Volca Beats connecting to Ableton

[Brunades]

Hi guys,

I have just recently bought my first Volca Beats. Love it and now i want to connect it to Ableton. I have a Mackie Onyx 820i as audio interface with firewire connecting to my Imac. And i have a Roland UM-One usb midi interface but this only connects via usb to my Imac and not directly into my audio interface ( the Mackie). Is it still possible to set everything up correctly with all of these. Or do i need to splash out on a bigger USB midi interface. I am a real noob when it comes to this technical stuff. So i hope someone can guide me though it.

Thanks in advance!

[Yuggs]

Hey Brunades, you should be able to get things working with your current setup. The condensed version of your setup would be:

Volca Beats MIDI -> Roland UM-One -> USB port on computer

Volca Beats Headphones Out -> Mackie Onyx 820i input

That being said, I'm not an Ableton user, but I use a very similar setup to program my Beats in Reaper. I use a USB to MIDI cable to connect my Beats for MIDI control within Reaper, I then route the headphones output of my Beats into my audio interface to record the audio from it.

You'll just want to be familiar with how to assign MIDI control to a track in Abelton. Here are some links on that topic:

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... -with-Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E47sLB_Ulbk

[Brunades]

Hi Yuggs,


Thanks for your quick reply, i appreciate it.
The thing is have connected it as you’ve mentioned . I can open a audio track and record in the audio waveform from the volca while jamming. This is sweet. When i open a midi track i manage to select the same midi channel in a external instruments rack and when i for instance press play in Ableton the volca starts. So it seems to be linked up fine but it does not register any midi notes in my channel.

Do you actually see midi notes getting register on your channel in reaper when you press play on your Volca?

This is what i am aiming for so that i can jam and it registers all the midi in notes in my midi channel and that i can adjust and manipulate afterwards purely in Ableton .

[Yuggs]

What that sounds like is a channel conflict between the channel that your Beats is set to and the channel that Ableton is sending MIDI notes to. Even if you don't have the Ableton track setup to transmit note data to your Beats, your Beats will still respond to MIDI commands for playback, stopping, and tempo but it just won't receive note data. So you are half way there.

For instance, my Beats is set to channel 10, so in my case I need to set the Reaper track that it is on to transmit MIDI notes to channel 10 so my Beats will be able to receive them.

If you hold the MEMORY/WRITE button on the Beats and then press the power button you will load into the MIDI channel selection menu on your Beats. I believe it defaults to 10, but you can change the channel by pressing pads 1-16 and then pressing RECORD/STEP REC to save.

Once you have your Beats set whatever channel you prefer, you'll want to make sure that your Ableton track is set to transmit/send MIDI to that channel.

It looks like in Ableton you'll want to open the "In/Out Section" of the mixer to setup your MIDI channels. Once you have your Beats assigned to a MIDI track in Ableton, I would recommend explicitly setting the track's channel to whatever channel you have your Beats set to. There is the option to use "All Channels" which may also work, but I try for the specific channel first.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/routing-and-i-o/

[Brunades]

Hi Yuggs,

i forgot to reply. Thank you for your message. And i must say that i was actually looking for something that was not there. I now realise that the volca only has a midi in and no out. And i was expecting to get midi notes registered out of it into Ableton. But it's only possible to record audio straight into Ableton from the Volca. And thats actually quite fine by me. Thanks for your help and advice anyways!

[otzcz]

Hi Yuggs,

i forgot to reply. Thank you for your message. And i must say that i was actually looking for something that was not there. I now realise that the volca only has a midi in and no out. And i was expecting to get midi notes registered out of it into Ableton. But it's only possible to record audio straight into Ableton from the Volca. And thats actually quite fine by me. Thanks for your help and advice anyways!

Hi, all Volcas (Beats for sure) has "hidden" MIDI output inside, there is no secret . All you have to do is open your box and connect 3 labeled pins to sync out trs jack (then it will be useless for original purpose), just 3 wires and bit of solder, no extra holes needed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/68730219@ ... 271724293/

remember: TX to tip, VD to ring, GND to sleeve (MIDI to TRS type A), then you can buy or made same way connected cable and record your sequences

already solved here: http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... f0564bae2d

..then you can do a few holes for separate audio outputs and make from V.Beats a lot more powerful machine

As I did:)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/udqcR2PBjUzJqWkp8

[Brunades]

@otzcz

WOwwww thanks for this tip. I didnt know this. Ill be buying myself a soldering kit later this week

Will i stilll be able to link other volcas to the beats if i mod it or is that not possible then anymore if the sync out is not available anymore??

[otzcz]

@otzcz

WOwwww thanks for this tip. I didnt know this. Ill be buying myself a soldering kit later this week

Will i stilll be able to link other volcas to the beats if i mod it or is that not possible then anymore if the sync out is not available anymore??

nope, there will be too much pulses (0s and 1s of MIDI messages) for analog sync on that jack. But you can sync next volca via this new MIDI connection (no channel set needed), others on the chain by analog sync.

[otzcz]

@otzcz

WOwwww thanks for this tip. I didnt know this. Ill be buying myself a soldering kit later this week

Will i stilll be able to link other volcas to the beats if i mod it or is that not possible then anymore if the sync out is not available anymore??

nope, there will be so many pulses (0s and 1s of MIDI messages) for analog sync on that jack. But you can sync next volca via this new MIDI connection (no channel set needed), others on the chain by analog sync.

Err, was THIS the question, right?