Korg Forums

Hey guys I'm sure you're sick of hearing midi questions but I'm a newbie to midi and have been trying to work out some electribe 2 midi stuff on my own for a week or two and still have a lot of questions.

My current set up has been mainly just for toying with using the electribe 2 as a midi sequencer for the volcas. I have the midi out of the electribe 2 running to the midi in of whatever volca i'm using and a stereo cable running from the headphone port of the volca to the audio in of the electribe 2 with my headphones plugged into the electribe 2. I have the clock on the electribe 2 set to internal and the audio thru option off. I'm also planning on using it as a sequencer for the microkorg but haven't gotten around to really playing with it yet.

Here are a few of the questions I was hoping you guys could help me out with:

1. If I set up the electribe as a midi sequencer for something like a volca bass, is there anyway to record different bass lines to different pads? Specifically with the volca bass, I'm able to successfully record a bass line to one pad of the electribe 2, but after that, can't get any sound if i try to play a new melody and assign it to a different pad.

2. If I successfully record a part on the electribe 2 using the volca bass, do I need to have the volca bass plugged into the electribe 2 to play that part in the future? Does the electribe 2 save the part so that I could just replay the part with just the electribe 2 and not the volca bass?

3. Is there a way to avoid playing the first saved pattern on the volcas when I press play on the electribe 2? I don't want to get rid of the patterns I saved on the volcas, but it's a little annoying everytime I press play to record on the electribe 2 that it plays the first pattern on the volca.

4. Not an issue with the volca bass, but with the volca sample I was having an issue where each sample would automatically be assigned to a pad, even if the audio in oscillator is not assigned to that pad. When that pad is pressed, the synth assigned to that pad as well as the sample from the volca sample play at the same time. Is there any way to get the samples off the pads unless the audio in oscillator is assigned to them?

Thanks, sorry if these questions are really stupid, but they were just issues I was having trouble with.

1. Not possible. One of my gripes with the unit.

2. All you did was record the note data. If you want to hear the Volca you will need to plug it in. If not you can still hear the same pattern by setting up a sound on the unit itselc.

3. If hooked up via midi, you cannot avoid the volca from playing when pressing play on the electribe. If you hook up the Volca via the sync jack, it won't play unless you press play.

3. That is because both Volcas are on the same midi channel. You need to change the midi channel of the olca Sample, but i don't know if u can change the midi channel on the Volcas. Maybe someone else can chime in?

There are a lot of possibilities to use the Electribe as a sequencer for several Volca devices. But you need to adapt the MIDI-out from de Electribe to the MIDI-in specification of the Volca's.

Volca Beats is always on MIDI channel 10. If you want it to respond to the Electribe channel 9, which is the left key on the lower row, you need to translate the MIDI signals.

Volca bass is always on channel 1. If you want to respond it to other channels on the Electribe the MIDI has to be translated to channel 1.

I don't own Volca Keys yet, but I suppose it's also on a single channel. What I said about Volca Bass is then valid for Keys as well.

Volca Sample has an awkward MIDI layout where every pad is fixed on a single channel from 1 to 10. To play it chromatically some MIDI wizardry is Needed. To play all pads from a single Electribe channel requires some more MIDI adaptation.

So we need an extra device that is capable to translate MIDI on the fly. A DAW like Ableton Live can come in handy for this. The iPhone / iPad app Lemur can be programmed for this as well. Also the iConnect 2 and 4 devices have some capabilities to achieve this.

To translate MIDI signals a bit of programming knowledge is needed. You have to become aquanted to the MIDI specs of the Electribe and the Volca's as well. I don't think this is a task for a real noob.

I have a midi to cv converter with a simple learn button. You hold down the button, play a note and your channel is set. So simple.

More manufacturers should implement this on their units. Its only a bit of extra code and a tiny momentary switch. Its such a useful feature.

The midi channel on the Volca bass is assignable to whatever you want. It's not fixed on channel 1.

Yep, read the manual for your volca bass, the midi channel can be changed. You hold a key while powering it up, then use the 16 keyish buttons of the touch strip to select a midi channel.

Electribe will send one sequence per pattern per midi channel. I recommend leaving it on one midi channel, and changing the sequence by changing pattern.