Ableton and NDLR

[JE Harvey]

Hi there,

I've recently bought a NDLR from Conductive Labs and am having a problem setting it up within my current set-up.

Details of the NDLR can be found here;

https://conductivelabs.com

My set up is this - I use a USB hub to connect 8 synths to my Mac and these are then under the control of Ableton.

The idea with NDLR is that it sends MIDI to up to 4 synths but i can't get this to work with Ableton at all. The best I can get is that I can get one synth to work with all four 'parts' of NDLR being played on one synth - which isn't what I want.

I've approached Conductive Labs but they are a bit stumped and have suggested it may be an Ableton issue rather than a NDLR problem.

Not sure if you can see this but this is a thread my partner started on the NDLR forum

https://conductivelabs.com/forum/showth ... p?tid=1007

Any help would be appreciated

[Tone Deft]

a little lost reading that, it's a tricky little device.

Live -->USB-->NDLR-->4MIDIOUTcables-->4 synths

so Live would see the NDLR as a USB device in the preferences. I would venture to guess that each synth is on its own MIDI channel?

to me that's a simplified version of your setup, how correct is that? Live should send MIDI data to the NDLR then the NDLR sends MIDI to 4 different MIDI ports/synths.

[TLW]

Not a device I own, but as I understand it the NDLR basically works in the same way as most hardware sequencers capable of sending different outputs on different MIDI channels.

So in Live’s MIDI preferences set up all of its inputs in the “inputs” section, with “track”=on.
In the “output” preferences you need it switched on and set to receive MIDI clock (to sync it to Live).

Set each of the NDLR’s outputs to a different MIDI channel (e.g. 1, 2, 3 and 4).

To capture the MIDI in Live and to route it to a hardware (or software) synth set up 4 MIDI tracks. The input to each should be the NDLR with the MIDI channels set to 1, 2, 3, and 4 (one channel per track, obviously). Set the MIDI track outputs to the target hardware synth with the MIDI channel set to the MIDI channel the synth is set to. That setup should result in Live acting as a MIDI splitter plus have the ability to record what the NDLR sends on each channel.

To hear the MIDI from the tracks you need to set the track monitoring button to “on” or, if the track is record-armed, “auto” will also work. To play back already recorded stuff on a Live MIDI track set the monitoring to “auto”.

I can’t be sure but I think that will work, at least it does with my sequencers.

[JE Harvey]

Not a device I own, but as I understand it the NDLR basically works in the same way as most hardware sequencers capable of sending different outputs on different MIDI channels.

So in Live’s MIDI preferences set up all of its inputs in the “inputs” section, with “track”=on.
In the “output” preferences you need it switched on and set to receive MIDI clock (to sync it to Live).

Set each of the NDLR’s outputs to a different MIDI channel (e.g. 1, 2, 3 and 4).

To capture the MIDI in Live and to route it to a hardware (or software) synth set up 4 MIDI tracks. The input to each should be the NDLR with the MIDI channels set to 1, 2, 3, and 4 (one channel per track, obviously). Set the MIDI track outputs to the target hardware synth with the MIDI channel set to the MIDI channel the synth is set to. That setup should result in Live acting as a MIDI splitter plus have the ability to record what the NDLR sends on each channel.

To hear the MIDI from the tracks you need to set the track monitoring button to “on” or, if the track is record-armed, “auto” will also work. To play back already recorded stuff on a Live MIDI track set the monitoring to “auto”.

I can’t be sure but I think that will work, at least it does with my sequencers.

Thank you so much!!! Worked like a charm - I would never have worked that out.

Can't wait to see what the NDLR can do now

Thank you again

[Mark Williams]

Been using NDLR for a year or so with Ableton, and works nice, only issue I ever have is never figured out how to trigger the chords via midi keyboard.