Korg Forums

I want to control all MIDI devices (mine, not on the planet) live, using my laptop. I envision our set list on screen and I just have to click on the next song and all keyboards, pedals, effects and any MIDI devices will change for that song. I have looked at Live Professor and I think it is capable of doing this but it seems like a tremendous amount of work as I will have to learn each MIDI devices MIDI messaging and have to set everything up from scratch. You have to use cue lists and I'm not sure if that will be big clunky boxes for each song or if it can be reduced to something on the order of a single line in a list.

I thought there might be something out there that lets you enter which MIDI devices you are using and be able to have built in MIDI coding/messaging for each device or at least some of the most common/popular devices. I thought MIDI was supposed to be a standardized interface system that designers and manufactures of devices adhered to so there would not be issues like this. Apparently not....

Any suggestions would be helpful. Free downloadable software is most desirable but might no exist....

List of devices that might want to be controlled:

Korg Triton Extreme
Korg X5D
Yamaha Motif ES rack
Roland Fantom rack
Line 6 XT Live guitar pedal
Alesis MidiVerb
Maybe some soft synth


Thanks!

Val Halla

valhalla wrote:...but it seems like a tremendous amount of work as I will have to learn each MIDI devices MIDI messaging and have to set everything up from scratch.

That's pretty much the only way you'll do it unless you get custom software. The absolute easiest way you can do it is to set all of your corresponding patches to the same MIDI program number, then send out a multiplied MIDI program change (there's about 20 variations of this idea you can try as well). Or, if you're fast enough, just change everything manually. That's what I do, but then again I usually only deal with a maximum of 8 devices, and I buy myself some time with a sample player, in my case Live or Traktor.

valhalla wrote:I thought there might be something out there that lets you enter which MIDI devices you are using and be able to have built in MIDI coding/messaging for each device or at least some of the most common/popular devices.

Most DAWs can do this to various extents. I know Live can automate program changes and some CC'd commands. Do some research into Deadmau5's live shows where he has actual instruments on stage, you'll learn a lot.

valhalla wrote:I thought MIDI was supposed to be a standardized interface system that designers and manufactures of devices adhered to so there would not be issues like this. Apparently not....

It is standardised, but it's also very simple and fairly outdated. If you're working with, say, a Juno 106, MIDI is almost overkill. If you're working with a Kronos, however, you really need like 5 MIDI inputs to properly manage everything.

I recommend looking into devices that can output MIDI, including DAWs, and also researching what MIDI can do. You'll probably learn enough that you can figure out stuff. But, for a simple approach, get something like Live (I keep saying that because it's the most MIDI-flexible DAW I know) and use my first reply. Create backups beforehand, though. You never know what may happen.