My Studio MIDI routing. How to wrangle 121 MIDI channels

There's a handful of new devices that I need to integrate into the setup, and one of them is a new router, which I can't even really test if it's not integrated into the setup. So, 22 MIDI Devices, 121 MIDI channels that need to be routed in and out of 48 channels worth of sequencer output.
MIDI Gear to be routed: 1010Music Blackbox, Alesis Nitro, Artifon Orba, Audiothingie MicroMonsta, Axoloti, Bastl MicroGranny, Bastl THYME, Behringer Model D, Blokas Midihub, Dreadbox NYX, Gecho Loopsynth, Korg K3P+, Korg NTS-1, Makenoise 0-Coast, Meeblip Triode, MFB 301 pro, MFB Tanzbär Lite, Microdesignum Presto 2:8, Midiplus midithru7, Midiplus X6 mini, Modor NF-1m, Nord Drum 3P, Plankton Ants, Preen FM2, Rare Waves Hydronium, SixtyFourPixels Noodlebox, Squarp Pyramid, Synthstrom Deluge, Waldorf Blofeld, Yamaha MU-80
Music Gear: kit.co/o0/musique-electronique
Video Gear: kit.co/o0/music-video-gear

[@els1f]

This was genuinely beautiful 😢👏👏👊😁

[@OlivierOzoux]

Thank you, I was going for informative, but I'll take genuine beauty whenever I can achieve it!

[@els1f]

@@OlivierOzoux I'm a weirdo who found the dissemination of information, and the thought you put into your setup beautiful 😄

[@FleshChopper]

Fantastic! I have already rearranged my midihub setup with my other stuff over 5 times. It is nice to see how others are organizing their MIDI situation to better understand where I can improve my situation or see where I have horribly failed. Cheers!

[@OlivierOzoux]

what configuration did you try?

[@bionicbeatz1]

I use several MOTU Timepiece AVs and a Emagic AMT8 along with an Iconnect MIDI4+ and a couple of old school MIDI Patchbays and thru boxes. It was very interesting watching how you use the MIDI4+. Great vid!

[@SynthDad]

Wow, that is a whole lotta MIDI for one setup. Well done getting on top of it.

[@OlivierOzoux]

Really looking forward to playing with the Midihub. I hope there’s a follow up Midihub XL with usb host support, but for now, the IConnect is staying...

[@SynthDad]

@@OlivierOzoux Yeah that's the one thing I wish the Midihub had too. For now my Raspberry Pi works fine though

[@tuppawareAU]

Fascinating overview of the routing, I've come into a similar issue with lack of ports for routing. I wished they would let you label the in and out ports on the Midi-hub!

[@OlivierOzoux]

Blokas is pretty responsive, so maybe ask the forum? I sort of followed the A,B,C,D naming, so I’m ok

[@tuppawareAU]

Its a suggested feature already, I added my vote to that one :-) Enjoy the midi-hub

[@glennclyatt5455]

very informative I'd been trying to decide between getting noodlebox or torso for midi sequencing, but squarp seems to offer the most features Looking forward to seeing one on audio routing

[@OlivierOzoux]

Glenn! get all the things, but yes, the squarp is hard to beat, in terms of features and how many devices it can control at once. This being said there is something about these little experimental sequencers like the noodle that are really interesting

[@medenine4828]

Just at the end, what is the midi loop back doing?? Very curious. Hoping the Hapax with all its iOS will solve a lot of the headaches I’ve had with usb and the pyramid.

[@TheTechnobear]

fun to see someone else going thru this juggling :) @ 2:03 you cant connect the pyramid usb to the midihub (both usb devices), but i guess your planning on hosting the pyramid on the iConnectivity, then sending that down to the midihub, then back again from the midihub ('post processing') I actually didn't really worry about the pyramid to midihub too much, since the pyramid fx cover I think much of the creative functionality of the midihub though for sure not all... so perhaps should rethink, but the midi hub will introduce a tiny bit of latency, so will change when i need it. Q. do you basically do all track selection thru the pyramid when using a master keyboard? I tend to use omni: multibank a, this is so that i can change midi channels on my master keyboard, and then play any instrument, without having to go to the pyramid to select it... this disadvantage is this basically takes me down to 16 tracks/midi channels (arghh!) one thing I've been considering is using the presets on both the midihub and iconnectivity mioxm. the basic idea is, whilst i want everything to be connected, im not playing everything at once... so can presets help me switch things around!? e.g. perhaps sometimes i want the octatrack to be the master sequencer rather than the pyramid. thanks for the video, very interesting to see how you deal with a complex setup ... im guessing your audio mixing must be similarly fun :)

[@OlivierOzoux]

Thanks, yes, the iConnect is the USB Host, so it's iConnect -> Powered USB Hub -> Pyramid, Midihub and other USB devices, with the USB routing handled by the iConnect. On the latency, since everything is symmetrical: MidiSplitters(iConnect(Midihub(Pyramid))) I'm expecting the latency to be constant across all devices which is what I had before, minus the Midihub. That's one of the reasons I use a series of splitters, rather than the thru on synths, because this way the number of hops is constant. I can only physically play one device live at a time, so I've gotten used to the active track routing from the Pyramid, so the keyboard is always on ch1, and the active track controls which sound devices is live at any one point. I'm planning to do a video about the audio routing soon, but I'd like to actually make some music first.

[@benjaminglanzman7684]

I need serious help on my midi setup... I have a midihub & pyramid as well but I’m lost in routing hell!

[@fcf8269]

Could you please clarify how did you end up using all those channels? I do have a pyramid too and I bought a MioXM to add more midi and USB IO; although you are still limited to the 2 ports on the Pyramid, so you can only access 16 channels per port. From your video you seem to use only some channels out of the total bulk of channels; so technically if you have a 16 channel synth, you are using only 3-4 of those channels? Isn't that a waste to have 16 channels and just use few of them? Or maybe you are routing and grouping the channels on your multi timbral synths to output on specific channels, so you "merge" them in a single channel? Any clarification would be really helpful; thanks

[@OlivierOzoux]

Ok so first, the Pyramid has 3 midi out not 2. Most people forget the USB midi is addressed independently from A and B din. Second I look at if from the perspective of accessing all of the synths, but knowing that when I make music I don’t actually need to use 48 separate track all at once. So if you look at the mapping there is nothing stopping me from using all 16 parts of the Blofeld for example but it just means that I can’t do that without also triggering synths whose assigned channel match the overlapping range, so either I mute them at the mixer level, or i create meta patches by overlaying sounds from 2 synths that listen to the same midi channel. Does that make sense?

[@fcf8269]

@@OlivierOzoux Thanks; make sense. To me the beauty of having 16 channels is that I can use them :) I have a hybrid setup so I use both VST and hardware; so any channel I can delegate to real hardware is a VST lesser on my DAW project; which means less load on the CPU. True that there is a USB-Midi port, but that is only for the computer, right? If I connect the MioXM to that port; it won't be able to drive the MioXM ports, like a MPC one would do for example; since it is not a USB host port. I can route the USB channels via DAW though; so that is quite useful. Thanks for the explanation!

[@madmac66]

Too bad the midihub is not a usb host. That would have made it a one box solution for many many problems