While searching on this forum a way to convert my A4 CV to MIDI , I’ve read several times that we can use a Monotribe with midi mod. I don’t own this machine but because it has a CV IN, I guess if you add a midi out, maybe there is a way to convert the CV to MIDI.
Can someone confirm it works and maybe explain a bit more what do we need in order to convert the signal ?
I’ve just seen this video from @darenager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPv-eCulqBo
Do you still sell those kits to convert CV to MIDI ?
http://www.amazingmachines.com.br/products_miditribe.html these look a bit pricey with shipping but seem well made.
I’m fairly sure it does work, I can try later, I did a DIY mod from info gleaned from the net (& Daren) … I went for 2.5mmTRS breakout sockets as I had pre-made midi cables from iOS using those
The other thing you’d need is a breakout cable from the Mono tribe CV/clock-pulse in … in order to drive the CV in you need to breakout a TRRS socket to a TRS socket by dropping one of the contacts … info should be online
Currently I am out of stock of Monotribe midi kits, but even my old version is far superior to that “amazing machines” one - which does not even have ground on the midi out, is expensive, and takes up way too much space, involves trailing wires outside the case etc, ugh! It is a hack job, but all the synth blogs picked up on it so it became very popular, it is designed to be fitted with only a screwdriver which explains the shortcuts to the end result, but not the other design issues.
My new version will be back in stock in a week or so, it has vca de-click as an option, proper midi ports to proper midi association spec, and the output can be set to thru instead if desired, it involes drilling holes in the case to fit, but you end up with something that looks and works well, as opposed to something crappy with sticking out wires, also mine is cheaper.
I also have a small number of CV boxes available, and various other things, I guess I should set up a webshop eventually, in the meantime my stuff can be found on ebay search by user micro.tech or on my blog http://monotribemods.blogspot.co.uk/
@loa I’m less sure it works well now …
I now know I hadn’t actually tried the CV conversion in realtime
I had to modify my breakout cable (shave a little plastic off, so I couldn’t have ever done this test before) to clear the socket for my MIDI In
In my experience (can’t attest for @darenager’s experience here though) it shows the same symptom as this user found here with his Teenage Engineering OPLab …
The A4 voltages plays the Monotribe pitch correctly but the MIDI derived from this is inconsistent as follows
If you played a low C on A4 to begin with and then one an octave up, it would play 11 semitones higher on the first press and then the correct octave (12 semitones) on all subsequent presses … it’s just not reliable enough to be useful in practice imho
I’m quite sure this is not related to my MIDI board (it’s creating viable understandable MIDI, plus it’s consistent with the TE OPLab) I think it’s something on the voltage side somewhere
It may be best to switch off the Monotribe pitch quantizing, but then you’d possibly get lots of pitch bend info for notes which are approaching the right voltage to precisely play a given note
It seems to stabilise for second and subsequent plays of a given note
It all may benefit from a bit of calibration before hand (i calibrated MT to A4 and used a central reliable range) … but for now i’d urge a bit more research or seek some more feedback
Here’s my setup - it shows a MIDI cable in the gold upper sockets and the breakout cable made from a commonly available TRRS
FWIW way back when I made that video I never noticed any issues, however I’d advise against buying a Monotribe, CV interface, and midi kit just to get midi out of the A4, the note range will be limited and midi will be fixed to channel 1, with fixed velocity. It is more useful if you already have a Monotribe anyway, and see it as a hack rather than a comprehensive midi solution.
I have prototyped various expansions for the A4 including midi out, but to be honest development time and cost to make a batch vs actual interest from people wanting to buy means that it simply is not worth my time.
@AdamJay was using a little doepfer solution to get midi out IIRC, that probably remains the best and most cost effective way to do it.
confirmed:
Thanks @avantronica for all your explanations. As you said, it seems pretty not reliable to be used in a music production context and if @darenager confirms it too, I guess I’ll not buy and trust a monotribe for my CV conversion duty.
I’m aware of the doepfer module (thx @AdamJay) and I’ll maybe take a look at it. I don’t really want to eat a module space in a case but it seems a reliable solution.
Let’s hope someone release a standalone CV to midi box before I make a decision.
I may investigate a different CV pitch:gate source (or calibration of A4 CV side)
I guess it’s theoretically possible the issue could be with the A4 and not the Monotribe
iirc The original Waldorf Pulse+ which I have does this too and it is a monstrous mono voice, more so than the later one … iirc, there was something about driving the synth voice by CV that was slightly erratic
anyway … more ideas here
fwiw - even with Kong’s own (non adjustable) CV sequencer, the SQ1, there were pitch variations between what was heard from the Monotribe and what was sent via MIDI … this is for quantized voltages … on one range e.g. 1v the correlation might be good, but if you increased it to 2v or 5v, you’d suddenly find that one note which was clearly part of a progression of rising notes would be playing duplicated on the MIDI side … my guess is that tiny variations in voltage are tipping the value under threshold for certain notes … so it sounds close enough for jazz in a CV synth, but in terms of the midi note it ends up a semi-tone off … either way, it’s handy but not robust enough to rely on
The great Elektronaut @klerc made me aware of a solution Kenton has in the works:
http://www.kentonuk.com/products/items/m-cv/pcvmidi.shtml
It looks to be compact. and has aux inputs for using CVs 3 + 4 for conversion to MIDI CC#s.
Nice move Kenton ! It looks like my dreaming standalone conversion box 
I’ll definitly wait for this to be released before think about another solution.
Yes. Real excited about this product.
My plan with the Kenton Pro CV to MIDI is to use it as an AK internal synthesis expander.
Using the CV track, I’ll route the all CVs… Pitch, Gate, CV 3 (LFO 1), and CV 4 (LFO 2) through the Kenton, and then back into the Analog Keys.
I’ll mute and mute the CV track (pitch/gate converted to midi) as a note fill track, routed to AK Track 2 notes, just muting it and un-muting it for note fills.
CV 3 (LFO 1), and CV 4 (LFO 2) will go into AK tracks 1 and 2 respectively, and act like third LFOs on those tracks, free running when I don’t want them effected by the CV track notation.
Should make the AK as nasty as it wants to be.
oh, and found this:
