Octatrack Auto channel note filtering, Keystep + Midihub + 2 external synths

Midihub
1

Hello everybody! I have just got my Midihub yesterday and I am super happy about it and eager to
discover all its functionalities. I have already have found lots of cool resources in here. Thank you!

I have a quite specific Octatrack related case which I just can’t come further with. I was tied to solve the issue for 4h till late into the night yesterday. So now it’s a fresh day and I need your help as I seem to be not able to solve that on my own.

Current setup:

  • Keystep & OT goes into Midihub.

  • OT, Mopho, and Minitaur are all connected through Midihubs Outs.

  • I use the Keystep to play the Octatrack and also to play/record the two external synths through the Octatrack MIDI tracks.

  • The Keystep is currently set to send on User MIDI channel 11.

  • Octatrack Auto Channel = 11. OT Midi Audio Channels = 1-8

  • Mopho Midi Channel 9

  • Minitaur Midi Channel 10

Problem

When I use the Keystep on OT auto channel 11 to play audio tracks chromatically, low notes just below the usable chromatic range can trigger unwanted OT behavior instead of simply doing nothing. In my case, a note like 71 can trigger OT playback/track behavior, while the higher note range is the one I actually want for chromatic audio-track playing. This seems related to how the OT maps incoming notes on the auto channel, where lower note ranges are reserved for non-chromatic functions.

At the same time, I also want to use the same Keystep to play OT MIDI tracks that sequence Mopho and Minitaur. For those two synths I want full note range, plus CC and Program Change, so I can record everything into the OT and replay it later. OT users also describe auto-channel / active-track MIDI behavior that can feel like soft-thru or mixed forwarding, which is why I ran into confusion when trying to remap one incoming keyboard channel into multiple OT target channels.

What works:
Filtering the Keystep → OT auto-channel path by note range seems like the correct way to stop the unwanted low-note OT behavior to trigger Playback.

I have now tried lots of different variations of setting up the Midihub Pipes.
The following resonated with me the best, but somehow I got weird MIDI behaviour as it was then playing the Synths without having the correct Midi Channel on the Octatrack selected. In my case it’s Midi Channel 9 for Mopho and Minitaur it’s Midi Channel 10.

I used the Channel Remap to change Keystep Ch.11 to 9 and 10 for sending the signal into the OT which then further processed inside the Octatrack to send the signals via Miditrack 7 and 8 of the OT to the two synths.

Keystep → OT auto channel is used for playing OT audio tracks, but with the unwanted low notes filtered out so they do not trigger playback/track functions.

  1. Mopho and Minitaur should be played through the OT MIDI tracks with full note range, CC, and Program Change.

  2. The OT remains the center for recording and replaying MIDI for the two synths.

For now the problem which persists is that no matter which Midi Channel on the OT is focused both Synths start to play.

Maybe someone of you has encountered a similar problem or has an easy solution for me, as I just won’t believe that it won’t work anyhow.

Thank you for your time,

Lucas

2

Hello Lucas, welcome to the community!

Could you please upload the Midihub preset you’ve built so far?

3

Hi Lucas. Sounds like a fun setup. I use a Octatrack with the MidiHubs too, sometimes with the keystep going in and out of the OT as well, but I haven’t dabbled in program change and I stay away from autochannel just because I don’t understand and accidentally trigger weird stuff.

When you start changing MIDIHUB parameters with Octa MIDI CC, I just learned this so I share,
Octatracks, most of the time, won’t send the same CC # twice in the same pattern if the value is the same, so the workaround is to be chaining patterns more often.

Peace

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