I’m trying to integrate OT with my modular and have a Befaco Midi Thing to convert OT MIDI to CV/Gates for the eurorack. The Midi Thing has several modes but none of them seem to be ideal for OT for various reasons. Here are some issues:
Note and velocity are only updated when a note is sent even if you set them as Midi LFO destinations in OT. A workaround is to set every note at the highest trig count value (8) but now you will get a ton of gate signals. I.e. you can’t use velocity as a MIDI LFO destination and have it work like an extra LFO for that channel without messing up the gates.
Pitch bend converts to a very small change in the CV compared to other parameters. I’m sure this is by design but it makes using the pitch bend CV as a target for OT’s midi LFOs hard to work with (must boost with VCA etc)
The 24ppq rate from OT produces audible stepping in some cases. You can solve it by using a depth of 64 and attenuating or running through a slew limiter.
Midi Thing has different modes but none of them align with OT all that well depending on your goals. I’d like to have maybe 2 cv/gate channels and 2 LFOs from a CC destination like mod wheel. The workaround for that would be to use it in 4 cv/gate channel mode and use 2 channels with the ratcheted midi note LFO trick I outlined above. It works but it’s fiddly for sure.
According to your experience, would it work for basic functions as controlling 3 oscillators (CV+gate) and clock from the Octatrack? I was thinking in buying one Midi Thing since I can find it pretty cheap second hand. I don’t think I’ll use it for sending CC or LFOs. Second option is Mutant Brain, but is more expensive, although more capable.
I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong module for the job here. MIDI Thing is pretty much only for playing a Eurorack voice with MIDI, the only mod source compatible with it is velocity and it’s going to work exactly as velocity works for MIDI - eg tied to note events. Due to the intended use case you’re not going to have any smoothing to deal with the steppiness of digital messages and your experience with pitch bend is because the cv outputs of the module are scaled 1v/oct. You want an FH-2 or Mutant Brain to do what you’re trying to do.
It works really well as 4 pairs of cv/gate. Highly recommend if that’s what you need. There is also an 8 trigger mode and two others. Check the manual, it is short and lays things out nicely.
I realized after I posted why the velocity is tied to notes, because it’s part of the note message!
Also I should not have been so hard on Midi Thing. It works great for cv/gate pairs or triggers. It’s just really hard to get it to act like an LFO, though it is possible.
Thanks for recommending those other modules, will check them out.
