Not receiving MIDI on auto channel?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
1

I’m sure I’m missing something obvious but can anyone give me tips on how to troubleshoot the Octatrack not responding to MIDI notes on the auto channel?

Everything else seems to be working fine. Setup is MIDI keyboard > PC > Octatrack > Synths. Octatrack is on MIDI channel 9 (all other channels set to OFF in MIDI > CHANNELS > TRIG CH).

My MIDI keyboard is sending out on channel 9 but not changing notes on the Octatrack (note doesn’t change on the note screen or when I hold a trig and press a keyboard note). The synths connected to Octatrack MIDI OUT receive notes fine when I change the MIDI channel.

Is there anything that could be set on the Octatrack that would stop it responding to MIDI notes for recording/changing sequencer notes?

2

Auto Channel?

?

The midi channel of the Midi track?
It has to correspond to your synth midi channel.

Yes, if a midi track share the same midi channel as an audio track.

4

Thanks for the reply!

Yes 9’s the auto channel, TRIG CH is the label at the top of the other 8 channels that appear on the MIDI > CHANNELS screen.

When I change the MIDI track channel to the synth MIDI channel it works fine.

Re. the last point - that could be it - are the audio channels set on the MIDI > CHANNELS screen or are they set somewhere else?

5

So you were setting them to 9?
So it is ok now with synth channels ?
Midi tracks can receive / record on their midi channel or Auto Channel (if active track).

Yes, there you can set Audio Tracks channels and Auto Channel.

TRIG CH is meaningless! :smile:

6

9’s set as the auto channel and all of the other 8 channels on that page are set to off.

It always works fine when setting to the synth channels (7, 8 & 10 - passes the MIDI through to the synths fine) but never when I set it to 9.

I’m also using a MIDI pedal set to channel 9 to trigger sampling via the note triggers and these work absolutely fine, but the MIDI keyboard won’t trigger the currently selected synth or change the sequencer note.

7

That absolutely normal. On midi tracks you have to set synths channels, not Auto channel.
Auto channel is set in MIDI > CHANNELS, thats all.

If you set a midi track to channel 9, it will send notes on channel 9. If no synth has channel 9, nothing happens.

With channel 9, you should be able to enter notes holding trigs in Grid Recording.

8

Thank for confirming that behaviour. I usually just send direct to the synth channel and that’s been working fine, but it’s definitely not receiving on the auto channel for entering notes holding trigs.

Can’t figure out what on earth it could be as all I’m doing is changing the MIDI channel and everything except the auto channel seems to be working fine.

9

In case it’s not clear, you send midi on the autochannel and it gets remapped to the selected MIDI track’s channel and sent to the external gear. This way you keep your controller on the same channel and it gets remapped and sent out to different channels depending on what MIDI track is selected and what channel is set for that particular MIDI track. You don’t want to set a MIDI track channel to the auto channel…

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11

Worth making sure but I’m ok on that. The only ‘channel’ that I’m setting to the auto MIDI channel is on my DAW (just to send the keyboard out on that channel).

I’m completely baffled why the Octatrack isn’t receiving on the auto channel though.

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12

If you can play your synths with their respective channel from channel 9 it means you are receiving Auto Channel…:thinking:

Can you record notes in Live Rec? (Rec+Play, Rec button blinking.)

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14

I can only play synths by changing the channel on the keyboard/DAW to the specific synth channels. Channel 9 doesn’t seem to be doing anything on the Octatrack. it doesn’t play the selected synth track, can’t change trig notes or live record.

15

Ok, I understood you were changing the channel on the midi track…
Weird. I’d try with a new project, default settings, channel 11 to check if it works…
Without PC if possible.

16

I’ll give that a go when I get home tonight.

I’ve been updating/copying the same project file since I got the Octatrack a few months ago so probably not a bad time to start from a fresh one and apply my changes to that.

17

Problem solved. Turns out I was being dumb and was getting confused with the MIDI routing through Reaper (combined with a bit of confusion thinking it should show the MIDI notes in the main note view when you’re not holding a trigger down).

All sorted now. Thanks for the help.

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