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Thanks for the feedback chaosmoon and steve – interesting discussion indeed!
This is not a technical issue, displaying the absolute value can be built in quickly. The question is though what the shown "absolute" value actually means.
I am assuming you are after the sum of Track pitch and Step pitch. However, that value will not be always "true". Problem is that pitches may be modified at runtime by an effector track, or possibly by other means (in the near future).
From that respect, showing the offset to the track offset is imo. the more accurate piece of information. Any more opinions on this please?
Cheers,
Gabriel
If you get a midi loop there’s still something wrong with your "environment" configuration in Logic. Never route the output from Octopus to the Logic-track that represents Octopus again. There’s your midi loop.
Instead use 2 different scenario’s, one for recording and one for monitoring. You can use a "switch" (Logic object) for switching between:
a. Recording. The track object is connected to all kind of synths BUT NOT Octopus. Route your Octopus (Logic) input to the "Recording & Thru" object.
and
b. Monitoring. Route your Octopus (Logic) input directly from "Physical Inputs" to your synth objects.
The switch can be used when strategic placed between "Physical Input" and "Recording & Thru".
Used this scenario many times when I was working with more computers (soft sequencer stuff) or other midi generating gear.
Hi rachel,
I hope that you have understood the basic operations of the Octopus. A good Idea is now to look for video on your tube and the genoqs webpage. Another thing is, to setup your "finally" Setup with Logic. You should allwas use the Octopus as the master (master clock) and all other devices as slave. One misty thing is that Logic 8 do not accept Midi Clock in anymore (grrrrr). So you can use the channel splitter to trigger different plugins via different midi chanels via the Octopus.Post edited by: Dayflight, at: 2008/12/16 16:07
Quote:but yes, it is possible to have 64 distinct pages play in sequence.Ha, I did wonder if this had been changed sometime along the way. I never pay that much attention to the grid mode, as I practicly never work there.
So we have two votes for MIDI echo off, hopefully
with a "Global" mode, or per channel/port.Anyone else think this is a good idea? Octopus
and vintage analogues are like wine and cheese!rachel
As it is now, it is 16 consecutive pages. It is easy to make the assumption, that this then means only 16 bars, but that is not at all the case.
First, each page can have its own number of repeats. Then, each page can contain longer structures (track chaining), such as e.g. a 16 bar chord sequence (8 tracks chained and set to half speed).There has however been talk (search this forum) about how to elaborate on the page chaining (banks) of grid mode. My guess is that this area will be expanded at some point. The beauty of our little community here is that Gabriel ("gseher" in this forum) is all ears when it comes to making the Octo better and us happier. (Yes, he is the guy who makes the Octo OS.)
EDIT:
Quote:(basically the hardware "screen-less" alternative to a software midi editor)Well, sort of, but horses for courses as they say. I would never write a string quartet on the octo. It would be possible, but the graphics of a software midi editor is w-a-y better for certain chores.
Post edited by: LDT, at: 2008/12/16 00:54
Quote:Does any of this make sense?It does. In fact it would help my setup, BUT only if it would be possible to switch off echo (or per midi channel) per page.
The thing is that in general my setup with various instruments is fine with midi, except my Prophet8. I does not work for it to have local off, because then I loose the ability to tweak anything except via midi. And when local is on, it doubles the voices when I record. I can record from another keyboard, but being able to switch off echo for just my P8 page would be luxury.Mmm, the Octopus is driving the System 100, Oscar
and Doepfer nicely! I am making a lot of progress in one sense, but haven’t got my keyboard input problems solved yet. I got a MIDI Thru box but it turns out it will not work with my controller as it doesn’t buss power the Thru box. So I am back to some
other solution.As I mentioned in another post,
which probably got overlooked, I was wondering if the
MIDI echo function was able to be soft switched,
so it could be enabled/disabled at will?After playing with my setup for a bit, I figure this
would actually be a good soft solution, for integration
with a controller keyboard, so that the controller
is sending note input and triggering the notes
for record or monitoring, but with the echo off,
it’s not going to feed back into the controller
with a data loop. Does any of this make sense?In any case, I note the timing of the Octopus
is very good. It’s interrupt driven, of course
which makes it very snappy processing wise.rachel
Would it be an idea to have the leds for each track react to the note on/offs in this mode? That way i could easily identify the different instruments.
Lazy morning here, so why not answer this
Midi: I find there is two major issues for me. (Stuff that I live with, but if I was designing the midi protocol today I would never do it like that).
1. Timing is serial. This has just been a bummer from day one. Put too many notes on a beat, and you have sloppiness. Unfortunately we tend to get use to this sloppyness, so we forget how it sounds when notes do come at the same time.
2. Resolution of CC is too low. Take your favorite analogue synth and sweep the filter manually (with the analogue pot). Then setup a midi-controller to do the same sweep on the same synth. The difference is obvious to those of us who care.
Apart from that, most of my problems with midi, comes from instruments that are not well designed (in regard to midi-implementation.) (Hehe, right now I am thinking of a very nice new 8 voice synth from the inventor of midi :S It has some issues, and even bugs, but once a product like that is on the street nobody cares. Oops, gotta have my coffee now).
@ Rachel: Nice setup, basicly the same kind of stuff here. But why would you want to refit anything into the Octo? Just hook up something like a Kenton Pro2000, and your cv/gate stuff is in buissness.
BTW, what modular stuff do you use? I see the System 100, but is there more?
EDIT: Ah, just spotted the little Doepfer also.Post edited by: LDT, at: 2008/12/15 10:40
rachel wrote:
Quote:You’d be surprised how few questions you will
have to ask. One I got over my Logic/MIDI Integration
setup issues, I have had no trouble at all. The Octopus is so intuitive and simple to use, it really is amazing.
I am so glad I got mine.Don’t try and do too much at once. Just concentrate
on getting it setup with whatever system you use for music production and you’ll find the Octopus will
just take you where you want to be.There are lots of mysteries to unravel, but it’s a bit
like reading the Harry Potter books – lots of mysteries
but none so hard as to leave you bewildered – just enjoyable!rachel
Sounds advice indeed, thanks! The Octopus does seem very intuative, definitely one of those rare pieces of technology that draw you in, but as you say, one step at a time…
That said I had a few hours with it yesterday then the phone rang late last night to confirm a job I’d been waiting to get the green light on! The good thing is the Vampire is perfect for this, I always feel the best way to learn something in the heat of battle!
I read the description of your Logic solution, seems very well thought out, I might pick your brains over that if I get stuck though! Right now I’m looking at having the Vampire run it’s own bank of real synths, leaving Logic to deal with the virtual world, plus of course midi, audio and video and act as the master clock. Either way I’ll figure it out over the weekend… I hope!
Cheers.
You’d be surprised how few questions you will
have to ask. One I got over my Logic/MIDI Integration
setup issues, I have had no trouble at all. The Octopus is so intuitive and simple to use, it really is amazing.
I am so glad I got mine.Don’t try and do too much at once. Just concentrate
on getting it setup with whatever system you use for music production and you’ll find the Octopus will
just take you where you want to be.There are lots of mysteries to unravel, but it’s a bit
like reading the Harry Potter books – lots of mysteries
but none so hard as to leave you bewildered – just enjoyable!rachel
Sorry to keep replying to my own posts, but I
am trying to nut this out best I can.I think I can rule out the MIDI loop coming from Logic.
If I assign and arm a track for recording, as soon
as I hit Play on the Octopus, I get an instant
MIDI loop and all the output data is coming right
back in.I know the MIDI echo feature in the Octopus is a recent thing. So perhaps most people haven’t come across the problem yet.
I was wondering if it were possible to add a switch to enable/disable echoing the MIDI output back to the Input via the firmware? I know this would fix my
problem pretty much. A bit like a "local control"
setting or whatever.Maybe I am totally off the beam. But I have tried
different combinations of connections and come to the
same result. In any case, I guess I need more
advise. Output of the Octopus itself is fine.
It is only when enabling MIDI input record mode it
goes into a loop and I have had to reset it from
locking up a couple of times tonight already.Any advise would be welcome!
(edit)
Made some progress. I pulled the MIDI In of the
Octopus out of the AMT interface and plugged it straight into my controller keyboard MIDI out.Then I setup and armed a track – it was able to
be triggered by my keyboard no problems.This tells me that Logic is somehow echoing
everything back to the Octopus, which is
accepting the data and feeding back into a MIDI loop.But now I can see no way forward with Logic to
fix this.What I think will fix it is me spending more money
on a MIDI Thru box for my controller keyboard,
which only has MIDI In/Out, but no Thru.
So the idea would be to split the Output of my controller to go to Logic via the MIDI interface
for "legacy" purposes and send MIDI messages from
it via a direct split of the MIDI out, when I need
to arm Record and play into a track directly.But this is a messy solution. Does anyone else
think that being able to enable/disable the MIDI
echo Out of the Octopus would work here? My feeling
is that it would. But I am new to this. I don’t
really feel like spending another $60 on a Thru box,
when the software hackers could possibly do a switch
in the firmware, but I am probably asking too much,
too early :whistle:rachel
Post edited by: rachel, at: 2008/12/08 17:56
Hmmm yes, I have already done pretty much this.
And my observation is that the Octopus is echoing
the MIDI input to it, back to itself.
Is there a MIDI echo off function in there or does
it only work for sync?I might try and mess with the sync modes and
see if that helps. My basic map of the MIDI IO
is very simple! Thanks for your help….rachel
