Hello all.
After years of DAWs, I have recently bought a Korg Minilogue XD and (today!) and Arturia Drumbrute Impact. Both machines have CV in and out and also MIDI I/O.
I know literally nothing about chaining/linking hardware. Should I use one or the other method for linking the two machines or, indeed, both?
Any advice (remember,. I’m brand new to this) would be greatly appreciated.
What did you want to do with each of them? Meaning, do you know how you want them to work together?
The basic thing you want is to sync them so they play in time with each other. You can use cv or midi to do this. You pick one to be in charge of this. I recommend using midi because you could pass along the transport controls like play/pause stop etc to stop all your things at once in addition to keeping things in time. Conventionally I usually see the drum machine or similar do this role, but there isnt any reason you couldnt do that with your XD. On your XD, go to button #6, that’s where “Clock Source” is. Set it to “Auto (MIDI)” (you should have to press it like 3 times). Then, to use midi for clock, you should just have to plug in the midi cable from your drumbrute’s midi out to your XD’s midi in socket. This is also where you can specify to use the internal clock (if the XD is the master) or USB if syncing with a DAW via USB. I just kept it at “Auto (MIDI)”, since i could clock with midi from the DAW, and if you plug sync-in (cv) into the clock port, it takes priority anyways.
You can use midi out from the XD to the midi in of the drumbrute to control the drums from the keybed. To do this, you need to know that midi has different channels, and set up the drumbrute to be a specific channel that your XDis playing on. This can work in reverse if you want.
You can change the midi ports on the XD with button #6 again, just press it until you see “MIDI Ch”.
Another reason you might want to use midi is with a thing called a midi splitter, you can control multiple devices at the same time. In the future, if you get another synth, you can play that one at the same time or you can swap to different channels and play on the other one while the XD’s sequencer is running. I had the XD with some volcas (the sample, FM, and bass) and that was a cool setup.
Here is the manual if you wanna dig more. feel free to ask more questions if i didnt clarify enough.
Thanks Caustic - warning - you’re becoming my go-to guy for this stuff. I appreciate your patience, answering variations on the same question I’ve asked before.
At the moment, I’m content with the drum machine and the Minilogue triggering and tempo changing in synch. I just can’t get my head around why that - MIDI as you suggest - configuration might be different with CV in/out.
And also - if it’s worth attaching CV cables and MIDI to the devices? There are ports for both.
So, you only need either midi or the sync. You can sync with midi, so i suggest that since it will give you the ability to pause/play stop etc both with one button press.
If you attach the clock out of the drumbrute as well, it will take precedence. This is only because of how the XD works, many synths dont have that interaction.
let me know if the above configuration doesnt work. You should be able to press play on the drumbrute and see the sequencer on the XD start to run. you should also see the temp change on the XD when you change it on the drumbrute.
The drumbrute is the master in this configuration, so it must be configured to use it’s internal clock.
And from the XD’s documentation:
If you need help with how to menu dive in the XD, just lemme know.
Thanks for the advice - greatly appreciated.
