instant selection of tones for midi

The i2M musicport™ MIDI Converter & Hi-Z USB Audio Interface

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JanWiese
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2016 12:11 pm

instant selection of tones for midi

Post by JanWiese »

hi,
Firstly, how can I momentarily select which of the tones I play into i2M should be converted to trigger midi?

I am currently using a

Boss A/B selector pedal for instant signal blocking,
the selected tones go into a Sonuus G2M and
next into a midi to USB converter
a pedal connected to the midi converter lets me choose two alternative midicannels for the signal into the computer/software

In this way I trigger clips in Ableton Live by playing specific notes on my acoustic instrument. (Only selcted tones should trigger clips in this way. I do not want to use filters because the tones that I want to trigger may be anywhere in the scale.) This works well in the solution I am currently using.

My intention when bying the i2M was to skip both the Boss pedal and the midi to usb Interfac.

Since the blocking function in Live only work as a part of a rack, it will not affect incoming signals to the DAW. Concequently I have to find a way to block individual tones before or inside the i2M.

I have tried to cut the tranceducer signal (from a contact microphone) by clipping the signal in a pedal and also using a volum pedal, but after a while the i2M looses the usb-connection to the computer. Also the boss A/B pedal for blocking tones, does not function with i2M as it does with the G2M.



Secondly, I want the signal from the tranceducer on my instrument to have two functions: trigger clips on one channel 2 as described above, and trigger sounds on another midichannel. I bougth two i2Ms for this purpose the idea beeing that I could clip the signal before going to the i2M. I have not be able to make this work.


In these film you see the functions I am after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7yNummzhQA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_K2FYOkSB0


I really hope you can give me good advice on this, because my impression is that the midiconversion is better in i2M the G2M.

Jan

PS A suggestion for the development of the i2M would be to install an input for a momentary signal through pedal. This would definetely increase the artistic potential.
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james
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Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by james »

Hello Jan,

In the i2M there is a "gate" function which you can use to block notes you don't want to be converted to MIDI. You choose the lowest and highest notes you want to be allowed through the gate.

If you want something more complex you can use all 6 zones in the i2M, with each zone using a different gate setting.

Does this help you do what you need?
PS A suggestion for the development of the i2M would be to install an input for a momentary signal through pedal. This would definetely increase the artistic potential.
Is this to avoid having to use an A/B pedal with an external footswitch is connected to the i2M?

James
JanWiese
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2016 12:11 pm

Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by JanWiese »

Hi -- thanks for answering on a day like this!!!

Zones or filters are not practical. You would need a zone for every note in the register. I select the notes to be triggered on the fly. For example it is very musical to build chords by letting tones through and sustain them, and then play on top with the authentic sound of the instrument ot another midi voice. Or you would like to acentuate som of the tones in a frase. Or having two different sounds playing separate frazes in sequence to form a dialogue.
This are just a few of the posibilities when tones going to the midiconverter can be unblocked by using a fottpedal or simular controller.

Triggering clips in Ableton by sending spesific notes to the converter is another great creative option.

That is why I suggest having this option directly on the I2M. It would open for a large number ofcreeative options. Installing a minijack input for a signal-through pedal would improve the design very much in my opunion.

Thanks again...

JAn
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james
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Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by james »

Hi Jan,

Yes, I understand.

You can do this using "hold" and "sustain". The i2M is also a MIDI input, and you can send MIDI controllers to it. You can configure one MIDI controller as the "hold" function and another for "sustain" (or use the default hold (footpedal) and sustain MIDI controller numbers).

Each zone can have hold and/or sustain enabled on it.

Sustain: works as you'd expect. Any notes you play will keep sustaining until you release the sustain control.

Hold: toggles the MIDI conversion, and allows note-offs to be ignored too. So you can, as you suggest, play a MIDI note, press hold to keep that note active while playing the instruments sound on top of this.

As a side-note, you can also do the same with the G2MV3 using our MIDI breakout cable which lets you connect a MIDI input to send these controllers to it.
JanWiese
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2016 12:11 pm

Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by JanWiese »

Hi again
Sorry, but I need more advice here.

I am using a prototype midi footcontroller in Ableton Live (http://lividinstruments.com/integration ... ion-guide/) for a large number of commands, of course connected to the PC via USB.
In my tests the I2M also works great with Ableton. The footcontroller also receives the triggered notes from i2M.

But i2M does not seem to recieve anything from the footcontroller - the green light in the editor for midi in does not turn on. The midisolutions for the footcontroller have many options and I have tried all that I can think of. As I said it functions well with the other software.
Therefore I cannot obtain program change/mode change or hold function. Which in turn would solve my initial challenges here.

Where do I go wrong?

Jan
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james
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Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by james »

Hi Jan,

Sorry for the delay replying to this - did you get it working?

If you send MIDI to the "MIDI-In" port of the i2M, it should just work.
JanWiese
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2016 12:11 pm

Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by JanWiese »

Hi James,

This time my delay !! -

I have done more experiments. It seemes like the internal mapping of midicontrols does not allow to send simultaniously to Ableton live and the i2M.

(When opening Ableton - after seeing that the signal from the footcontroller reaches the i2M - the green indicator on i2M stops blinking)

I tried with Midi-ox, but got a message that there is too little memory - (my PC has 8 Gb Ram))
May be there is another type of midi mapper I could use?

Jan
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james
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Re: instant selection of tones for midi

Post by james »

I've seen midi-ox show an out of memory error sometimes. It doesn't usually mean it has no memory, more likely that it has problems opening the device (8GB should be perfectly good enough). Try closing midi-ox, and closing other MIDI applications, then re-running midi-ox. Also check which devices midi-ox is trying to open.
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