MPC, juno, vermona, and jomox - help

Ok, this stuff always gets to me. Just got a midi box to expand the number of ports so that i can setup up all my hardware to work with both ableton and the mpc simultaneously. I'm close, but not 100% yet.

Icon midi box - 2 ins, 2 outs
Motu 828 - 1 in, 1 out
Juno 106 - 1 in, 1 out, 1 thru
Vermona Perfourmer - 1 in, 1 out
Jomox Airbase - 1 in, 1 out, 1 thru

Ok sow as you can tell, there are a lot of midi cables and potential routing options. What I want to do is follows.

- have the flexibility of recording sequences in either ableton or my mpc 2500 (with jjos2xl installed).

I love the note repeat and chord functions (jjos) of the mpc, and the chopping abilities. However, for lengthly note loops - like strings/pads, or complex note patterns - its easier to edit and trigger from ableton. I literally want the best of both worlds, haha. And i know its possible.

The request is quite simple, just hope i can explain it correctly. Ideally, i want to do the following: Vermona out --> Juno 106 thru. Then Juno 106 in/out into the Icon midi box. Then the jomx airbase into the Icon midi box. And the mpc 2500 in/out into the motu 828.

Within ableton i have all my hardware monitoring using the external instrument plugins (so a track for the juno, a track for the vermona, the jomox and the mpc). Within ableton i can play/record notes fine - but how do i correctly select which instrument to use within the mpc?

As everything is all instruments are going through the midi box (except the mpc which goes through the motu sound card), how can i get the mpc to work out which channel to select? As the midibox is connected to mpc ports 1-A, i am unsure how it can work out which channel to play. Any ideas? Apologies if this is confusing - happy to explain differently. Maybe i need to set things up differently. Any help massively appreciated. Rob

That is confusing!

Do you have a link to the Icon MIDI box, I had a quick look and couldn't find any info.

MIDI setups are pretty flexible, so there could be any number of ways to achieve what you want, but I would need to see what the Icon MIDI box actually is, and try to work out what you are trying to use it for, before I could offer any advice.


Personally, I would possibly run everything through a programmable MIDI patchbay, so you could connect the 3 synths to the MPC2500 MIDI ports when you wanted to sequence them by MIDI from the MPC, and reconnect the 3 synths to Ableton when you wanted to sequence them by MIDI from Ableton, or choose other configurations.

But, you might want to connect the MPC to Ableton, so that you can play Ableton software instruments from the MPC, or sync the MPC sequencer to Ableton so you can sequence on both at the same time, there are so many different ways that you could connect them, and use them, together.

It is a little hard to know exactly what you are trying to achieve from the info provided above.

No probs - thought it would be tricky to explain....here is the icon interface:

http://www.icon-global.com/Midi+Interfa ... di2+G2.htm

so its a midi to usb connector with 2 ins/outs --> usb.

Essentially i am happy to have the mpc as the master and ableton as the slave. As note editing at times is easier on ableton - i want to be able to play/record note data into ableton clips. However, i also want the choice to play/record note date into the mpc instead. Literally - want the option of doing one or the other without changing cables midway - is this possible?


i think it makes sense for the vermona to work via the juno's midi thru. then the juno in & out goes either into the mpc or the midi interface.....this is where i am getting stuck. if it goes into the midi interface (then into my pc usb port) - how can i access both the juno and vermona via the mpc? thanks soo much for helping so far. apologies if i am confusing you at all.

ok getting close - say i have my mpc connected to soundcard via 1-A, and my juno connect into 2-B of the mpc. How can i then record notes triggered from the juno or mpc into an ableton clip?

Can't really help directly, but some rambling thoughts...


That is where you will run into problems, how to get the MIDI from 2 separate sources into the 1 set of MIDI devices.

You could probably hang them all off one MIDI port of the computer, and then when sequencing from the MPC have the MIDI go into the computer and out to the computer MIDI port that they are attached to, using whatever method is required in the computer software to send the incoming MIDI to the correct MIDI output (this might be having Ableton opened and a MIDI track set to the correct output selected).

When sequencing from Ableton, the MIDI devices would be directly connected to the computer, so no problem.

Only issue might be ensuring that the MIDI coming in on different MIDI channels goes out on those same MIDI channels, rather than being merged into a single MIDI channel before being sent out of Ableton, not sure how it handles this.

Another way might be to have some sort of utility software on the computer to route the incoming MIDI from the MPC to the required MIDI output port on the computer.

Another way might be a different MIDI interface, that has a builtin programmable MIDI patchbay, or an external MIDI patchbay, so that you can select one configuration of MIDI connections when working from the MPC, then another configuration when working from Ableton.

SimonInAustralia wrote:Another way might be a different MIDI interface, that has a builtin programmable MIDI patchbay, or an external MIDI patchbay, so that you can select one configuration of MIDI connections when working from the MPC, then another configuration when working from Ableton.

Having read the OP, I have no idea what exactly littlerob is trying to do here. But I'll agree with Simon, for the kind of flexible midi routing where you can do almost anything, a programmable midi patchbay can't be beat. A 2x2 USB midi interface wont cut it, especially in a studio with hardware.

Some programable midi patchbays are USB 8x8 affairs, others are standalone requiring no computer and can be picked up quite cheaply on eBay. I have an old Roland A-880, and previously had an Akai ME-30PII. A standalone midi patchbay would integrate well with a 2x2 USB midi interface for getting midi signals into the computer environment.

wassup man?? I can feel your pain on the MIDI issues, but let me offer a diff route and see if that would help you out. 1st get a MIDI interface with more than just 2 in/outs. get a MIDIsport (MIDIman. or really M-Audio now) interface. I have a 8x8. the advantage is the computer sees the outs and you can have Live send MIDI through whatever ports you want to your various gear. there are many how to schematics on here and on akaipro.com website to show you the different DAW, MPC master/slave setups. hope this helps a lil bit. oh btw, you do realize that if a piece of gear has MIDI outs and thrus, that you can only use 1 or the other. basically if you want to use the Juno as a controller, use the out, but if it's just in a chain, use the thru. the difference is the out transmits the CC value and other MIDI data as the master. thru transmits CC value and data UNCHANGED from OTHER gear as a slave!! get the MIDI Bible off Amazon. big help!!! peace