stringrazor
Inspired
I'm playing a few songs on keyboards in my latest band and need a live keys rig. I bought an inexpensive weighted 88-key controller some years back for recording but it has USB MIDI only and limited on-board sounds. I experimented with using a laptop as a VSTi host (Cantabile - great live VST host!) but the system was too complex so I decided to simplify. Since this whole band project is an experiment, I really don't want to buy anymore gear, especially for live keys work since I don't consider myself a "real" keys player. I've decided to use an old Proteus/1 module that's been gathering dust in a rack for many years. It doesn't sound as good as the VSTs but it'll do and it's much simpler and more reliable (the laptop crashed once when I was practicing!).
Problem is the MIDI port on keyboard controller is USB and on the Proteus/1 it's 5-pin DIN. There's one $150 device on the market by UK manufacturer Kenton to translate but as I said, I don't want to buy anything at this point (and have tons of gear accumulated over ~40 or so....). Besides, Systems Integration is what I do, lol.
I'm of course using the Axe/FX MkII in my guitar rig and it has both USB and DIN MIDI ports. The Axe can use the "MIDI THRU" setting and output from USB ro DIN and vice versa but USB isn't like the original 5-pin DIN MIDI architecture and requires a "host". Both the Axe and keyboard are "clients" and I didn't want to use a laptop.
The solution lies with a wonderful Android program by a German (one-man ?) company named Humanic called TOUCH DAW I'd been using for a while when recording. Its main function is to emulate a Mackie Control One DAW control surface but it also has some cool MIDI utility functions. It can also handle MIDI over many carrier protocols like USB, Bluetooth, and WiFi. It act as 2 simultaneous virtual devices, the Mackie emulator and a MID utility which includes a virtual keyboard, launchpads, and X/Y controller, each with it's own set of virtual MIDI ports. This Android platform will serve as serve as the needed USB host. Cables from the keyboard and Axe USB ports are connected to a small USB hub and the host connection goes to the Android device (an older Samsung 5S phone) with an USB OTG adapter (which lets it act as a USB host). The app's DAW function is configured to use the keyboard's USB ports and the MIDI util side gets the Axe's ports. There's one more cool, almost hidden function checkbox called "cross-link ports" that allows the app to route MIDI from one set of virtual ports to another.
It's actually easier than it sounds and once I learned through experimentation the right configuration sequence (USB MIDI can be tricky in Android... it's getting better but it's still an after thought....) I found it works perfectly and is reliable. My USB keyboard's MIDI stream comes out the Aex's DIN port and into the old Proteus/1 with no noticeable delay! As a plus, the app's MIDI util lets me send patch changes to the Proteus/1 and control volume from the phone.
I may be the only person who will ever want to do this trick with the Axe/FX but I had to write up anyway. :-D Btw, Touch DAW is really inexpensive. I think I paid $5 BUT there's a free, limited function version that can still do all of this. It's available on Google Play and there's full doc at http://humatic.de/htools/touchdaw/ .
Problem is the MIDI port on keyboard controller is USB and on the Proteus/1 it's 5-pin DIN. There's one $150 device on the market by UK manufacturer Kenton to translate but as I said, I don't want to buy anything at this point (and have tons of gear accumulated over ~40 or so....). Besides, Systems Integration is what I do, lol.
I'm of course using the Axe/FX MkII in my guitar rig and it has both USB and DIN MIDI ports. The Axe can use the "MIDI THRU" setting and output from USB ro DIN and vice versa but USB isn't like the original 5-pin DIN MIDI architecture and requires a "host". Both the Axe and keyboard are "clients" and I didn't want to use a laptop.
The solution lies with a wonderful Android program by a German (one-man ?) company named Humanic called TOUCH DAW I'd been using for a while when recording. Its main function is to emulate a Mackie Control One DAW control surface but it also has some cool MIDI utility functions. It can also handle MIDI over many carrier protocols like USB, Bluetooth, and WiFi. It act as 2 simultaneous virtual devices, the Mackie emulator and a MID utility which includes a virtual keyboard, launchpads, and X/Y controller, each with it's own set of virtual MIDI ports. This Android platform will serve as serve as the needed USB host. Cables from the keyboard and Axe USB ports are connected to a small USB hub and the host connection goes to the Android device (an older Samsung 5S phone) with an USB OTG adapter (which lets it act as a USB host). The app's DAW function is configured to use the keyboard's USB ports and the MIDI util side gets the Axe's ports. There's one more cool, almost hidden function checkbox called "cross-link ports" that allows the app to route MIDI from one set of virtual ports to another.
It's actually easier than it sounds and once I learned through experimentation the right configuration sequence (USB MIDI can be tricky in Android... it's getting better but it's still an after thought....) I found it works perfectly and is reliable. My USB keyboard's MIDI stream comes out the Aex's DIN port and into the old Proteus/1 with no noticeable delay! As a plus, the app's MIDI util lets me send patch changes to the Proteus/1 and control volume from the phone.
I may be the only person who will ever want to do this trick with the Axe/FX but I had to write up anyway. :-D Btw, Touch DAW is really inexpensive. I think I paid $5 BUT there's a free, limited function version that can still do all of this. It's available on Google Play and there's full doc at http://humatic.de/htools/touchdaw/ .
