Control OT with a midi keyboard

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hello , I have a Yamaha reface dx and I would love to can control my Octotrack keyboard with the reface, but I really don’t know how to start, I’m really new on OT and also on midi universe, I just plug the midi out of my reface to the midi in on the ot but nothing happens, I would love to use the ot as a “synth engine” and be able to play chords

Thanks

#2

There are a few steps involved to get to that goal.

First, as you may know, MIDI messages such as notes are sent on a single MIDI channel. Therefore you need to ensure that the Reface DX is transmitting MIDI notes on a channel that the OT is listening to. You also need to ensure that the OT knows that you want to play its sounds and not (yet) do anything else.

To set that up, you need to do the following:

On the OT:

  • select the TRIG MODE “CHROMATIC”
  • in the PROJECT > MIDI > CONTROL menu, set AUDIO NOTE IN to “FOLLOW TM”
  • in the PROJECT > MIDI > CHANNELS menu, make a note of the value of AUTO CH (the default value is 9)

On the DX:
In the MIDI Settings screen, set the TR CH (MIDI Transmit channel) to match the number of the OT’s AUTO CH setting.

Now you should be able to find a two-octave range of the DX’s keyboard that will play whatever sound you have loaded on the active audio track of the OT. It will play monophonically (one note at a time) because the OT does not play polyphonically on a single audio track. Try this out and see what happens.

To get chords you would have to either:

  • load a chord sample into the OT’s audio track, or
  • use an external device to spread the notes you play on the DX keyboard to more than one audio track of the OT.
3 Likes
#3

Thanks a lot for the answer

Unfortunately still not working

I connect my dx reface midi out to the ot midi in

And I do all the process that you say. But still don’t answer the ot

On the reface I put on the midi screen tr ch (9) and rv ch (9) and on the ot I set for 9 but nothing

I don’t know what I’m missing

Thanks for your patience, and all the answers from before

#4

OK, let’s do some checks together of what the problem might be.

First, the MIDI connection:
Set up the gear as I described above. When you play on the DX’s keyboard, do you see a single pixel blinking in the upper left corner of the OT’s screen when you play notes?