Controller Woes

trevox · 2014-09-15T21:46:11.000Z

I sat down to piece together my live setup using the OT (I only got it a week or two ago) as the hub for it all (master clock and sequencer). I fully understand the concept of midi out/thru ports, but can you really not assign an external controller to the cc’s of a midi track and then resend out the midi out port? It almost seem spiteful not to allow it! Is the only way to achieve using an external controller for the OT and other devices while also sending sequences from the OT to merge the midi out and thru ports of the OT before sending to the next device? I am praying someone has a more elegant solution!

I can appreciate some people may say that OT is a controller, but I like having at least faders for volumes of each track immediately at hand rather than menu hopping.

If Multiman is reading…it looks like my first Arduino project may have just gotten even more difficult!!

J_C_Selector · 2014-09-16T02:57:38.000Z

Not 100% sure what you mean, but you can have a controller sending CC’s to the selected midi track your on, that will pass thru to the synth or whatever is on that midi track.
Or do you mean a controller sending midi CC’s to control the Octa’s midi track ,for example midi track level. In this case why would you want these CC’s to go to the midi output ?

PeterHanes · 2014-09-16T03:09:11.000Z

[quote=“” trevox""]
I sat down to piece together my live setup using the OT (I only got it a week or two ago) as the hub for it all (master clock and sequencer). I fully understand the concept of midi out/thru ports, but can you really not assign an external controller to the cc’s of a midi track and then resend out the midi out port? It almost seem spiteful not to allow it! Is the only way to achieve using an external controller for the OT and other devices while also sending sequences from the OT to merge the midi out and thru ports of the OT before sending to the next device? I am praying someone has a more elegant solution!

…
[/quote]

I’m not sure what you’re planning for your live setup and I didn’t fully understand your question, but you might consider whether activating ‘CC Direct Connect’ in the PROJECT>CONTROL>MIDI SEQUENCER menu would be helpful.

trevox · 2014-09-16T14:03:07.000Z

J_C - I do not want to have to flick through midi tracks to select which one I wish to send midi data to. I have a Doepfer pocket fader and wish to have the 16 faders controlling volumes for the OT (1-8) and then other devices further in the chain (faders 9-16). I cannot use the midi thru port on the OT because I also want to send midi from the OT to these devices as well - therefore I need the data coming out of the midi out port (this will be connected to the midi in of the next device in the chain).

PeterHanes - as per above comment, this is not suitable. No matter what I do, I cannot get data coming from the controller to come out of the OT’s midi out port without selecting a specific midi track on the OT, which defeats the purpose of having a fader bank to control multiple volumes simultaneously.

I did come up with a solution, but it involved what I suggested I might need to do. I happen to have an iConnectMidi2+, so I am sending the Controller into one midi in port and the OT midi out into the other midi in. Then I configured both midi ins to be sent out one midi out (goes to midi in on next device in chain) and only the controller midi to be sent to the other midi out (goes into midi in on the OT). It works quite well and it has the added advantage that I can also send midi from my iPad wherever I want, but it is still more elaborate than I would have wished for.

I guess this topic can be considered closed, but I did need additional hardware to accomplish this - just lucky I happened to have it! I still think the ability to do this should be allowed within the OT itself (I can do this easily in a Nord Modular for instance) as it seems a bit ridiculous.

J_C_Selector · 2014-09-16T22:40:15.000Z

I was about to ask if you know of anything that did this (you did).
I’m trying to understand how it could be done without a midi merger or DAW etc.
So you have a controller going midi in to Octa (or Nord), this controls the Octa and also should go to the midi thru, not to midi out. Midi out is data from only the Octa (but with CC connect and being on the appropriate channel it will, first piece of gear Iv’e ever owned that does this ). So you want the Octa to control your external synths via midi out and the controller to control the Octa and your synths ?
Too many ands in my knowledge of Midi.
Thats what a Midi router is for. Send multiple Ins to multiple Outs.

trevox · 2014-09-17T11:20:52.000Z

I fully understand what midi in/out/thru does! I am not expecting to get midi to pass through to the midi out port - though apparently that is what I have to do through midi merging by the looks of things. My point here is that if I use a midi track on the OT, I am presumably controlling an external piece of gear. I am trying to get the parameters I set for each of these midi tracks to be send to the midi out port when I alter them with an external controller! So if I set a cc in a midi track to cc7, when I change this value on the OT, it will turn the volume up and down on my external gear - great! I can turn CC Direct Connect off and choose a midi channel and get my external controller to do this - great, but only on one midi track at a time. What if I want to alter 2 volumes at the same time? I can turn CC Direct Connect on and am still limited in what I can do simultaneously - I need to choose a track to do anything to it. I looked in the manual under "Using Octatrack as a Midi Control Center"and it is cool for some applications, but it seems to be designed for one synth connected to the midi in and out ports? Hardly a “midi control center”, but maybe it is a case of me asking for too much!

Anyway, rant over, solution in place - time to make some music!!