Hi, I have a arturia keylab I am running into the digitone and then my midi digitone through is going to the digitakt. The keylab is controlling notes on the digitone and volume/ delay/ reverb on the digitakt that I mapped. I want the digitone to also be able to be the master clock and start button, but since I am connecting it to the through, it won’t do that. The keylab can’t send the start button as far as I can figure out either.
My question is, if I also plug a midi cable from the digitone into the digitakt through (because I am already plugged into the midi in), will the digitone be able to start patterns and set the master clock on the digitakt? Will this harm the digitakt if I try it?
Hi, because midi thru is a reflection of what is received from the midi in port, the digitakt is only receiving the midi data from the keylab right now.
I think that the easiest way to accomplish what you want is either figure out how to get digitone and digitakt to respond to the keylab clock and transport control, or to buy a midi merger.
With the merger take a cable from both the midi out port and the midi thru port of the digitone, merge them, and run the single output of that into the digitakt midi in. Then the digitakt will respond to transport commands which originate inside the digitone and are sent to the out port, as well as the keylab controls.
I’ll look at some information for the keylab mkii. @Tchu is suggesting using a relay system of sorts which passes information along via a midi track, but it would take some specific configuring which he’s going to explain to you, I assume, because it would mean making the midi track respond to the keylab and then having that same midi track pass data in response to the keylab from the out port and not the thru port.
Ok if you have already tried the MCU and HUI presets for transport control, I don’t think that it’s going to work. Arturia supports MMC but elektron does not so transport control cannot be accomplished via that method. Keylab mkII does not appear to have a means of generating a clock source on it’s own.
If you have not tried the MCU or HUI presets, try it first with just the digitone after enabling transport receive in the DN menu. Since the DN already responds to the Keylab notes, we know it’s properly configured in at least a basic sense on that end however any advanced config probably needs to be done in the midi control center software as the onboard config options don’t seem to be as deep as the keystep pro and keylab relies mainly on the use of preset configurations and the software configurator.
You can certainly play around a bit and see what you can make to work, but the path of least resistance is a midi merger which will simplify things significantly, however will probably cost somewhere between $40-100 USD depending on where you purchase from (amazon, reverb, music store, etc).
If you can configure a midi track to do what you want then it’s free, but the bottom line is that transport and clock need to come from the midi out port, because the midi thru port will only forward midi data coming from the keylab and nothing else.
Crazy. Didnt know that in that aspect the “bigger” Keylab can do less than the Keysteps.
All in all, my guess is that Tschu is right in the idea of just “sacrifice” a TRK on the DN and make it to a Midi-machine which just passes the CCs to the DT. Just use MIDI-OUT of DN. Just use the lets say “soft-through” capablity of the Digis.
I just wasnt sure if also CCs are send to the OUT.
I for example always feed Notes played in a Keystep to the DT and let the DT send that (where you are free to use a predefinded channel on the DT to receive or use Auto-channel) on another channel to another device like ST or Modular, but i wasnt sure if this would also work with CCs.
It got the advantage that you can record the Notes onto that Midi-channel on the DT and use the sequencer on it afterwards for further exploring and editing.
If I had to guess, it’s that keylab mkii is a “pure” midi controller vs keystep which contains a sequencer. The internal sequencer of keystep creates a necessity for some kind of midi clock generation and transport connectivity, whereas the keylab only sends pitch and CC information (along with realtime controls).
It also seems as though the way the midi realtime information (like transport control) is conveyed to other devices is done through some other standardization. I did see in the keylab mkii manual that it is capable of sending midi machine control, but I know from experience that elektron does not support MMC protocol.
I would suspect that there is some form of midi realtime control which might be able to talk to an elektron box, but if it’s not sending clock as well as transport, then you’re back to the issue of digitone needs to send clock as well as pass along transport and again, a merge situation occurs.
I suspect there is a way to send along all midi data through a digitone midi relay track as described above, but since I use a merger for these types of situations, then due to lack of necessity, I’m not particularly well versed in setting up the device to be used that way and probably won’t be of much help in that regard.
I’ve tried this and am fine if the dn is sending the transport. But when I do this, I am not able to control mixer levels on the digitakt with the keylab, which is more important for me.
If it’s as easy as getting a merger cable I can do that.
How do I make one of the midi tracks on the dn send transport data to the digitakt?
Transport and Clock are general informations, not specific of a track or channel.
Look a little bit into the manual. Just turn on Transport and Clock send on one device and receiving on the other.
