Organelle MIDI issue - how to solve a pretty straightforward problem?

Organelle
1

Hi,
I’m hoping someone can help with what should be a pretty straightforward MIDI issue I’m having.

I have 3 MIDI devices: a Beat Buddy drum machine/MIDI clock generator, an Organelle, and an Intellijel µMIDI MIDI to CV converter which I want to use to send MIDI info to my modular setup.

I want to be able to send MIDI clock to the Organelle from the Beat Buddy via a Mio i/o interface that has two, 5-pin DIN MIDI connectors and 1 USB connection. Good news is that this works great! The Organelle receives the MIDI clock and syncs, no problem.

I also want to be able to send gate, trigger, and pitch information from the Organelle to the µMIDI so that I can patch in the Organelle as a controller for the modular. This also works great using the same Mio MIDI interface!

Lastly, I want the Organelle to pass the MIDI beat clock it’s receiving from the Beat Buddy on to the µMIDI. Alas, this is where it all falls apart. I cannot get he Organelle to send the MIDI clock on to the modular, even though the Organelle is clearly receiving it. As an aside, the µMIDI receives clock great when the Beat Buddy is plugged directly in to it.

I have read several articles on this forum about implementing MIDI THRU on the Organelle. Unfortunately, many of them refer to editing the “Mother.pd” patch, which, after searching fruitlessly, doesn’t seem to exist on my Organelle. I have also read articles and watched videos on editing the “Patches_sh” patch, but this doesn’t work either. The Organelle does not recognize either the Beat Buddy or the µMIDI, so it does not assign them device numbers.

Does anyone know how I can get the Organelle to simply relay the MIDI clock info it’s receiving? Editing things in PD is a little over my head at the moment, but I’m willing to give it a try if that’s what it takes. I’m hoping there’s a simple solution out there somewhere! Thanks so much for any help.

Best Wishes,
Andrew

2

You want to use the midirealtimein object. This object receives all the numbered messages for midi tempo/sync control. 248 is the clock, 259 is start message, 251 continue, 252 stop. In the critter and guitari patches with tempo you can open the abstraction ‘master-metronome’ and in there open ‘pd mainmetro’ and you can see how we deal with these messages.

so what you want to do is receive those numbered messages and pass them out with the ‘midiout’ object. and I guess pay attention to the channel numbers if your using more than one midi thing.

3

[quote=“mahler007, post:1, topic:3728”]
I have read several articles on this forum about implementing MIDI THRU on the Organelle. Unfortunately, many of them refer to editing the “Mother.pd” patch, which, after searching fruitlessly, doesn’t seem to exist on my Organelle.

[quote]
it exists in /root/mother.pd

if you want a modified one to be used (so the behaviour is available for all patches) , you need to
a) create a System directory on your usbdrive
b) copy /root/mother.pd to /usbdrive/System/mother.pd

you can then edit the one in /usbdrive/System/mother.pd to have your new functionality.

then as jeremy saids it just a matter of using midirealtimein → midiout
(perhaps using something like route to filter based on what you want to be sent across)

you mean patch_loaded.sh
yes this could be used instead, if you want all midi to be sent from one to the other.
and this is more efficient and probably less latency that using PD to do it.

not sure I understand this since you also say… (my emphasis)

“I also want to be able to send gate, trigger, and pitch information from the Organelle to the µMIDI so that I can patch in the Organelle as a controller for the modular. This also works great using the same Mio MIDI interface!”
so you seem to be saying you can send things from the Organelle, yet then later saying its not recognised?!

also its a bit unclear to me, what device you want to use as the clock master,
since you at some point talk about clock going from BB to Organelle, bu then later say you want clock to go from Organelle to BB… you have to really have one or the other :wink:

4

Thanks so much Jeremywy and Technobear!

Just to be clear, Technobear, I want to route the MIDI clock IN to the Organelle from the Beat Buddy and then have the Organelle pass it THRU to the µMIDI. Essentially, I want everything sync’d to the Beat Buddy, always. I never want the Organelle to be the master clock.

Although the µMIDI doesn’t pick up the clock signal (presumably since the Organelle isn’t passing it THRU) it does pick up gate, trigger, and pitch info from the Organelle when I play its keys, but neither it nor the BB show up as connected devices in the Organelle’s MIDI setup menu, in spite of the fact that there is obviously some connectivity happening.

Thanks again for your assistance — I appreciate it! I will use this info and investigate more later this afternoon when I get home.

Cheers,
A

5

yes, because the PD patch does not send thru midi clock signals.

but my points was, if PD is sending this data, the the Organelle does recognise the uMIDI

can you try the following:

  • plug your uMidi into the organelle via USB
  • plug you Mio into the organelle (and then i assume mio is connect to BB)

then on the command line on organelle type:
aconnect -l

(or run the DiagnosticLog as discussed elsewhere on the forum)

then we will be able to see what is connected/recognised, and then form a proper midi thru from bb->mio->organelle->umidi for all midi messages, including clock.

6

Hi Guys,
So great news — I got it to work! Thanks so much again for your help. I used the setup you recommended, Technobear. After executing the “aconnect -l” command, I was able to see that the BB, Mio Interface, and µMIDI were all being recognized, and I was able to alter the “Patches_sh” file successfully.

Only one gripe. From a hardware perspective, I wish it could be a bit more elegant. One thing that is disappointing is that I cannot seem to use the 5-pin DIN output from the Mio Interface to connect to the µMIDI — the MIDI clock only seems to pass through on the USB cable.

Is there any way to fix this? It’s not the end of the world, but it means that I have to carry around a USB hub, extra MIDI cable, and have another cable hanging that I don’t need hanging off of everything.

BTW, the code I used to fix things was

aconnect 15:0 28:0
aconnect 32:0 28:0

The Beat Buddy was 15:0, the Mio was 28:0, and the µMIDI was 32:0.

Cheers,
A

7

So, looks like I spoke to soon. In my excitement, I didn’t thoroughly test it.

I now realize that when on an Organelle patch that outputs MIDI clock (like Arpeggio Synth), the Organelle won’t sync to the Beat Buddy, and sends its own version of MIDI clock to the µMIDI.

I will have to keep tinkering!

8

honestly, that sounds unlikely… USB->DIN cables are pretty dumb, they usually just unpack/pack the USB data and serialise it over the DIN - have you tried it on your desktop computer?
if you connect a din cable to the in/out (and so create a loop) , and then use a midi monitor application, then send a clock signal on the output, you should see it appear on the input.

… the issue here is , its deciding to be clock master, whereas other patches are clock slaves.
Id hazard a guess that the Arpeggio Synth is perhaps using older metro code, or perhaps it was just deemed this was more useful for this particular patch.

have you tried using Orac? this has things like the Arp as an midi fx, and is clocked…
the advantage of using orac is it will be consistent across modules/presets.

this is the problem with midi, as ive said many times here before :slight_smile:

when using midi between two devices its really simple, but as soon as you get into multiple devices, and routing, then everyone setups becomes different, so its hard for others to help(*) - this is especially true of midi clock, where you have to be really careful to have one master, and others set to slave - and also ensure you dont have midi loops…

(*) even to give you the help ive done so far, has required me to go dig up the manuals for your products, to see whats they can/cannot do… but thats limiting, as practice and theory is often different - so i never quite know, if your having issues just due to configuration, or something to do with the hardware you have.

I think when midi was first introduced, it assumed you’d have hardware midi thru ports, so you would form chains, but thats horrible inefficient, and was pretty pointless once microprocessors were on every device, since then soft midi thru was easy to introduce and meant less hardware - so cheaper, but at the expense of introducing complexity for musicians!

anyway end of rant :slight_smile:

honestly these days, whilst I can do this all in software, I actually prefer to use a midi hub, so that i can just do all the midi hacking in one place, and reconfigure quickly if my setup changes (temporarily or more permanently)

Im currently using a midihub by blokas Midihub – MIDI Interface & Stand-Alone MIDI Processor (you can see my review there) , its not released yet, but you can see what i use it for…
there are similar devices though, or you could use a combination of midi splitters/mergers

9

Thanks so much for your replies, Mark. You and others deserve sainthood for all the help you provide neophytes like myself. I will keep plugging away at it. I’m reasonably confident that when the time comes, and with some more tinkering, I’ll get the Organelle to do my bidding! In the meantime, best wishes to you.

Cheers,
Andrew

10

Hi @mahler007
We’re working on a new sequencer and master metronome for Organelle patches. These upgrades should fix your issue. We’ve put them in five beta patches to try out. More info and download here:

1 Like
11

Thanks Chris! These new patches work great. Now to figure out how to implement their MIDI functionality in other patches…

Cheers,
Andrew

12

small note: if the new sequence/metro sends thru clock , then @mahler007 be sure to remove the aconnect lines, otherwise your going to get duplicate clock messages being passed thru!

13

Thank you, Mark!

Cheers,
A