Using the OASYS in Ableton Live

[folias]

hi,

I've had the OASYS for about a month now... and have just been learning how it works. And I think, I've got the general gist of it, so I have moved it down to the studio to be connected to my computer setup!

The main sequencer I am using is Ableton Live for Mac OS X 10.6... and I can't for the life of me determine how to get the OASYS running within the Live environment.

What I've done is used a midi in/out cord to USB, (an M-Audio Midisport UNO) and then followed the patch list instructions I found here to setup the audio midi... but still the OASYS isn't showing up in Live (only the midisport is!)

So at this point, I'm stumped... maybe part of it is that these are old patches and for DP?

Is there anyone here who has got an OASYS set up within Live? Logic is in the mail and that looks like an nightmare too... this almost makes me want to trade it in for an M3... but I don't want to do the downgrade!


Julian.

[X-Trade]

What I've done is used a midi in/out cord to USB, (an M-Audio Midisport UNO) and then followed the patch list instructions I found here to setup the audio midi... but still the OASYS isn't showing up in Live (only the midisport is!)

I think where you are going wrong is not in what you are doing but what you are expecting.
a MIDI connection has no real way to know what device is connected to it. it is a 'dumb' serial connection if you will - the 'device' that shows up will be your midisport, it just happens that you've connected an oasys to it. the computer doesn't know that and doesn't really need to know either. it is just a generic interface.
anything you want to go to the O you should just route to that midisport output.

Also, I don't know if the OASYS has a USB-PC interface, but for example other Korg keyboards benefit from a faster bandwidth/throughput from a direct USB virtual MIDI connection rather than relying on the ancient hardware MIDI implementation which is much slower. then, because it is directly connected to the USB, it would show up as 'KORG M3', or whatever, because it has its own driver and would effectively be the 'interface' (although no real interface is involved - the data is going direct over USB and does not need to be converted to full serial MIDI)
as I said, I'm not sure if the OASYS has this, but I think not...

[kenackr]

The USB connections on the Oasys are for outboard storage & backup. No MIDI goes through them.

Ken

[X-Trade]

The USB connections on the Oasys are for outboard storage & backup. No MIDI goes through them.

Ken

Thanks, I knew it had USB type-A Male connectors for storage/external device hosting, was just not sure if it had a type-B male connector (like on a printer) for it to act as an attached device to another computer.

the main part of what I said still applies

[Kevin Nolan]

Julian -

The OASYS will not ever 'show up' in Ableton or any DAW. The M3 has special driver software written for it by Korg that allows it to become a plugin within a DAW environment - but this is not the case for OASYS. Remember OASYS precedes M3 by several years so this facility was simply not catered for in OASYS. Indeed OASYS was developed as an alternative to a DAW.

However, this does not mean that you cannot have incredibly meaningful usage of an OASYS in tandem with a DAW:

- 16 Channel Combi's routed to OASYS's 8 Audio outs to 8 Ableton Tracks
- OASYS MIDI tacks synced to Ableton (and / or transferable to Ableton as 16 MIDI tracks)
- KARMA GE's and GE performances synced to Ableton and recordable as MIDI into Ableton
- KARMA GE's controlling Plugins in Ableton instead of OASYS synths
- Live inputs form Ableton to OASYS to use its effects within Ableton, including OASYS's Vocoder
- OASYS Control Surface controlling your DAW, where you have a fabulous keyboard and fader/knob controllers equivalent to Novations's latest controllers (superior faders even)

So - you will not see OASYS as a Plugin with Ableton but it can be incredibly well coupled to any DAW with the right effort.

To actually do this - pop over to Stephen Kay's www.karma-labs.com and look at his tutorials section and Wiki pages and you'll find a wealth of hints and tips. Other than that, combining OASYS with a DAW is virtually identical to combining any workstation with a DAW - so perhaps there are useful procedure steps in the Triton and Korg-Karma forums?

Don't trade the OASYS in - it's magnificent - it's audio quality and Karma Technology fully justify it and you'll only learn to realise what an advantage you've given yourself over time. Like all top quality instruments - the OASYS is never fully discovered and offers such huge dynamics, breadth and depth that it will always be a huge asset -even in the face of the likes of Komplete 5, V-Collection, Sample Libraries and so on.

Kevin.

[folias]

still no luck... I can get the Oasys working as a controller keyboard... AND when I play midi on the keyboard, it shows the sound visually, but I can't seem to find a way to get it to the master channel.

I've configured everything correctly... patched together every bit of wisdom I can from everywhere... I'll just have to go over it all again and see what I can find.


Julian.

[danatkorg]

The OASYS will not ever 'show up' in Ableton or any DAW.

Actually, on the Mac, it might. There is a standard Mac utility, which I believe Julian refers to, called Audio MIDI Setup. If the OASYS is connected bi-directionally to the MIDI interface (in to out, and out to in) then the "Rescan MIDI" command in Audio MIDI Setup should be able to detect it, using device query messages.

If not, you should still be able to manually create a device for the OASYS in Audio MIDI Setup, and name it as desired. This should then appear in all compatible MIDI applications. You may need to make additional settings in Live's Preferences, under MIDI Sync, to enable a given MIDI device (such as the OASYS) for MIDI and Sync I/O. I'd suggest disabling sync for the input from the OASYS, but enabling it on the output to the OASYS (and then setting the OASYS Global Mode's MIDI Clock parameter to Auto).

Hope this helps,

Dan

[RC-IA]

The OASYS will not ever 'show up' in Ableton or any DAW.

Actually, on the Mac, it might. There is a standard Mac utility, which I believe Julian refers to, called Audio MIDI Setup. If the OASYS is connected bi-directionally to the MIDI interface (in to out, and out to in) then the "Rescan MIDI" command in Audio MIDI Setup should be able to detect it, using device query messages.

If not, you should still be able to manually create a device for the OASYS in Audio MIDI Setup, and name it as desired. This should then appear in all compatible MIDI applications. You may need to make additional settings in Live's Preferences, under MIDI Sync, to enable a given MIDI device (such as the OASYS) for MIDI and Sync I/O. I'd suggest disabling sync for the input from the OASYS, but enabling it on the output to the OASYS (and then setting the OASYS Global Mode's MIDI Clock parameter to Auto).

Hope this helps,

Dan

this totally right! my oasys used to appear in logic with this kind of setup

[folias]

Now, I have logic (much more of a nightmare than I anticipated), yes, the OASYS is showing up, but no sound is coming through... so its the same issue with Live.

Nowhere have I found a clear post on how to sync up the OASYS with Live or Logic.


Julian.

[danatkorg]

Now, I have logic (much more of a nightmare than I anticipated), yes, the OASYS is showing up, but no sound is coming through... so its the same issue with Live.

Nowhere have I found a clear post on how to sync up the OASYS with Live or Logic.


Julian.

I think it would probably be useful to talk to someone in product support in real-time. You can find your national Korg distributor via the link in my signature, below.