Electronic Music 411 - Wierd midi problem.

04/21/08 + dkarma

I got this phat boy midi controller off of ebay and it works great. I'm using reason 3.0 and using the PB to control different synths / parameters, etc.
Everything works fine, but my buddy has one too and we tried using them both the other day to no avail. Apparently reason ignores the midi channel rotary on the PB altogether so even if mine is on ch1 and his is on ch2 they both are "seen" by reason as being the same controller and sending the same signal to the same synth. So when he turns knob 1 it does the same thing as when I turn knob 1.

booo.

sooooo....what can I do to separate the midi info and / or get reason to recognize the 2 PBs as different controllers.

I was looking at a MOTU unit, but wasn't sure it would do what I needed. I was also looking at a tascam fw1082 and thought that since it was firewire that I could in theory get the tascam to think the pbs were diff midi controllers and trick reason that way. My other buddy has that 1082 but we can't use it on a regular basis so i'd need my own.
Obviously I don't want to buy a 500-600$ DAW just for this purpose.

Advice?

04/22/08 + yghartsyrt

can't you just use midi yoke or some midi-app to reroute the midi messages to a different midi-channel or midi-device??

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05/03/08 + Operations

hi dkarma.

Your problem i think is not hardware related, probably it's a software matter.

Can Reason make multiple MIDI monitoring?. It U dont know, make this simple test:
Set 2 midi tracks assigned to channel 1 and 2 respectively. The first will play a piano and the 2nd a drum. Active some monitoring track button on the 2 tracks. Then in your midi controller set 2 faders/ buttons or whatever to play CC7 in each channel (1 and 2).

Once U set the midi controller U MUST already be able to set the piano and the drum volumes independiently. If NOT --If in the test the volume on the 2 tracks is performed ar the same time-- is probably that Reason doesnt accept multi midi monitoring i.e. the monitoring is perforrmed always in the ''first selected monitor active track'' so as U want to play in different active (monitor) tracks, U wont be able.

In Cubase this ''multi monitoring'' task is solved/performed with the Midi Input Transformer feature. Try to find something related in Reason Terms.

Regards

PD: My example uses the CC7 and obviously any other MIDI message (Pitch Bend,etc) can be used.

05/04/08 + elronhubbard

maybe try and check out the control surfaces window (i think its with midi preferences, though not sure - its been a while between me and reason) and see if its only registering one phat boy and not two.

or maybe you could define the two phat boys' knobs with different cc numbers. i dont know if you can program that on the phat boy or not, though, never played with one.

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05/04/08 + dkarma

cant program the phat boy but it does have a channel selection rotary switch but reason doesn't recognize it so you cant "assign" one phat boy to ch1 and the other to ch2 because reason sees them as the same channel. in the preferences where you can add midi keyboards and controllers we tried to add another phat boy so 2 were listed, but still had the same prob. so no i don't think it has multi monitoring

thx for the suggestions guys

05/05/08 + Operations

I'm sure it's a Reason multi monitoring issue.
Have you ever test the phat boy along with other midi controller? i mean 2 different machines at once.

Playing previous recorded tracks is not a problem but when your mate and U want to play at the same time --in real time-- u have to active 2 monitoring channels. That's is obvious.

Apparently Reason duplicate the events from 1 channel to the other and viceversa.

Did your test my example?

05/05/08 + dkarma

I cut of contact w/ the kid because he was being an asshole so no I haven't tested it, but I already assumed that it was because reason "saw" them both as being on the same channel because of lack of recognition of the midi channel knob...
No problems w/ the phat boy and other controllers at all just 2 @ once doesn't work. As far as multi monitoring I'm sure reason is recognizing the phat boy as 1 channel and other midi controllers on other channels.

now we're just talking in loops.

I guess I'm looking for a midi splitter that takes input from 2 devices and defines its own midi channels to put the data out on...dig?

05/06/08 + ejectorset

im not sure if you are on a mac or pc, but in osx sometimes you have to go into audio/midi setup and rename one of the devices when using two of the same device. i guess to avoid situations like this. just a thought.

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