New user - Stuck with TV! (Ableton/MIDI/advice)

[loresaudio]

Hey everyone, first time poster and beginner with TV so please excuse me if the answers to my questions are obvious!
I’ve read through a lot of threads but can’t quite find what I’m looking for - if there’s one I’ve missed I’d be glad for the link.

I’m a self taught producer and at the time TV came out it seemed like it could solve a lot of my problems and push me into making music differently. I felt pretty good with drums but rubbish at melody, chords and arrangement. I was also getting really into resampling and wanted to be off screens. After obsessively researching for days I made a 2hr trip to try one and impulsively signed up to financing and came home with my first Elektron box.

I knew there would be a learning curve, but I like learning and I was excited for the challenge. I’ve put a LOT of hours study into the manual, videos, tutorials, trial and error and even feeding the manual into ChatGPT. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the terminology either so it became learning within learning. I’ve now paid it off, the beast is mine, but it’s a big investment for me and I’m committed to mastering it so I can start to be creative and break some rules.

I’ve made some beautiful sounds over the months but I still struggle with things like recording/editing chords in the sequencer, routing and resampling. Coming from a DAW I’m finding it difficult not having everything visually though I’ll obv need to get used to this. I also work a lot of overtime so finding enough time to actually progress is difficult. When I only have a few hours for music and most of that disappears into troubleshooting I can easily spend the whole evening without actually making anything.

SO, a couple of questions:

My ideal setup is:

I’d like to play the TV from my Komplete S49, record the notes into Ableton as MIDI, hear the TV through my speakers and tweak its FX/parameters live while it plays. Eg doing filter sweeps. Ideally I’d also like to change the FX in automation in case I make mistakes. Is this actually possible and is there a straightforward way of setting it up?

I’ve spent so much time trying different setups and I’m pretty knackered. I feel like I’m missing something basic. This is my available kit - MacBook, Volt 176, Komplete Audio 2 (my old interface), Komplete Kontrol S49, speakers and MIDI/audio cables.

Also how did you guys actually learn this box?

Did you already know the Elektron workflow from previous boxes? Manual/videos? Experimenting? Asking questions here? Thanks in advance for your help or advice, at this rate it feels like one day I’ll be found dead in my chair with my Tonverk on my lap and tutorials playing.

[BatoutofHellIV]

I put my minilab into my Tonverk via 5 pin and then connect my Tonverk via usb to Ableton (or to my Fuse 4 into Ableton) and then audio output from Ableton. What are the issues you’re facing?

[loresaudio]

Thanks for your quick reply! So i’ve just given it another go and this is where I’m at

I seem to be able to record midi no problem but I can’t hear any sound from Tonverk without having the midi routed to an audio track. Is this how you do it?
No automation is recorded except if i was to record a WAV file
Theres also a fair amount of latency when using the S49

In a new project I have these settings (attached)

On my TV I have:

Ports

• Receive notes - yes
• Receive CC/NPRM - yes
• Input from - MIDI+USB
• output to - MIDI+USB

I have the midi cable plugged into the ‘MIDI IN’ port on TV
The other end is in the ‘MIDI OUT’ port of the s49

[TheWrongMfkr]

Confused how you want to get off screens & your ideal setup includes a screen.

I love Abelton… heck, I love all DAWs. But I’m not going to buy an Elektron kit if the sequencer is not one of the top 2 reasons to get it.

That said… in your ideal setup you have some things backwards. If you’re going to use your DAW to sequence Tonverk your controller needs to go to the DAW 1st. The DAW then sends the midi notes to TV.

Then you can do all the automation & knob twisting you want.

Still, I think you should consider using the TV sequencer. Build your patterns then sample them, or export them into Ableton.

[TheWrongMfkr]

Tonverk is showing up in Ableton so it must be hooked up via USB. Do you have any audio cables coming out of the Tonverk or is it just the USB.

If it is just the USB, yes you will have to route it to an audio track & turn on monitoring to hear it.

There is no need for the midi cable between the S49 & the Tonverk as long as you’re running Ableton. As it is the Tonverk is getting a midi note from the keyboard & Ableton at the same time which could cause issues.

[loresaudio]

Thank you! Yes thats very true, the sequencer is definitely part of the appeal especially for drums! I’d like to use it in multiple ways, but at the moment I really want to be able to get the S49 working in tandem.

Nope, no audio cables on the TV, just USB is connected now. Is there a way of recording the TV in midi form with the automation, instead of it being baked into an audio file? And can this be done with the external keyboard? I’d like to edit the automation after recording so I’m guessing I need to use midi?

When you say send controller to the daw first and then send midi to TV, what does that look like?

[CreepBeat]

@TheWrongMfkr

Still, I think you should consider using the TV sequencer

My thought exactly.

If you want to learn the Tonverk and take advantage of the primary strength of an Elektron instrument, my advice would be:

Step 1: walk over to your computer and turn it off
Step 2: learn how to use the Tonverk sequencer and the rest of the machine inside and out. Only then move on to the next step
Step 3:: turn your computer back on
Step 4: get Ableton and Tonverk synced together as midi clock master/slave. Learn how to utilize the patterns you’ve made on the Tonverk with whatever it is you want to do with Ableton

[TheWrongMfkr]

How are you trying to record automation? By twisting the knobs on the TV or the S49?

You have the S49 as the midi input, so Ableton doesn’t see any midi coming from the TV. Disconnect the S49 from your computer. MIDI out of the S49 to TV. Leave the TV hooked up to computer over USB.

You should be able to play the s49 & hear the TV through Ableton. To record that MIDI you should change your MIDI In to TV. I think that should get you there, but I don’t know if the TV transmit MIDI from the knobs by default.

[TheWrongMfkr]

@loresaudio

When you say send controller to the daw first and then send midi to TV, what does that look like?

Your screenshots show it hooked up this way. The words you used said something different. I wouldn’t worry about that now. Disconnect the S49 from the computer. For now. Leave the MIDI cable out of S49 in to TV. When you play the keyboard you should hear the TV through Ableton.

[loresaudio]

When I unplug the S49 USB-C from the computer the power goes off on the keyboard, even though the power adapter is plugged into it? I’m guessing it needs the usb connection to work? (this is with the midi cable going from ‘MIDI OUT’ on S49 to ‘MIDI IN’ on TV)

I was hoping to record automation using knobs + FX on the TV. I thought they might display in ableton like they do for plugins, where it might show ‘reverb’ and you can automate the mix of etc

Is there also a way of playing the TV keys and having them turn up as midi in your daw with the editable automation included?

[loresaudio]

@CreepBeat

My thought exactly.

If you want to learn the Tonverk and take advantage of the primary strength of an Elektron instrument, my advice would be:

Step 1: walk over to your computer and turn it off
Step 2: learn how to use the Tonverk sequencer and the rest of the machine inside and out. Only then move on to the next step
Step 3:: turn your computer back on
Step 4: get Ableton and Tonverk synced together as midi clock master/slave. Learn how to utilize the patterns you’ve made on the Tonverk with whatever it is you want to do with Ableton

I know I have a lot to learn, but it would be really helpful to be able to visually see my arrangement and chords if possible and tweak things. I wouldn’t exclusively do it this way and of course I will continue to learn, but sometimes I find it hard to get the idea of what I’m making when it’s hidden in pages. I think a helpful medium would be if I could do both and pick and choose. Did it take you time to adapt to the Elektron page workflow?

[Kfrog555]

Hey my dude.
New TV user here too
I have more or less achieved what u are asking for but with the virus darkstar.

The problem is the TV has no “soft thru” nor any “midi channel filtering”

Considering you are connecting the keyboard midi out to the TV midi in.

What that means is there is no way to get midi of both TV and keyboard on one wire.
If u connect the TV midi out to computer on only get TV midi. If u connect TV midi thru u only get keyboard output.

Is this similar to your problem? If yes I can go further with the solution.

Edit: I forgot to mention. In its current state TV parameters eg, single player amp env has no midi out, so there is no way to record those as automation on live. Only parameters in the midi track can be recorded as automation to live

[loresaudio]

yes! I think so
I thought I would be able to plug my s49 into TV using midi cable, play a note on s49, TV makes the sound and then its recorded into a midi track in ableton like if you were using a VST.
I thought TV would become the substitute for the VST and all automation data would be preserved from it?

[Kfrog555]

You can record midi note, length, velocity. Not sure about AT, MW… you will have to explore that, but my best bet is trying to use/ record mod parameters PB, MW, AT & BC and then assign those within TV to whatever you trying to modulate. (FUNC+TRIG)

U are missing a program on your computer called midi pipe. If u using new mac there is a 64bit arm version out there too, all freeware.

You visualise computer, keyboard and TV as 3 separate devices that cannot be connected in series, they have to be connected in parallel. Midi pipe is the hub in this case.

So, connect your keyboard to computer via usb, connect TV via usb.

In midi pipe it should look like;
xxxxxxxxxx
Key in
TV in
IAC out (in any midi out there is a option called pass through, this has to be unchecked for each)

Key in
TV out
xxxxxxxxxx

Now in live disable all the midi input ports except the IAC port. From this you will receive both input from keyboard and TV.

They key in to TV out will let you play keys and tv. If u wanna clock they keys for any reason u can do so by making another TV in to Key out. Just make sure to disable all the pass throughs and be aware if your keys have some sort of internal pass through… midi feedback can lead to temp insanity over a big setup…

This will have to be tinkered with, lots can vary upon various setups. I assume an afternoon should suffice.

maybe you could do this routing within live itself, but I use midi pipe cause it’s super light standalone and don’t have to redo routing for other programs

[CreepBeat]

@loresaudio

Did it take you time to adapt to the Elektron page workflow?

It did. My first was a DT OG (then ST, OT, DT2, A4) and it took a bit of time with each, but I also had used hardware drum machines, samplers, and synths since the early 2000s so I was already very familiar with step sequencers, MIDI, and so forth. Also, once you learn one Elektron, that knowledge makes all others easier (OT being a special kind of learning curve)

My advice however has more to do with believing from my experience that if you learn to use the Tonverk on its own, you’ll look back at the approach you are taking now and realize it is “the hard way” that comes with a whole lot of disadvantages. Plus, Overbridge for Tonverk will probably be out by the time you really feel comfortable with the machine on its own, and it will make using the Tonverk in a hybrid setup easier

[loresaudio]

Man thank you! I’m away as of today but when I’m back I’ll give this a go. Appreciate your time

[loresaudio]

Do you have any resources you leaned on for learning TV when you got it? Or where you able to just trial and error based on your existing Elektron knowledge?
I can’t seem to find much info online and its hard to make out what people are doing just from sound. I think at the heart of the problem I’m having is visualising the arrangement of a tune on TV and all the layers that go into it. I can’t tell where a breakdown/drop from the page squares? Is it possible to create a full finished track not just loops or a jam session? Feel like I’m really missing a huge part of this machine @CreepBeat @Kfrog555

[TheWrongMfkr]

Sorry I didn’t see this.

Ok… so you need the midi keyboard hooked up to the computer for power. That’s fine. Looking back at the pictures you posted earlier choose Tonverk for you midi in & out on the midi channel.

[Kfrog555]

I suggest using plain old math…
Since u are new as am I to elektron- dont attempt off grid, leave that for later once u are familiarised.

I do every pattern in 8 bars (128 steps), the reason for this is that max note length is 128 steps and the conditionals are upto 8:8… so keeping 8 bars makes those fall right in place without too much creative imagination.

Eg;
Intro of 32 bars, so that’s 4 patterns
Verse of 32 bars, again 4
Chorus of 16 bars, 2 pat
And so forth……

IMO best to have this structure ready in your mind before going in for the track. Instrumentation and all can come later when u start building it.

Get a printout/ pdf of the latest manual and keep it right beside u when operating at least for the first few months. I tend to do this with all of my new equipment and has mega benefits.

The TV is complex, it’s designed that way. At the beginning one might despise its complexity but over time that is the very thing one will fall in love with cause once the complexity is understood it reveals almost endless possibilities/ capabilities.

Best way to learn it is grind grind and grind. I’m just about to finish a 256 bar track and grinding through it has taught me so much about the device that no tutorial could ever have. It’s made me way wayyy more efficient in how I use the device as compared to when I started making the track and with certainty I can say that I’m still at the tip of the iceberg.

[CreepBeat]

@loresaudio

Do you have any resources you leaned on for learning

Mostly YouTube. I learned a lot watching tutorials from people like EZBot, Dave Mech, etc. For example, here’s a whole tutorial series on TV, and there are many others

Perhaps you’ve already said and I missed it - what kind of music are you wanting to make with it? With my Elektron gear, I generally make raw techno tracks in the vein of someone like Yan Cook (he has tons of great tutorial videos on YT), or sometimes dub if I’m in a mellower mood, and I mostly do it live. An entire techno track can be performed live with as little as a single pattern. There are many examples of people doing so on YouTube. I also make more experimental/industrial stuff with a variety of other gear (also performed live).

That said, don’t sleep on the Song Mode which can be a great approach for making complete tracks on a single box. As an example, checkout some videos by Catenation (Jeanne on here) - she utilizes Song Mode to do so in a lot of her videos, and a lot are with a single Elektron box.