Looking for external control filtering workaround

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hello everyone, I’m having serious bad times with the fact that the OT reacts to notes to control functions. In my set-up the OT receives notes from lots of devices on all channels. So I had unpredictable behaviour all the time (until I got aware of what causes it). Especially the commands using the 4th octave: muting and cueing tracks, engaging recordings while playing another instrument…

I thought I could circumvent this “feature” by switching note reception off, and send commands from my pedalboard to the OT via CC59 but unfortunately this does not work as I expected: the OT seems to block note on/note off messages only AFTER the conversion of CC59 and CC60 to note numbers. (#featurerequest: @Elektron: could you please change this?).

I have a iCM4+ so I could filter out all note messages going to the OT, but then I wouldn’t be able to use an external keyboard for midi sequencer input.

I’m stuck right now, short of ideas on how to handle what has become a major annoyance… any ideas? Thanks!

About to give up
#2

It’s not easy to answer this, because it’s not clear (at least for me), what you really want to achieve after setting up the “filter”.

The OT can be configured to ignore many external MIDI messages. I would recommend to get the manual and check out section “Projects/MIDI”. This explains all the possible MIDI settings.

We can set-up the following:

  • allow or prevent that certain “audio” related functions are under external MIDI control (notes and CC)
  • how the syncronisation is handled
  • which MIDI channels are used for the tracks (if we set the MIDI channel of a track to “off”, this track will ignore incoming MIDI at all)

The appendix “MIDI Control Reference” could also be a good reading.

#3

Thank you, I know all that. I outlined the issue quite clearly, I believe:

#4

Exactly this didn’t explain - at least to me - what was the entire MIDI set-up of the OT, what was the wanted outcome, and what happened instead.

Maybe others can help :frowning:

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#5

What devices do you have in your midi chain and how are they set up?
Which device(s) are sending the unwanted midi notes? Can´t you put them on other midi channels, so the OT is simply ignoring them?

2 Likes
#6

Many devices, all channels used, unwanted notes sent by whichever device issues them.

The question is how to stop the OT from being controlled by midi notes, whilst still be able to be controlled by CC59 messages.

The 4th octave notes control the recorders, and track selection. Direct CC control of these functionalities is not implemented. So I use CC59 messages from my pedalboards for recorder control. For this to work, the OT must be configured with receive notes=on, because, as I underlined earlier, the CC59-to-note translation happens BEFORE the OT 's internal note filter.

I think this is a misconception and am looking for a workaround. But I’m afraid it isn’t possible to defeat this note-command thing… but I still asked because many people here managed to find workarounds for almost any problem :wink: Like, a certain combination of settings that I’m not aware of will enable/disable CC59 to work even with receive notes=off

#7

Workaround : filter notes by range with a midi processor. Event Processor Plus does it easily.

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#8

As @sezare56 already wrote, the only real workaround is to filter out externally the note ranges you don’t want (I guess in your case all note events with the exception of note values 72 to 96).

The iCM4+ won’t help here, because its does only filtering by type in an all-or-nothing manner.

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#9

There a CC for rec arm.

I think you can make it work sending just the right notes on the right channels. I don’t understand why you send wrong notes on the OT channels…

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#10

This appears to be the source of your problems. What gear are you connecting via MIDI to your OT?

#11

Why … do you need to have the OT receive from every other device?

My setups tend to have quite a lot of mixed midi gear like synths, fx, keyboards, sequencers … I use midi tools like mergers, splitters, filters, or patchbays to prevent unwanted lines of communications.

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#12

Thanks everyone for the input and concern. My set-up is fairly well thought out, I won’t go into great lengths to document it, sorry…that would take quite a lot of time! Please assume the set-up is technically correct…

Let’s say that the problematic stuff originates from the fixed channel allocation I needed to make to avoid dynamic allocation of the OT base channel (the one the crossfader sends /receives on and the one that receives PC’s), also audiotrack channels blocking midi channels and all that jazz. And the OT is not master in my set-up., it’s clocked by a Digitone because the DN has per-pattern BPM. And I use midi loopback. So forgive me if I do not detail the whole routing/filtering/remapping (Note to self: I should document this in some speadsheet one day, for safetly reasons…)

It’s just that we have a CC59 that is defined to be used to substitute for note-on messages, would one not want to use notes as commands, but if we switch “receive notes” to “off” that CC59 command wil not work which is not what I expected. I hoped there was a workaround or something like “you need to be in XXX mode to do that” or “func+XXX” will toggle that behaviour".

Oh well, never mind. I’ll figure out something different then. Thanks again :wink:

#13

Hi guys, I’m about to give up on the OT, and this is about the freakin’ midi implementation. I just can’t handle the mess with those "midi notes command octatrack functions " anymore. I’m using lots of midi, recording my synths instead of sampling them so that I can use their nice knobby interface during performance. But I just can’t stand the interaction of the midi notes with the OT commands anymore. Why the **** can’t we switch that feature completely OFF?? It’s most annoying thing I ever met… :frowning:

This is a sort of a message in a bottle… is it possible at all to switch this off AND retain midi control over the recorders by CC59? Because if we switch audio notes off, the CC59 doesn’t work anymore either!! And even with directconnect off, the active midichannel still behaves like if directconnect is on (why??? I want this OFF!! ) hence instant midi feedback unless I hve the same channel set for an audio track, but then I can’t record external midi anymore…Oh my oh my, now that’s what I call a design flaw … and the recorder commands are in the C4 octave to make things worse… If anyone has a real workaround that won’t cost me a fortune or weeks of programming exotic processors just to avoid this mess I’ll buy him a beer… 6 months of banging my head against the wall now. I need much more than 8 midichannels so I can’t just set 1-8 for OT audio and 9-16 for OT midi, that’s out of the question. Now do I really need to buy yet another sequencer for midi duties??

(Sorry for the rant…but I’m really pissed, believe me…)

#14

If you’re only using the OT as a MIDI sequencer and not as a sampler, and you need more than eight MIDI tracks, then it would certainly be worth you considering another MIDI sequencer.

5 Likes
#15

Actually, filtering midi events with an exotic processors will cost you around a hundred euros and one hour of programming at max…Not so bad considering how pissed you seem to be…Think about it ! :wink:
Midi processors are a blessing !

#16

Not you!
Concerning notes and CC59, can’t you filter midi with your Rk002?

MPC500. Pretty capable and cheap sequencer. You can record OT automation with it, or midi tracks made with OT.

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#17

I don’t need more than 8 tracks, but I need more than 8 channels! Of course I use the OT as a sampler/looper. But well, those midi tracks are just a PITA because of that note interaction and the directconnect being automatically switched on for the active midi track regardless of your choice. I really don’t understand what that was for.

#18

I’m confused… can you elaborate on your setup more and exactly what issue you’re running into? my guess is you’re trying to use a controller to enable/disable recording into midi tracks…?

I use the OT for sampling and sequencing. I’ve pretty much always got all eight midi tracks going at once. I don’t have any issues with this but I interact with it directly, in a standalone hardware-based setup. I only turn the DAW on for recording.

#19

Well no! Because CC59 only works if you set “audio notes in” to “on”. For one reason or another, they first translate the CC59 message to a note message, and then apply the note filter instead of the other way round: first apply the note filter, then process CC59. So there’s nothing we can do about it externally: I can’t filter out notes before they reach the OT because I need them to record midi in real time, I don’t like recording with the trig buttons, it isn’t fluid and there’s no velocity.

Will look into the Akai sequencer. Is it also a step sequencer? Because if I shell out some cash again (I thought I was done with that…) I’d rather get one that can record linear clips including CC’s

#20

I use footcontrollers to command OT’s audio recorders, mutes, scenes and crossfader using CC59 and CC48 for the crossfader. I want to record midi into OT in real-time from external keyboards. It’s as simple as that. The issue I’m running into is quite clear and I’m not the first one to struggle with it: OT responds to notes and interpretes them as commands (recorders, start/stop tracks… see Appendix C of the manual). You can switch that off but then you can’t control the OT’s recorders over midi (eg. footswitches) anymore because only the note-controls are are mapped to the recorder commands, there are no CC’s for this.

The second issue is that when you have directconnect set to “off” (I don’t want this) it re-enables itseld automatically for the active midi track so the midi you send to the OT is bounced back to the device which gives midi feedback. You can prevent that by having a audio track set to the same channel because that’ll block incoming midi on that midi track. But then you can’t record from an external source anymore.

So either you remap your midi source to the autochannel and you run into the notes-command-the-OT problem, or you use a fixed midi channel, and you get the active-track-behaves-as-if-directconnect-is-on problem.

My set-up is nothing extraordinary but the midi routing is rather complex, I won’t elaborate because that’s not the point. The relevant fact is that I use all 16 midi channels and then some (some devices are on identical channels but not using the same ports so I manage to get everything working while clock is distributed everywhere).

No DAW here. All hardware.

Sure. I have a RK002 and coded some custom processors (software) myself. But see my reply to @sezare56: not much I can do about this externally. Except forgetting about realtime midi recording on the OT.