions in these threads I set up my Digitakt II as the master unit with MIDI, but the last unit in the chain so that my Syntakt can run through the DT2 master effects. Works great. So how far can I take this without running into problems with MIDI or audio latency? Is anyone chaining DT2, DN2 and Syntakt with success? For a moment, and just a moment, I considered getting an Octatrack Mk2 to use as clock/MIDI master and mixing two units of audio.
I’m looking at chaining because I just cannot find the perfect mixer. Bluebox is as close as I can get with 6 true stereo channel, the ability to convert two channels to stereo effects sends/returns, small size and recording to micro SD. If I could just find this setup with sliders and mutes. Gonna have to break over and get a Korg NanoKontrol2 for the Bluebox.
I dont really recommend chaining instruments together. Using a dedicated mixer will probably yield a much better headroom than running 3.5mm jacks together. its handy to have in a pinch of course, but I’d personally always prefer using a mixer
This is a perfectly fine setup that I use. Only issue is your ability to mix is limited to your channels on the OT and gain staging/fx between boxes. In my setup I use several stereo sources so chaining them via inputs and MIDI are necessary. For example, I have a OT, DN, ST, MC, + 1 setup where I have the OT as the brain and main mixing with duties to add fx to incoming audio. Typically I route the MC into the DN, the DN into the ST, the ST into the OT, and add the other devices in the remaining 2 inputs of the OT to add FX. This means gain staging between tracks and the inputs of each device is key. For this reason standardizing the levels of input for yourself will be a big first step if going this route to avoid pains further down the line.
Again this is a live setup use case specifically without a mixer. It takes it’s own level of premeditation, but I also think I’d get lost and annoyed mixing separate tracks for all my equipment on a dedicated mixer in a performance setting. No issues with latency at all using a MIDI splitter
This is an example if you can follow the inputs/outputs using the colors of the cables. Basically everything is chained through to the DN into the AB inputs on the OT except the E-4 which is put into the CD inputs for extra fx on vox. This also uses track 8 on the OT as a master mix track.
I suggest to discuss MIDI and audio chaining as two complete different and unlinked topics.
In your case I would say that three Elektron-boxes chained with short MIDI-cabels, and using one as the “time-master” should work together well and reliable.
You should check for your use case wether all MIDI channels provided by a single chain, which is limited to 16, are sufficient. Elektron boxes often are used receiving MIDI on more than one MIDI-channel to control their plethora of functionality.
The audio might not be the best quality at the end of the chain and not easy to control. But its possible.
IMO … this is because of …
Audio:
if devices provde audio in, mixing external with internal audio, and audio out we can use this technically to chain more than two boxes without a mixer
in most cases we will have only mono or stereo outputs and the device with the lowest sound quality in chain will probably limit the overall sound quality
mixing in a chained environment is possible in principle, but mixing in the chain will be more of a liability rather an advantage.
if each device is routed into a mulit-channel mixer, we can balance each audio independently from the others, which provides much more flexibility and ease of use.
MIDI:
MIDI chaining is one baseline use case of MIDI … its designed for this
clock signal and synchronisation are broadcasted independently from MIDI channel settings and are availabe for all connected devices
if MIDI channels of sending and receiving devices are set correctly, each device should respond as expected
if the MIDI information is broadcasted through a chain of MIDI-In and MIDI-Through we must accept time delays and latency.
few devices in MIDI chains connected with short cables are almost always working in-time and send/receive correct MIDI commands
huge numbers of devices in MIDI chains connecterd with long cables tend to show timing/synchronization issues and sometimes MIDI errors, which can produce unexpected behaviour
