08-08-2021, 03:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-13-2021, 02:46 AM by Dark Waves.
Edit Reason: change of information
)
Well, there may or may not be any questions in this post, but to document a few details that could potentially help someone else, or at least serve as a reference for myself in the likely event that I'll forget some elements of the setup, I'll describe what it took to pass MIDI from controller to PC to MRCC to synth (well, that last part is easy).
[Edit: NOTE! This entire post, and my first follow up below, turned out to be a massive diversion from a proper workflow, so should just be ignored by all except for gluttons for punishment. The entry further below (from today) will explain.]
My objective today was to have my controller keyboard / sequencer, the Novation 61SL mk3, to be seen by it's companion Components software, while also doing it's regular duty playing notes on various things, both virtual in the DAW, and physical via MRCC. Since connecting the SL via USB to the MRCC did not result in the Components software connecting to it (nor was there the indicative 'ding' from the PC announcing a device being discovered) despite passing routed data to synths, I decided to connect the SL directly to the PC and then try to route to the MRCC using the PC device port there, which is where the hairpulling started. I should mention here that in addition to being new to the MRCC, I've also only recently begun to use my Studio One 5.x DAW, and for that matter most everything else in my setup, so there's a significant aspect of needing to get up to speed on multiple systems at once, which is no mean feat, even though my theoretical understanding is more than adequate; just haven't ever had the opportunity to physically familiarize myself with it all, especially the DAW.
If there are other ways of accomplishing this relatively common setup objective, I'd certainly like to hear what they are, but for me it worked out that setting up the DAW properly was critical to passing the data through. Looking in the Device Manager in Windows 10 did not reveal the MRCC so far as I could determine, but Studio One did show a list of the 12 virtual connections if I looked at either the 'receive from' or 'send to' dropdowns in the setup of other external devices (such as the controller), beginning with 'MRCC' and 'MIDIOUT 2 (MRCC)' through to 'MIDIOUT 12 (MRCC).' However, selecting one of these as a choice did not appear to result in the MRCC or downstream devices receiving a signal. This is where the considerable hairpulling came into play. For all I knew, the DAW might not even be necessary to accomplish the task, but at the least it should be capable, and I since worked out how.
In addition to the devices already listed in the 'External Devices' part of Studio One's setup box, the desired MRCC port needed to be added as a device as well (so you have to create, i.e. 'add' one, as it's obviously not already in the list of preselected equipment choices) and then you still have to configure it to 'Send To' itself (this is one of those aspects of software configuration that is not particularly intuitive), and THEN, since you still have no joy from this configuration yet, you must, apparently, create a track in the sequencer part of the DAW using the newly created MRCC device as an external instrument and do a bit of final setup on the track, things like MIDI channel assignment and controller source selection, in my case the Novation SL. After all that, I finally got my synth on MRCC DIN output 1 to play.
Now that this has been worked out, next I'd like to see if feeding the controller through the MRCC will still allow it's librarian program to connect to it, although I'm a bit skeptical, but we'll see tomorrow or whenever as it's too late now to open more cans of worms.
[Edit: NOTE! This entire post, and my first follow up below, turned out to be a massive diversion from a proper workflow, so should just be ignored by all except for gluttons for punishment. The entry further below (from today) will explain.]
My objective today was to have my controller keyboard / sequencer, the Novation 61SL mk3, to be seen by it's companion Components software, while also doing it's regular duty playing notes on various things, both virtual in the DAW, and physical via MRCC. Since connecting the SL via USB to the MRCC did not result in the Components software connecting to it (nor was there the indicative 'ding' from the PC announcing a device being discovered) despite passing routed data to synths, I decided to connect the SL directly to the PC and then try to route to the MRCC using the PC device port there, which is where the hairpulling started. I should mention here that in addition to being new to the MRCC, I've also only recently begun to use my Studio One 5.x DAW, and for that matter most everything else in my setup, so there's a significant aspect of needing to get up to speed on multiple systems at once, which is no mean feat, even though my theoretical understanding is more than adequate; just haven't ever had the opportunity to physically familiarize myself with it all, especially the DAW.
If there are other ways of accomplishing this relatively common setup objective, I'd certainly like to hear what they are, but for me it worked out that setting up the DAW properly was critical to passing the data through. Looking in the Device Manager in Windows 10 did not reveal the MRCC so far as I could determine, but Studio One did show a list of the 12 virtual connections if I looked at either the 'receive from' or 'send to' dropdowns in the setup of other external devices (such as the controller), beginning with 'MRCC' and 'MIDIOUT 2 (MRCC)' through to 'MIDIOUT 12 (MRCC).' However, selecting one of these as a choice did not appear to result in the MRCC or downstream devices receiving a signal. This is where the considerable hairpulling came into play. For all I knew, the DAW might not even be necessary to accomplish the task, but at the least it should be capable, and I since worked out how.
In addition to the devices already listed in the 'External Devices' part of Studio One's setup box, the desired MRCC port needed to be added as a device as well (so you have to create, i.e. 'add' one, as it's obviously not already in the list of preselected equipment choices) and then you still have to configure it to 'Send To' itself (this is one of those aspects of software configuration that is not particularly intuitive), and THEN, since you still have no joy from this configuration yet, you must, apparently, create a track in the sequencer part of the DAW using the newly created MRCC device as an external instrument and do a bit of final setup on the track, things like MIDI channel assignment and controller source selection, in my case the Novation SL. After all that, I finally got my synth on MRCC DIN output 1 to play.
Now that this has been worked out, next I'd like to see if feeding the controller through the MRCC will still allow it's librarian program to connect to it, although I'm a bit skeptical, but we'll see tomorrow or whenever as it's too late now to open more cans of worms.