Ableton Forum

To People of Ableton

Please help!

I'm tying to get 2 laptops synced or more precisely, get one midi channel (sent by a foot controller) to be received on 2 laptops.

I've got one audio interface (tascam US-122L) and one midi interface (Romo 2 in, 2 out) and i want the first one to be midi mapped to play in session mode and the 2nd one on the same midi mapping to play in arrangement view.

I've been over all the details with syncing, even though it's not important that the laptops are necessarily synced. It's getting the same signal to be recieved on both laptops that i need. I've set up so far:

MIDI FOOT CONTROLLER to TASCAM INTERFACE/MIDI INPUT/LAPTOP 1
To ableton and it's triggering samples fine
THEN
TASCAM INTERFACE OUTPUT to ROMO MIDI INTERFACE INPUT/LAPTOP 2
And they sync fine but the same midi signal doesn't seem to be carrying.

The general idea was mentioned in this thread:
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 88&start=0

So i think the best thing to do is to set up a sole midi channel in Laptop 1 and then have it sending and being recieved in Laptop 2.


However i seem to be really struggling. Below is a screen shot of laptop 1:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51843603@N04/4772944522/
(the lower orange dot next to EXT was working btw just didn't capture it in screen shot.)

And here's what i've got from laptop 2 at the same time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51843603@N04/4772948600/


However i can't get the midi channel mapped or being received on it's own from Laptop 1 to Laptop 2.

I can't help but think, i'm missing something, very simple but i've been all over this (and other) forums but can't seem to find the answer and would REALLY appreciate some help from you kind people.

Thanks in advance.

In your MIDI prefs on laptop 1 make sure you have the Track/Sync/Remote buttons lit on the OUTPUT of the Tascam.

In your MIDI prefs on laptop 2 make sure you have the Track/Sync/Remote buttons lit on the INPUT of the Romo.

That's all that should be required.

Also, are you wanting the foot controller to trigger anything on laptop 1? Because the way you have it now it will only send a signal to laptop 2. If you want laptop one to respond to the same signal you will need another MIDI channel with same input or map it to a button/knob or something.

Thanks for your help i'll give that a try.

Yes, i would want the midi foot controller to control Laptop 1 on midi mapping as-well as 2. So ideally the one signal from the midi output of the foot controller to be routed to control both laptops. In the instructions above would that be possible?
Apparently the best way to do it is by using 2 interfaces and midi. I had a look at midi splitters or anything along those lines to do the same job BUT they seemed either very hard get hold of or expensive.

Nah what you have will do the job, i was just trying to point out that from your screenshots it looks like you have ONE midi channel receiving input and going to the second interface, i couldn't see if/where you had mapped the controller to work on laptop 1.

you likely need to set up another midi channel on the first laptop to take input from the foot controller as well, unless you are mapping to a button in which case it's just CMD-M and map it.