How to send MIDI pr. change to Novation Circuit Mono Station

[JanVoo]

Hi all,

I'm not sure wether I should post my question on a Novation forum or here, but since the Ableton forum has a much larger community, I hope anybody here can help me.

My setup:
I'm using Live 9.7.7 together with a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 (gen. 2) and a Novation Circuit Mono Station.
The Novation is connected to the Focusrite by a regular MIDI cable. My computer is a MacBook Pro with OS 10.13.6.

My question is about MIDI, and my knowledge about MIDI is quite basic, so please bare with me.
I want to have Ableton to trigger a Session change on the Novation, but I don't have any luck just yet.

The situation:
In my Live project I have set up a MIDI track which sends MIDI to the Scarlett's MIDI-out and uses ch. 1 for this. I've set the Novation for note information for Osc1 to respond to ch. 7 and Osc2 to ch. 8, so I'm guessing I should not send CC data to either of these channels. So I use ch. 1 instead. I've tried both, but it doesn't work.

The Novation's MIDI manual (page 2, Global Supported Commands) {PDF file} states that you can switch a patch by MIDI, using a Program Change #16, with a value of 0 - 31 which corresponds to the Patch#. I want to use Session #19, so I guess the value has to be 18.

From a YT tutorial I've picked up that Program Changes can be send by using a MIDI-clip Evenlopes window.
In the "Device Chooser" I've selected MIDI Ctrl, in the "Control Chooser" I've selected #16.
As a value, I've drawn in #18.

This didn't work and I also tried other values. I've also tried setting the "Pgm Change" to Pgm 16 (in the "Notes" window of a MIDI clip). Also no luck.

Can anyone explain to me what I might be doing wrong, or at least point me in the right direction?

TLDR: How can I initialise a Session switch on my Novation Circuit Mono Station by sending a MIDI Program change from Ableton Live?

[timday]

Looking at the manual it looks like the program changes are on channel 16. The ctrl chooser is for continuous controllers not channels. If you have a track set the channel 16 and put the program change clip in there it might work.

*However* this seems to change session (not sure what that is since I don't have a Mono station) and it also suggests that sending pgm changes to OSC 1 will change synth patches. Since you have set OSC 1 to channel 7 then a program change message on channel 7 might do it if you just want to change the sound.
CC messages sent on channel 7 and 8 will alter your synth parameters for osc 1 and 2 respectively the way you have set it up, that is correct, but I think you have misunterstood what the ctrl chooser does in a Live clip - as above it sets a CC number not a channel.

So to clarify
- Novation manual states that sending a program change to OSC 1 (on channel 7 in your case) will change the synth patch and therefore the sound, presumably for the whole synth. Programme change is not a cc message so will not affect ccs as such, but of course a synth patch change will alter all the ccs most likely anyway,
- Session changes (which are what, a patch plus sequences I'm guessing?) are sent on channel 16 so you will possibly have to send them in a separate MIDI track set to output to the Mono station on Channel 16. Use the pgm change message to send the value 18.

[JanVoo]

Tim, thank you so much for your reply and sorry for my late response.

I followed your advice and it works!

Like you said (in a nutshell)

• I set the output of the MIDI track to channel 16
• I've made a program change with value "18"
• Like you said, Envelope values are not needed for this.

Again, thank you very much and cheers!