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alright here is the deal. Early this morning I decided to connect my Kaossilator Pro to Ableton live for the first time!

At first it was a pain in the ass but I then checked the korg midi stuff and finally reinstall the midi driver for the Kaossilator Pro (I thought it was installed but oh well).

After that everything was fine, no problems. I was so amazed how cool this was especially since the Kaossilator gives you control scales, key and octives to play with. "This is great"; I thought.

I normally believe that the computer is too unreliable to be an instrument and is only good for recording tracks. The link up, syncing issues, programming issues, OS, and crashing...just too much crap gets in the way.

So yeah, I really changed my attitude about using the computer as my sound source...that is until NOW!

I wanted to show a friend of mine how cool this was and everything and guess what?!?! Fraking nothing! My windows xp computer sees the midi connection just fine, the driver is active and everything is cool on the xp and KOPro and korg driver side of the house. Ableton 7 however is making me think that it's way of seeing midi just sucks!!!!

First off there is nothing to tell me that if and when the KOPro is actually being seen by Ableton...When the Pro was working there's no icon or window that pops up to say "your device is now connected". So it is basically "guess by golly". There should be a window in Ableton that recognizes everything XP sees and there isn't.

The second your computer has midi devices plugged in a menu should pop up to ask if this is what I want. This would at least help me to determine if Ableton is seeing any devices.

As I understand it this is all suppose to be plug and play...obviously it is not.

So can anyone here help me out as to how change these issues and help me get my KOPro to work when I want it to and not at some random moment of "ahhh finally it works, but what the frakk did I do to get it to work?!?!"

Thanks ahead of time!

Are you plugging into the same USB port all the time?

xmlguy wrote:Are you plugging into the same USB port all the time?

YES!!!

Here is what I just learned right now...and please tell me if this makes any sense at all because it doesn't to me (which is why I have stuck to using my computer for tracking and mix down only for so many years):

These are the steps I have to do to make this work (for now).

1. have the KOPro connected to the pc with midi driver running and ready to go.

2. open up Ableton Live 7

3. VERY CRITICAL!!! To open the ALS file you want DO NOT USE "Open recent set"!

4. go to file/open live set/(your chosen ALS file)

5. Now your KOPro will work with Ableton Live 7

A few other notes:

In preferences/midi sync/control surface, the KOPro does not show up in the list of control surfaces to work with Ableton.

Setting up the KOPro exactly as I have stated above makes the Pro work with Ableton but it still does not show up in that list (to me another fail to the Ableton creators).

So now my main question is about the set up; is this the only correct way to get the Pro to work with Live?

See this is why I do not like relying on computers for a live show because when you are setting up everything you have to remember these little critical details like hooking this crap up and turning everything on in the correct order. Also i do not like the fact that by selecting "open recent set" will cause the the Live to not see the Pro. makes no sense to me and is completely illogical especially in the case of software that is suppose to be all plug in play.

i am working with Ableton Live 7 version 7.0.3

Is there another version of 7?

Regarding the 'control surfaces' I should point out that Live 7 is a lot older than the KOPro. I don't know the exact release date, but the current version of Live is 8 or 9.

But still there isn't much you can do with the KOPro as a 'control surface'. Those 'control surface' presets are only for helping you out in setting up mixer control and similar, and they are simply preset assignments for some of the industry's most popular devices.
You do not need to set up the KOPro as a control surface in order to use it to enter note or other data into clips or for launching clips. It should show up in the list of MIDI ports below the section in preferences where you set up control surfaces, and you should be able to select it as an input for a MIDI track or select 'all ins'. Similarly I'm not sure because I haven't tried it but it should work with the MIDI Map too.

I too have had problems with the KO-PRO MIDI interface.

Unlike the microKorgXL which uses the Korg USB MIDI driver, the KO-PRO relies on WindowsXP to recognise it, which it does, as a USB Audio Device. I bought another bog standard USB MIDI cable hooked up to my drum machine which WindowsXP recognises as USB Audio Interface(2) but only if both devices are switched on and plugged into the same USB ports. If I switch USB ports, Windows creates yet another USB Audio Device.

I was really confused at first, because I assumed that the KO-PRO would use the Korg USB driver and would appear on the Korg MIDI configuration utility.

The resolution to my problem was to switch on both the KO-PRO and the drum machine before booting up Windows. Otherwise they don't appear on Cubase, MIDI-OX or anywhere.

It's only a problem with MIDI interfaces that do not have their own drivers. I can switch the microKorg or my Edirol UM, both of which have their own drivers, on and off during a session and they appear and disappear.

Hope this helps.

dude, ableton 7 is at version 7.18 (i think) - if you have a legit version you can get it quite easily from their website.

thanks for all of your input guys. I think it is a version issue. So I'll look into upgrading it.

Thanks!