Octatrack MK1 - Midi Patch issues

Hello,

I have been having issues with Midi patches not changing. This happens with 2 pieces of Roland gear being sequenced with the Octatrack, TR-8s and JU-06. When I switch banks, the Midi program change does not work on one of them if they are both connected through Midi. If I unplug one or the other, it works fine, just when both are connected to midi and I try to patch change both it doesn’t change.

They are on different Midi channels. (2 and 5 respectively)
My other synth connected to the Octa changes fine consistently(Sub37).

Please let me know if anyone has a fix for this.

So it works without bank changes, and with one device unplugged?

Check this thread.

Hello,

It works when one of the devices is unplugged, correct. For bank changes I mean the 16 banks per project.

For the Midi bank, I don’t think I’ve had issues although I haven’t really used them.

It’s like one device blocks the pattern change of the other…

I read the thread posted but am unclear on the work around for this…

Although you know this for some clarity I’ll say that OT “banks” of 16 patterns and “midi bank change” are definitely separate so we should refer to the issue as “midi program changes (PC)” not behaving as expected for 2 synths when switching OT banks…

I’m not sure what you know or don’t know so I’ll state the following:

OT has 2 methods of sending midi program changes, one is in the global settings and sends an incremental PC according to what pattern your on, configurable for just one channel.

The other method is using the OT midi tracks which can send any PC number on any midi channel for each of the 8 midi tracks. This info is stored in the OT “part”. Each OT bank will default to part1 of that bank, each OT bank has 4 parts you can use.

To set up custom PC changes for 2 synths that will happen on OT bank change you’ll want to disable the global incremental PC send in the OT settings and setup 2 midi tracks at least on part1 of each of the 16 banks and configure them on the appropriate channels and enter the PC number that should be sent. If you are using more than one part per bank and switching to patterns linked to parts other than part1 for each bank you’ll need to configure 2 midi tracks for PC change on those parts as well. After setting this all up and hopefully have it working correctly I’d save all the parts and the project so you know you can reload the parts and or entire project if needed and not have to configure that again…
Hope this helps, maybe you’ve done all this, I don’t know…

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What are your midi connections?

For Midi setup here it is;

Global PC Send- disabled
Midi Clock Send- Enabled
Midi Transpose Send- Enabled
All Midi Receive on the OT- Disabled

OT Auto Midi Channel 11.

Sub37 Midi Channel 11.
JU-06 Midi Channel 2
O-coast Midi Channel 14
TR-8S Midi Channel 5 (For pattern change) I am using
TR-8S Midi Bank Channel 16(For bank change) I am not using

OT Midi Out to - Midi Solutions Quadra Thru to - Midi In’s on the listed channels above.

I use the Sub37 as a Midi controller on Auto Channel 11 to control other synths.

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Hey thanks for the explanation, I have tried disabling the Global PC Sends to no avail.
I have been trying to (PC) through the OT bank Change which is where I’m finding the problem.

When only the JU-06 is programmed with Midi PC info, it works fine and changes patches when banks/parts are changed.
When I add (PC) to the TR-8S, It will work but it stops the JU-06 from accepting program changes and the JU-06 Patch will not change
.

This thread reports the same issue with Roland boutiques and the last post claims it was fixed by updating their firmware…

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Update- I updated the JU-06 Firmware and it seems to be working correctly!! Thanks Open_Mike, my set can finally come togerther. Much appreciated!

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Since OT sends all its midi info to everything connected and the external gear has to filter it by channel, I assume the JU wasn’t dealing with PC’s being sent to it on multiple channels correctly.
Glad it worked out…