(Need Help) Recording Minimoog Voyager and MIDI

[Fountainel]

I wish I was here to give a tip and trick on this, but I'm having a weird problem... I'll make it really clear.

I'm using a Minimoog Voyager, a UAD Apollo Twin as an interface, and an MPK49 Keyboard.

I'm using the External Instrument Plugin to run my Moog in Ableton.

To connect my Moog to Ableton, I have my MIDI In/Out on my Moog going into my MIDI In/Out on my MPK49 Keyboard because the Apollo Twin does not have MIDI plugins (is this a problem?). I then have an audio cable going out of Left(mono) from my Moog, to Channel 1 on my Apollo Twin.

On my External Instrument plugin within Ableton I have my MPK49 selected for "MIDI To" (the Moog doesn't show up, and I don't think it should anyway?) And channel 1 for the audio.

I can play and hear my Moog using my MPK49, and I can also play and hear it using my Moog's keyboard, but I can't record anything using my Moog's keyboard/knobs. The track is record enabled, and Automation Arm is on.

I want to be able to record audio and automation with my Moog. Right now to record I have to use my MPK49, and to put automation on the track, I need to go into the clip I've just recorded, and manually draw it in. I don't want to manually draw in static automation... I want my hands to open the filter, and not have it be a 100% perfect straight line to the top.

Here's an even weirder problem:

Whenever I put an effect on the Moog's track (EQ, Compressors, anything), the settings on my Moog change, and the sound changes. The volume attack always becomes longer, the filter gets turned down, and other random shit happens. (I don't even have to tweak the settings on the effect, I can just drag it onto the track and it gets messed up)

Basically, to use my Moog, I have to get the sound I want, move to my MIDI keyboard and record what I want, (or just click in the notes). Then if I want automation, I have to open the clip and manually do it. Then I have to resample it, and put effects on the resampled version that I'm not able to tweak anymore... It's ridiculous. I really want to use my Moog more, but this is too time consuming and annoying.

In short: Why can't I record anything using the keyboard/knobs on my Moog? How can I figure out what is causing its settings to randomly change when I put an effect on the track? Should I reset my Ableton template?

Help please.

[Richie Witch]

Whenever I put an effect on the Moog's track (EQ, Compressors, anything), the settings on my Moog change, and the sound changes. The volume attack always becomes longer, the filter gets turned down, and other random shit happens. (I don't even have to tweak the settings on the effect, I can just drag it onto the track and it gets messed up)

I think there's an easy fix for this part of the problem. Route the audio output of your External Instrument to another audio track and put the effects on the new audio track. That should stop them from sending program change commends to your controller that are then being passed on to the Moog.

For the rest of the issue, I'd take a close look at Chapter 26 of the Live manual. There is a lot of information there, including how to set up MIDI devices to control Ableton remotely. I would start by making sure you have set your MIDI-IN preferences to allow the MPK49 to take control of Live, but from there you will have to do a lot of experimenting because your MIDI commands from the Moog might be held up/misinterpreted at the keyboard. It might take some sort of custom mapping at both the controller and in Live to get it to recognize the keyboard/Moog as a single instrument.

Or it might be necessary to assign different MIDI channels to the keyboard and the Moog, record the MIDI notes on one channel (from the keyboard) and the automation (from the Moog) on the other. Then combine the two MIDI tracks. But that seems like a huge pain and might not be possible since the controller will have to negotiate the MIDI traffic on both channels.

The easiest solution would be to buy a MIDI hub so that the Moog doesn't have to pass through the keyboard to get to Ableton, but I can understand why you're trying other options first. But really, that would likely fix the entire situation without any special routing or MIDI programming. Plug and play.