Shortcut to program change send/receive

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Does anyone uses a shortcut to control program change behavior on the OT?
I have some songs where I want to change patterns individually, and others where they need to follow tightly…

I was thinking about some midi event processor that could block the midi channel that carries the program change messages. and then control this from a midi controller? I have no experience with midi event processors, but in my mind this would make sense…

any other way to do this so I don’t have to dive in the menu every time I want to change? I know, it is not very far in the menu, but still, in a live set it would be awesome to have 1 button for this :smiley:

and please don’t tell me (or please do) that there is a simple CC message for that! haven’t seen it…

#2

What is your question exactly ? Why sending a program change to block it ?

#3

I’m having a hard time understanding your issue. Do you mean that you would like to trigger some patterns manually, but some you want to group together?

If this is the case you can chain patterns together by holding PATTERN and pressing and holding each patter you want in order to tie them together. Otherwise it sounds like you may want to explore the Arrranger.

#4

I mean between different machines. I have a chain with analog rytm > octatrack > digitone.
The AR is set to send program change, and the DN to receive. So if I check the send and receive boxes on the octatrack, all 3 machines changes patterns together. this is what I sometimes want, and other times I want to change patterns separately on each machine.

To do this I have to go to project > midi > sync > check or uncheck send and receive. This is not the end of the world, but in a live situation I would like to do this with just a flick of a button.

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#5

When you want them all together you send pc and when not, you change manually. No need to block pc to not change…

Any reason to have the rythm as master ? Octatrack would handle multiple pc on different channels way better. A simple merge box could help your routing if you need both Ot and Rythm midi to go to the dn. Choose your channels wisely and you should be good to go ?

I suppose you are using the « per pattern elektron program change » , in that case you could have multiple same patterns on different units. They all change at the same time but depending on where you are in your arrangement , they change for a copy of themselves.

Else,you could use a controller to send pc or a midi processor.

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#6

I understand… and I said before I want to change this from song to song, but actually I want to do this within songs as well. I don’t use the arranger as I mostly do a lot of improvisation, so a songs is mostly very different every time I play it. Same argument for not using pc’s on the OT. I generally have only a few patterns per song, and just jam along within those patterns, sometimes changing on only 1 box, sometimes on all 3 together, for drops or buildups or whatever…

so the midi processor is the route to go I think.

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#7

Which midi processor do you have in mind?
Do you plan to just switch bypass on/off on the midi processor (filtering all program changes) or do you play to set up different presets for filtering program changes?

If you have Rytm -> OT -> DTone, you can always switch pattern manually on the Digitone, the other two will stay on the pattern.
When you then change to another pattern on the Rytm, all three are back on track.

When you change patterns on the OT, the DTone follows ofc, but that’s at least some freedom…

#8

that’s how I have set it up now, but I basically want them all 3 together, or none together. free jamming vs tight sequence at the flick of a button :slight_smile:

I just realized I pre ordered the Blokas midihub (https://blokas.io/midihub/)
and guess this will do everything I want!! it is a midi processor and router with 4 in’s and 4 out’s.
So I can connect midi master (I use the AR because I like the way you select a pattern on it), keyboard and controllers to the inputs, and outputs to OT and DN.
Then I can program the blokas to block pc messages from AR controlled by a button on a controller. (I guess, never worked with a midi processor). This will make me sooo happy :slight_smile:

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#9

Just in case, have a look at the lab 4 music sipario if the blokas does not suits your need.

#10

Seems possible. Each “pipe” can be bypassed, and you have access to 8 presets with a button.
The doc doesn’t say if you can bypass “pipes” with midi messages, but in any case you could just use a preset which has a pipe set up to filter program changes.

https://blokas.io/midihub/docs/

#11

That looks really cool! and is a bit overkill for my needs :slight_smile:

#12

answer from Blokas:

“Yes, that’s possible - each pipe has a ‘Bypass’ parameter, if the leftmost pipe, which is always an input pipe, has ‘Bypass’ set to true, the whole pipeline gets disabled. This parameter can be MIDI mapped to CCs.”

score!

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