Controlling your studio with MIDI and the KEYSTEP37. 

Hi Frank - many thanks for subscribing, I really appreciate your support. All the best to yourself as well for 2022.

I think it probably depends on the synths themselves and the settings on the Keystep (KS). For example on my Matrixbrute (MB) there is a midi sync button. If this is off and I press the play button on the Keystep the MB sequencer doesn't start, but I can start it manually on the MB itself. If I turn the midi sync button on, on the MB, when I press start on the KS the MB sequencer starts. It's all pretty flexible. In addition as an example, I can set up a sequence on the MB, press play on the KS, which will start the MB playing, I can then change the midi channel on the KS to the channel for my Deepmind, press shift and 'Keyboard play' on the KS and then I can play my Deepmind using the KS over the top of the MB sequence. I can do all of this from the Keystep without actually touching the MB or the Deepmind. 🙂. Hope that helps.

@@splootyvision it does help! So you couldn't create a sequence using the MB on the keystep and play a different sequence on the MB at the same time, then use keyboard play with the MB?

@@grvedr Hmm, sort of. If I program the sequencer on the MB and then program a sequence using the KS, when I press play the sequence in the MB will play, but the sequence in the KS will also trigger notes - it’ll all be the same patch though. I suppose there is a possibility using ‘keyboard split’ which many synths have allowing to have one sound down one end of the keyboard and another up the top end. Then you could program a sequence for the bottom half of the keyboard and then play another sequence or another patch up on the top half of the keyboard.

Hi, yep I had a similar issue with my Roland TR8 drum machine, if I pressed play on the Keystep it would always trigger the drum sequencer. The TR8 allows me to set it to receive 'midi clock' only and not the start stop messages, so now when I press play on the keystep the drum machine tempo is synced but the sequencer doesn't automatically start. Having a quick look as far as I can tell the only thing you can do on the crave is set the midi clock to internal so that the crave ignores the clock coming from the keystep (evidently would then have to just set the tempo on the crave manually to the same as the keystep). Not sure how to do it manually, but if go to the Crave product page on Behringer you can download the Synthtribe app that gives you access to these parameters and where can have a fiddle with the 'midi clock source' settings to see if this solves the issue. Cheers.

@@splootyvision : Thanks Graeme, very much appreciated; I’ll take a look. It’s highlighted a misunderstanding about midi clock as I thought that was needed by the Crave to drive the arpeggiator. I’ve got the Synthtribe app. so I’ll make the change and see what happens.

@@splootyvision: That sorted it Graeme. Thanks again, Dave

@@davidhepworth7084 Excellent news, glad I could help.

Hi there, yes all the hardware synths that the Keystep is connected to via MIDI have audio cables that run into a mixer and then the mixer goes into an audio interface, which is in turn connected to my pc via usb. I have a Behringer XENYX1202FX Mixer and a Behringer UMC404HD audio interface. Each of the synths are connected to the mixer and then 2 audio cables (L+R) are run from the 'main out' of the mixer to the inputs on the audio interface. My audio interface has 4 inputs, so I use the first 2 for the stereo feed from the mixer, the 3rd input has a microphone connected using XLR cables and the 4th input I connect an electric guitar. Cheers 🙂

Using the ‘Keyboard Play’ function the sequencer can play on one midi channel and at the same time you can play another instrument on a separate midi channel with the keys over the top of the sequence. If you want more then there is the Keystep Pro which I believe has 4 channels so you could have 4 sequences running on 4 different synths/drum machines simultaneously all controlled from the Keystep Pro 🙂

@@splootyvision ah! Thanks for the reply. I might need to get the pro then since i want to try a dawless jamming setup where i can stack sequences on top of each other.

Hi there. You need to assign the midi channels on the instruments themselves, so in the video you'll see that all the hardware synths are set to different midi channels (for example, the Matrixbrute is set to Channel 4, the Neutron to Channel 5 and the Deepmind to Channel 6). I then choose the Midi channel on the Keystep as shown in the video (hold the shift and press the corresponding key on the left side of the keyboard - they are numbered above them 1-16 which are the available midi channels) . So if I select channel 4 on the Keystep (hold shift and press second black key from the left, which is the 4th actual key) the keystep will play the matrixbrute, if I hold shift and press the next key along (or the 5th key as such) it will now play whatever synth is set on midi channel 5. Each hardware synth has its own procedure for setting the midi channel (the matrixbrute has to be done through the computer, the neutron has dip switches on the back and for the deepmind you just go into the settings on the synth's menu display - but as I say all synths are different so would need to check the manual for yours on how to select the midi channel (nb. Most are set to Channel 1 by default, except drum machines which are nearly always defaulted to Channel 10.) In terms of none of your synths having midi thru, there are some solutions. It might be that your midi out doubles as a midi thru (my Roland gear does that) or you could use a midi thru box (I have a separate video on the Midi Solution midi thru box which I use). The midi thru box is great, you can connect the keystep to the midi in on it and then connect 4 synths using the thru ports on the back to the midi in of your synths. Then as say, set each of the synths to different midi channels and then you can switch between them using the Keystep. Hope that all made sense :-)

Hi there, hoping I’ve understood the question correctly but Yes. Set your J6 to channel 1 and then set each of your other hardware to different channels. For example I currently have 4 hardware synths each one set to a different channel (channels 1,2,3 and 4). I can easily move between them on the fly by just pressing the shift button on the Keystep and the corresponding key for the relevant midi channel eg first white key is channel 1, first black key is channel 2 and so on. So basically just go into each hardware device you have and change the midi channel so they are all on different channels. Hope that helps 🙂

@@splootyvision thank you for the reply. Yes, it is easy to change the midi channel on the fly with a keystep 37. However, the issue is that when I change the midi channel on the keystep and play chords from the J6 (channel 1) going into the 37, it no longer sends to the desired midi channel nor receives the midi at all. I looked on midi control center and it appears that my midi user channel is 1, midi input channel is set to user, and midi thru is off.

@@macaronafterparty The ‘User Channel’ is the same as changing the channel using the Shift/key method on the keyboard, so for example if you press shift and the second white key the user channel is now channel 3. With the input channel set to ‘user’ it will just mirror whatever your user channel is set to and you need to ‘un-link’ this. Bit of a guess but my thoughts would be: Set the ‘input channel’ to 1 (to reflect the data coming in on channel 1 from the J6, set the user channel to which ever channel/instrument you want to send the data from the J6 to and also turn the MIDI thru to ON (this should pass the data that is received at the MIDI In using channel 1 ‘thru’ the Keystep and on to whatever user channel you have the Keystep set to and the corresponding instrument on that channel. Hope that made sense and worth a try with that configuration.

PS Hopefully the above should mean that you can then just leave the J6 on channel 1 and use the Keystep to change what channel you want the J6 data to be sent on to.

@@splootyvision we are getting somewhere. After the changes made on control center, the j6 will be received by the 37 and ONLY pass through to midi channel 3 (for ex) if the transport (arp or seq) is on. When transport is off, the 37 will still show the flashing lights of the notes sent from the J6, just wont pass through.

Hi there, basically software synthesisers. VST stands for ‘Virtual Studio Technology’ and is used to refer to mainly software instruments (for example, digital recreations of actual physical synthesizers) or effects (things like reverbs etc). 🙂

Thanks. I'm fairly new to synths. I'm trying to stay as FLAwless as possible. I'm still trying to learn to use MIDI. The only books I've found about MIDI were written in the 80's. I have a Key STEP 37 and tried to connect it to my Mother 32 using a MIDI cable from Midi Out on the Key STEP to the midi In on the Mother 32. I finally figured out that the Keystep midi channel 8 allowed me to play keyboard on the Mother but the sequencer on the Keystep would not play on the Mother. This is so frustrating. 😠 Thanks for the quick response. 👍

@@eugenelayton5231 Hi there, yep working out which midi channel to use is quite frustrating some times. Normally synths are defaulted to midi channel 1, but appears as you’ve worked out yours is set to channel 8 - which is fine as long as you now know that. In terms of the Keystep sequencer not playing on the Mother, try the following. Record your sequence using the Keystep 37 (hit the record button and then play whatever notes you want). Once the sequence is programmed go to your Mother and press the run/stop button - this should ‘arm’ the Mother to receive the midi notes from the Keystep sequencer. Then press play on the Keystep and your sequence should hopefully play on the Mother.