Midi Recording Setup

[jobyobrien]

Hey guys!
New to G-Stomper, and have been struggling with the setup I am looking for.

Basically, i simply want to use G-Stomper as a midi recorder to capture riffs from my external synth, and send them back to the synth so it keeps playing that on a loop.

So far I got my external synth to send notes in to the app and play the Beast synth, which is half the battle. However, I'm having trouble with all the midi settings figuring out what i need to send notes out. (my Usb midi cable has lights that indicate in out, so i can tell it is not sending out yet. also my synth is able to receive midi from other sources). I have G-Stomper set up for send and receive notes, Send midi clock and Start. For Default IN I have ALL, and out I have 1. For my Global midi channel i have All, In is All, out is 1. I have my external synth on channel 1. for testing I have been drawing in notes, or tapping the keyboard of the beast, but don't get any outgoing messages. Its not entirely clear with my settings why it isn't sending notes out?

Is using the sequencer of the Beast the best way to record and send midi for external synths, or is there a more neutral midi sequencer track i should use?
I plan on upgrading to the paid version once I see that this setup is possible.. will i then be able to press record on the beast track and capture those incoming midi notes?

Really impressed with the software so far, looks awesome guys!

[planet-h]

Welcome to the forum, jobyobrien.

Basically, i simply want to use G-Stomper as a midi recorder to capture riffs from my external synth, and send them back to the synth so it keeps playing that on a loop.

So far I got my external synth to send notes in to the app and play the Beast synth, which is half the battle.

So that sounds good so far.

However, I'm having trouble with all the midi settings figuring out what i need to send notes out. (my Usb midi cable has lights that indicate in out, so i can tell it is not sending out yet. also my synth is able to receive midi from other sources).

I have G-Stomper set up for send and receive notes, Send midi clock and Start. For Default IN I have ALL, and out I have 1. For my Global midi channel i have All, In is All, out is 1. I have my external synth on channel 1. for testing I have been drawing in notes, or tapping the keyboard of the beast, but don't get any outgoing messages. Its not entirely clear with my settings why it isn't sending notes out?

Set the following settings:

Default IN Interface: 1
Default OUT Interface: 1
(keep in mind, Interface is not equal Channel, virtual interfaces are used to address more than 16 channels)

Global Channel: NONE (Global is not required in your case)

VA-Beast Synthesizer Channels / Selected Track VT[..]
Channel: 1
IN Interface: Use Default [1]
OUT Interface: Use Default [1]

All other channels (sampler and synth) : NONE (not required in your case)

Does this solve the problem?

Is using the sequencer of the Beast the best way to record and send midi for external synths, or is there a more neutral midi sequencer track i should use?

Yes, since the VA-Beast Sequencer (the poly grid) provides all the MIDI related data.

I plan on upgrading to the paid version once I see that this setup is possible.. will i then be able to press record on the beast track and capture those incoming midi notes?

Yes, definitely. Press record and play on the G-Stomper sequencer and it'll record and show your notes in real time.
Just keep in mind that G-Stomper is pattern based, which means all sequences are stored in patterns of max 8bars (128 steps).

Really impressed with the software so far, looks awesome guys!

Thank you

[jobyobrien]

Awesome! Makes total sense.

I will hopefully give this a try tonight after work. Thanks again!

[jobyobrien]

So I just did a little more troubleshooting..

Unfortunately the tips you provided didn't get any midi going out so far.
I now tried the same cable and synth getting midi in and out with Ableton, which worked fine.

Im thinking
either A) something with my phone isnt letting those messages out (I have android 5.0.1 on Galaxy S4).
or B) i must be setting up the track wrong in G Stomper.

Basically i open the app, hit clear all patterns and songs so i have a blank slate, then (after matching your midi settings) I open poly grid for beast and hit VT01 track, plug in some notes, hit play, but no midi goes out. I can still play midi in from my external synth, and i can hear the notes in G Stomper after i program them, but my cable doesnt light up from notes and the synth isnt receiving anything.

any other ideas? Ive also tried similar setup but on the sampler, and also with midi settings more set to 'all', but no luck there either.

[planet-h]

I'm pretty sure it's just a setting issue, most likely something in the interface selection.

What exact MIDI interface cable are you using?
Brand/Model?

What are the DIN plugs labeled?
IN and OUT?
or 1 and 2?

There are some USB to DIN MIDI interfaces with 2 virtual interfaces integrated. With such, the settings must be slightly different.

What you can check so far:
1. Connect your MIDI interface
2. Show up the setup dialog (G-Stomper main screen) and select the MIDI tab
3. In the MIDI device box on top, what is written there for 'connected MIDI device' and also for 'supported directions'?
4. In the MIDI transmission box, make sure that "Send & Receive" is selected for "Note Messages" and "Control Changes"

Just to be 100% sure, I did a quick test over here with a hardware synth, which worked without problems.
I'm using an ESI MIDIMATE II interface cable, which is one of those with two virtual interfaces integrated.
In my case, I just have to set the Default IN/OUT interfaces slightly different.
Default IN interface: 1
Default OUT interface: 2
(of course depending on which, 1 or 2, you connect to the synth's midi in and out)

[jobyobrien]

What exact MIDI interface cable are you using?
Brand/Model?
Im using this sort of generic thing ive seen some people have:
http://www.goughanddavy.co.uk/admin1/image/6453midi2.jpg

What are the DIN plugs labeled?
IN and OUT

There are some USB to DIN MIDI interfaces with 2 virtual interfaces integrated. With such, the settings must be slightly different.

What you can check so far:
1. Connect your MIDI interface
2. Show up the setup dialog (G-Stomper main screen) and select the MIDI tab
3. In the MIDI device box on top, what is written there for 'connected MIDI device' and also for 'supported directions'?
If I remember correctly, it actually didnt have a name for the connected MIDI device. when i plug it in, android tells me some "USB device... has was recognized", and i think Send/Receive shows up, but not a name for the device at the very top. I will check this again tonight.
4. In the MIDI transmission box, make sure that "Send & Receive" is selected for "Note Messages" and "Control Changes"
I think i did have Control Changes set to Send & Receive, but isnt that for extra params besides notes?

[planet-h]

Thanks a lot for the answers.
To be honest, it's very difficult to say why it's not sending MIDI data out.

Are you using the latest G-Stomper version 4.3.2?

The only thing you can try is to set the
OUT interface for the "selected va-beast track VT[..] to 2 instead of 1. But I'm pretty sure that this interface cable should always be routed to interface 1 (in and out). However, it's of course worth a test to set the OUT interface to 2 (either the default OUT interface, if the default is used in the synth setup, or in the synth track setup itself).

Also don't forget to give G-Stomper a fresh start and un-plug and re-plug your interface cable when changing the interface.
So once you defined the OUT interface, unplug the cable, restart G-Stomper and re-plug it.
(I recommend this using once 1 and once 2 as out interface)
Normally restarting and re-plugging is not required, but there are some rare situations, where this is solving such issues.

And, yes, that's right, Conrol Changes are just for parameter transmissions. Notes = Send & Receive would of course do the job.

If this still not solve it, then there might be other possible sources for the problem.

The MIDI interface cable you're using might not be USB class compliant (do you need a driver on the PC for that MIDI interface cable? ).
The Micro USB to USB (OTG) adapter might be buggy.

I'm using a ESI MIDIMATE II, for which I can guarantee that it works.
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/midimate2/

[jobyobrien]

Thank you so much man, I will give these suggestions a try. I can't remember if the computer grabs a driver for this when i plug it in or not. Would it be possible that the cable can take midi in right away, but would need a driver to send midi out through it?

Between how good the actual app you have is and the support, you guys are absolutely awesome. I do software development myself, and i can say I am super impressed all around. Apparently Android is about to natively support Midi on the Android Marshmallow, Im assuming what you guys have done is created your own protocols or used the java midi library maybe.. I wonder if that could potentially make all the midi messages work faster and right out of the box?

[planet-h]

Thank you so much man, I will give these suggestions a try. I can't remember if the computer grabs a driver for this when i plug it in or not. Would it be possible that the cable can take midi in right away, but would need a driver to send midi out through it?

Yes, exactly. I was in contact with another developer some time ago, who's using a similar MIDI backend as I do in G-Stomper.
And he used the same interface cable as you do. He had problems with sending MIDI sysex messages (half the data was lost on the way out).
I recommended him the ESI MIDIMATE II interface, which immediately solved the problems.

What he told me later on was that the non-working interface cable, which he used first, was not class-compliant, and required a driver to handle the in/out traffic correctly.

So yes, it's possible that exactly this is the problem.

Between how good the actual app you have is and the support, you guys are absolutely awesome. I do software development myself, and i can say I am super impressed all around. Apparently Android is about to natively support Midi on the Android Marshmallow, Im assuming what you guys have done is created your own protocols or used the java midi library maybe.. I wonder if that could potentially make all the midi messages work faster and right out of the box?

Thanks a lot for the flowers .
Yes, I wrote my own MIDI driver, based on an older version of by Kaoru shoji's USB MIDI Driver.
His solution was a good resource to learn how the MIDI data is handled, but it wasn't ready for stable MIDI out transmission.

Good question what solution will be more efficient, my own or the new Android M integration. I'll definitely check the M solution out, especially since it supports inter app MIDI, which would be a very nice addition. I'd say it strongly depends the google devs expose the MIDI API to native code or not.