Is there no way to combine MD's sequencer with an external sequencer?

Elektron Gear Machinedrum
#1

I’d like to be able to sequence the more static voices my Machinedrum from my Digitakt while sequencing voices that require more p-locks locally.

So, it seems that my options are:

  • Set Base Channel to “–” and not be able to receive external midi
  • Set Base Channel to (not the above), but MD sends midi notes from local sequencing(So as to not send consequential MIDI notes from the MD)
  • Disconnect the external MIDI so as to avoid that.

Granted, the last option wouldn’t be too bad. But I wanted to make sure there’s not some static way to work around the functionality of it’s setup.

Thank you

#2

You want external sequencing + p-locks on same tracks ? Maybe CTR 8P machine?

#3

Different tracks. Stuff like bd, hi-hats, snare could use the variation of Digitakt sequencing- but various other tracks could, but the machine(as I understand it) doesn’t seem suited to both be sequenced and to sequence(even locally)

#4

To be or not to be sequenced, that is the question!
I’m interested in with OT. Can check tonight, I guess @defenestration has things to say about it…

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#5

I believe the MD internal tracks won’t send any MIDI notes out if you don’t have them mapped to any MIDI notes in the map editor, but if you have them mapped to a note and you trigger them with their internal sequencer it will output that MIDI note - maybe this is what’s making this setup respond in a way you don’t expect?

this is the only reference in the manual I can find that implies the map editor mappings also cause that MIDI note to be sent, and is not just a ‘receptive’ mapping

If you map a track to “–” it will neither respond to nor send out MIDI NOTE ON or
NOTE OFF messages. (page 60)

so either the track is sequenced exclusively internally, and it has a disabled MIDI mapping in the map editor, or it sequenced externally and has a MIDI note mapping enabled. if you sequence internally AND it is mapped, it will send a MIDI note out, which is some of the trickiness I kept running into with ‘flams’ while researching MIDI loopback on MD

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#6

Thanks @defenestration! What a weird, I presume to be, feature of the Machinedrum with the tracks sending midi notes.

Thankfully, I have my Machinedrum out going into my computer, where I can easily either filter out midi messages, or I can just, easily, unplug the midi out if I’m not doing any sequencing from the MD so I’m not terribly inconvenienced.

But that’s an odd thing to implement as far as I can see

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#7

if you turn off Local Control then the only way to get the internal tracks to trigger themselves with their own sequencer is to have them MIDI-mapped and loop the MIDI back in, so I think it might relate to that use-case where you have Local Control off and you want to pick up most/all the MIDI messages from the MD and have them sent/stored somewhere else first before looping them back. With the tracks sending their own MIDI that gets looped back you don’t have to do all sequencing externally and you can still have Local Control off - I used to have a fancy MIDI setup where these types of things were pretty important so I see some logic to the scheme/options, although it’s certainly convoluted :thinking:

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#8

have just recently figured out how to run my MD’s sequencer along with Max so I can both play trigs on the sequencer and receive trigs from the computer, not sure if this is exactly helpful for your application though.

i seem to remember the midi notes used to trigger a track differed slightly from the note that it would send out so maybe look into this.

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