Properly Connecting the Machinedrum + Monologue

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this is a basic topic that’s been asked to death, but cursory searches kept leaving me with questions. Hopefully someone here can help…

Basically, I have a MD and a Monologue, as well as an audio interface (Behringer U-Phoria) with a few ins and outs. What i’d like to do is set the MD as the master clock for the Monologue, make some jams, and then eventually throw them in to Ableton.

Right now I’m running both in to my audio interface, with the clock driving everything, though I’m curious if this is the “ideal” setup. Would it be better to use a mixer for some reason?

Also, once it’s time to record in to Ableton, I’m assuming I would just record them together, same as if I were multi tracking any other pair of instruments. Or would I have to feed Ableton extra info in regards to clock settings?

I’m completely new to setting up physical gear in this manner (thus far I’ve only had to dump my MD patterns in to Ableton), so any info would be supremely appreciated.

I would connect the Monologue’s audio output to the A/B inputs of the Machinedrum. You can use the machinedrum as a mixer and the machinedrum is one of the best fx units on the planet. If you have the UserWave version, you can do a lot with this setup alone.

For the midi part, you can connect both units, ‘out to in’ and ‘in to out’, depending on if you want to play your machinedrum with the keyboard and/or if you want to control or midi sync your Monologue from the MD! ( read the machinedrum manual, it has examples and clear explanations of different midi setups) You could start with a one way connection and get comfortable with that first!

There’s a third connection to be made that could be interesting. It is the sync out-in on your monologue, it sends or receives analog pulses used as a clock for it’s sequencer. The MD can generate these as well (GND - IMP) and you have a lot of extra outputs, so you could connect for example output F to the sync in of your monologue and clock it any way your want.

The machinedrum with it’s sixteen tracks and multiple outputs is one of the easiest and most flexible machines to integrate in any setup, but it requires reading the manual!

Have fun and keep us posted!

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Thanks! I did read through both manuals, and after messing with things a bit more last night I’ve made some progress. Both ML and MD outputs are going in to my interface, which I’m using to monitor. Clock sync is now all good.

Strangely enough I did try running the ML’s output in to input A of the MD prior to this thread, but got no sound. I’m assuming I need to play with each machine’s global controls more.

After OT of course. :wink:

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reread the section in the manual about Input machines. you’ll need to trigger it for sound to pass through.

Me too and I used the MDUW for the bulk of the work I did with my ensemble just processing guitars and clarinet. The delay, filter and 12 bit crunchy sampler have so much character to me, hard to replace!

I love my OT as well, get both! :wink:

Working on this now. Earlier I had tried setting the destination for “trig in A” to 1-BD, but the Machinedrum completely shit itself. Everything started running colossally slow and buggy, which wasn’t remedied until I set the trig in destination back to null.

I probably misunderstand the directions, so I’m going back to “RTFM” again. I’ll figure it out in due time, but for now I’m at least clock synced and able to record everything in to my DAW. Thanks, everyone.

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I have both. :wink:
Maybe I’ll change my mind, not sure. :slight_smile:

i would use Ableton as Master followed by the MD and at the end the Korg. the other way around didn’t worked out very well in my case. too much midi latency. with this Setup you can control at least the MD and the Monologue simultaneously if the situation requires it. my setup is: Hardware into Mackie 1402VLZ4, Mixer Main Output connected to one Stereo Input of my PCI Soundcard and one Stereo Out is connected to my M-Audio Active Monitors. This way, the signal passes my Audio Interface/DAW and will forwarded to the Speakers and also the Headphones, which are connected to another out of the soundcard. i think, it’s not the the setup a professional audio engineer would use, but it’s quite uncomplicated und works well without heavy latency issues.
btw…My Mackie Mixer has a second output called “Alt Out” that can be used as a Subbus Channel, which in turn is connected to the second and last Stereo input of my SC. anyways…i only needed a mixer just because i have more than two devices now.