Help - Sequencing external drum machines

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hello,

Just got an Octatrack MK2 yesterday and dove into it. I want to trig/sequence my drum machines with it (JOMOX Air Base 99 and MFB-522). Unfortunately I did not manage to trig them properly and I turned mad. I’m stuck right now and I need help.

For instance, I tried to sequence the MFB (long) Bass Drum via the Octatrack. Plugged my operational MIDI cable in the MIDI output of the Octatrack, and then in the MIDI input of the MFB. Set the receive channel on the MFB on 01.

After that, on the Octatrack I pressed MIDI button > picked up ‘Track 1’ > Set MIDI transmission channel on 01 (via FUNC + SRC) > checked on mixer (MIX button) if my MIDI ‘Track 1’ was ‘on’ > then I chose a MIDI scale of 32/32 (FUNC + PAGE) > activated ‘Grid Recording’ and programmed all the sixteen Trigs on the two patterns. I made sure that on each Trigs C1 is the note triggered because it is the note dedicated to long Bass Drum on MFB-522.

After doing all this, when I press the PLAY button on Octatrack I don’t hear the Bass Drum on all of the sixteen steps (Trigs). Is just hear Bass Drum on four Trigs on the first pattern and then nothing on the second pattern. What is this?! It seems random and completely nonsense, it drives me really mad :triumph:

Please I need your help, thank you.

#2

I had jomox air base 99, xbase 999 and first Jomox kick and try to use them with MD and OT. At the time I was producing breakcore. Hispeed and break.
I had the same problem with all the Jomox. That’s one of the reason I sold them.
I suppose that it is due to the Jomox OS’s. In fact those good analog gears are not made to been hi speed sequenced. And put a trig on each step is quite the same than hispeed playing.
If you listen carefully you will notice that the non played trig vary during the playing of pattern.
If i am not wrong, i understand that a too big quantity of midi that are not correctly treated by Jomox units.

If others Elektronauts could confirm or not…

#3

Re Rthur! Aha et de 3 frenchy sur ce topic, et qui ont (eu) la Air Base99. :wink:

No randomness here. User error / ignorance. OT Midi tracks works really well.

I think you have to change LEN in NOTE page, reduce it below your step intervals.
Default is 1/16.

1 Like
#4

Si c’est ça, chui vert. Je les ai vendu entre autre pour pour cette raison.
Sorry for french words. I wrote that if sezare56 is right, i would be desapointed cause it’s one of the reason that push me to sell my Jomox.
Hey Grace187, can you confirm that it still goes wrong ?

#5

First: thanks to both of you for your answers.

@elenacortes: For JOMOX I did not try to trig it 16 times on 16 steps. The problem is still the same for the MFB and the JOMOX whatever patterns I write, even a simple 4/4. I must do something wrong but I really don’t how to figure it out.

@sezare56: I tried to mess around with LEN but it does not solve my case.

In fact what happens for this example: I wrote two patterns (32/32), put trigs on each step of the two patterns but what I hear is clearly not kick triggered on each step. What I hear is that just 5 steps are triggered on one of two the patterns. In addition to that those 5 steps repeat themselves every 4 patterns, which makes no sense because I set scale to 32/32 (two patterns of 16/16). They should repeat themselves every 2 patterns. :exploding_head:

Hope I was clear in my explaination, it ain’t easy to put words on that.

#6

Maybe some wrong settings, but hard to tell which ones.
Please try with a new project. make it simple.
Does it work with 1 pattern ?

#7

Hmm, do you have any other midi gear to try? Like @sezare56 says it is not a problem with OT most likely.

As suggested start a new project and try it again.

Unfortunately these kind of problems can take a bit of detective work to solve, first thing I would try is another midi device, so unplug the midi from the MFB and plug another device to the OT midi out, leave the sequence as it is, make the midi channel to the other gear the same - does it work? Yes - problem with MFB, No - Something else, try replacing midi cable - working? No? Anything else in midi chain? Take it out - working? No? - Problem with OT.

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#8

Yes, I thought about that too. I don’t remember having particular problems with Airbase 99 sequencing, with a Roland Mc505. A long time ago.

#9

Did you set it to sync transpose in the midi sync settings?

#10

I you have computer with a midi interface I would monitor what the OT is sending out exactly. Set every 1st trig to a specific note (not the same as the other 15 trigs) so that you know where to start counting. Of course if you use a PC MidiOx comes to mind (I always start debugging midi issues by monitoring the ports in MidiOx, it takes away a lot of the guesswork). This method enables to either to rule out the OT (all the note on’s and subsequent note-offs are sent in the correct order) or maybe you find weirdness you didn’t expect at all like rogue CC’s being sent. I once had an issue where I inadvertantly sent a CC that set the volume to zero on the receiver’s side. Had I not used a MidiMonitor I would never have debugged that one!

Also try different playback speeds (including very slow); check if you didn’t create midi feedback somewhere in your midi patch (can happen that the same midi commands arrive twice via diffrent routes but with a slight delay of a tick or two, so that you get note-off’s from one stream that cancel note-on’s from the other stream. Same with midi clock: no loops allowed.

2 Likes
#11

Thank you for your help guys.

@aDc: Yes I set that thing.

@pinup57: I applied your method to monitor what the Octatrack was really sending. So I plugged the OT midi output to the midi input of my midi interface.

I set scale of the OT midi track on 64/64 (master on 64 too) and put a C1 trig on the first step of every bars:
X— ---- ---- ---- (1st bar/pattern)
X— ---- ---- ---- (2nd bar/pattern)
and so on.

And here is what I monitored on Logic:

04
Capture d’écran 2019-02-04 à 15.35.04.png1778×866 100 KB

Not surprising if my drum machines behave weirdly :sweat_smile:

#12

That’s not midi monitoring but recording.
It looks like arp is on…
New project ?

#13

Not to be discouraging, but attempting to control midi devices the very first day of owning an OT could easily be an exercise in frustration.
When I first got my OT, I was so excited by the possibilities that I dove right in. Pickup machines! Live sampling! Just tried everything at once and managed to make a huge mess, ‘lost’ tracks…like lots of lost tracks. After a week or so of cursing at the top of my lungs, I just went back to the beginning. I knew how to use a DT, so for a couple weeks, I’m just decided to use the OT in exactly the same way I would a DT. Load up a handful of samples via USB and sequence them. Kept it super straightforward while continuing to read the manual and watch tutorials. Oh, and I joined the ‘nauts forum :slight_smile:
Then I started working with scenes. Just the addition of scenes made the OT seem like a DT on steroids. Now 5 months later I’m feeling pretty good about my progress by sticking to very basic tasks and gradually adding new tricks every couple weeks or so. I hope anyone new to the OT might find this helpful. The OT is so worth it!

3 Likes
#14

Yes, this really looks like the arp is running.

#15

@sezare56: I’m just an amateur… Yes it’s recording not monitoring :slight_smile: Anyway you were right. The recording above was done in the ‘Presets Project’ (factory project). So I created a new one and retried. It’s now working ! :sunglasses: I don’t know why it did not work in the ‘Presets Project’, I thought may be it was an LFO impacting the MIDI datas sent but it was not.

@Snipecatcher: Yes, in some way I did the same mistake as you, unconsciously skipping steps. But now it’s ok for MIDI triggering. I also mess around with some factory samples and managed to craft some ambient loops.

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#16

Or a LFO modulating pitch (I didn’t dive into the midi sequencer part of the OT that deep yet so it’s just a supposition)

1 Like
#17

Default midi tracks lfo dest is NOTE, so that’s even more probable, as @Grace_187 also mentioned it.

#18

If this is caused by an LFO it’s quite a hell of a fine tuned LFO, because it steps in 7 and 14 semitones (perfect fifth/2x perfect fifth).

#19

Keep in mind the audio tracks also send midi on channels 1 to 8 by default. Disable midi out from audio tracks, or slave / sequence external midi devices on channels 9 and above.

#20

Thank you for the tip.