I need a little Midi Help, as it seems. Hermod & Mopho X4

Hermod
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Hello there : )

I’ve just found my old DSI Mopho X4 and wanted to use it in my live setup. Both as a midi Keyboard to play notes into Hermod AND as a synth module sequenced by Hermod. Mopho sends and receives Midi on the same channel (CH3). You cant have two different channels : ( And the Active channel on Hermod is set to that CH3 too. Then the track in Hermod gets a Midi out effect, wich sends whatever I record into that track back to MOPHO on CH3.

To avoid Midi Feedback, I deactivated “Local Control” on the Mopho. (wich is, as stated in the manual, exactly what local control should be for.)

But now I get weird stuck Notes. Almost every note I play actually. Plus all kinds of alterations to the loaded preset sound (As if somewhere Mopho would receive fixed CC values for a number of sound parameters) and as a little bonus, I can’t change Programs/Presets on the Mopho anymore. So whatever this is doing with mopho, it doesn’t work and i don’t understand it. : (

Then I tried turning local control on again, and everything works pretty nicely, except the expected midi note feedbackloop. Where everything I play on the synth is played by the synth, sent into Hermod via midi, and then sent back to the synth, where it is played a second time with an almost unnoticable latency. (but it eats up half the voices this way, and i only have 4 on this machine : (

So, what can i do?

Is there an Option on Hermod to only send out midi notes once they are played back from the sequencer and not while recording?

Does Hermod forward incoming Program Changes from the active Channel to the midi output effect on a selected track?

Or is there another way I could use this synth as my midi input device AND as a synth sequenced by Hermod? Is this even a thing, to use a synth as Midi Keyboard AND synth?

Thank you very much for any advice or cool littel idea or hack or thought on this : )

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I used to solve this by means of some extra hardware: an iConnectivity Midi4+ and some channel redirect and message filtering. IIRC:

  • MX4 Control Local Off, Control Listen to CC
  • MX4 Midi Out Channel 1 to Midi4+ In1
  • Midi 4+ In1 filtering out everything but Note On/Off, remap to Channel 2, send to Out 1
  • Midi4+ In1 keeping everything but Note On/Off send to Out 2
  • Midi4+ Out 1 into sequencer (MPC X at that time)
  • MPC Channel 2 out into Midi4+ In 2
  • Midi4+ In 2 Channel 2 remap to Channel 1, send to Out 2 (i.e. merge with controller data)
  • Midi4+ Out 2 into MX4 Midi In

Having said that: iirc the problem with the MX4 seems to be that Local Off only affects control, not the keyboard (I need to check this though). With a microKorg for example I did not need all this, and it worked as you expected. Also, I think I remember that I had this convoluted setup, because I really wanted the control surface of the MX4 work, no matter what Track is active on the MPC. So maybe I‘m misremembering and it should work as you say.

Program changes though you‘d definitely want to do on your sequencer anyway.

Hope this helps a little!

1 Like
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@nemoy this sound very odd to me…

stuck notes, invariably are caused by duplicate note on/off messages.

assuming local = off on your synth
the hermod will not (by default) send program change messages, as they can be used to switch sequences on the hermod.

can you check you do not have midi thru turned on in the settings… you do not want this on !
this could cause duplication, if you are using this AND midi out fx.
(and might explain the program change message)

what happens if you set the midi channel on midi out fx to something other than 3?
from what you say, this should mean nothing happens on mopho as this is the only channel it responds to…

but if it does, then either something is sending message thru (other than the midi out fx) , or indeed it sounds like your ‘local off’ is not working as expected and is creating a feedback loop.

unfortunately, the best way to see this, is to use something to monitor the midi coming in/out of the hermod. but there is no midi monitor on hermod, so you’d need to do this with other hardware or go via a computer.

1 Like
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Thanks for the replies!

@technobear yes, all midi tru on Hermod is turned off. And by alterations to the sound I didn’t mean program changes; all the presets just sound very different, as soon as I turn Local Control off on the synth.
Almost as if it would perform some kind of active readout of every relevant CC value coming from Channel 3 at the moment of turning local control off.

Changing presets/Programs when local control is off is confusing me. because the synth doesnt react to changing presets via its own interface. I think when I try to change a preset on the synth, it just sends out PGM changes and probably expects to have them routed back to itself via the receiving midi Channel. Thats why I was asking about Hermod forwarding PGM changes it receives on the active channel.
Or maybe forwarding sysex? …wich might explain some of the sound alteration? I dont know…

@velolala I’ve read in a few forums, that the local off mode on DSI synths seems to be very confusing not only to me : ) …but apparently normal. That’s just the way they are.
I’ll give the blokas midihub a try. As it seems there is some complex midi processing involved here in making this work : )

For now, I had to give up on this. (got a few gigs coming up and this is a bit dangerous : )
But i will try this again later.

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nope, none of this is possible (at least ‘in spec’) … and I haven’t experienced it (e.g. say a bug)

the midi out fx, only puts out note on/off, channel aftertouch, pitch bend and ONE cc…
the CC = mod dest , which is by default CC 1
nothing else…

(to understand this you have to realised the input is getting converted to note/at/pb and mod signals, then converted back… so it cannot pass more thru… its not doing everything as a midi processor, is more focused around conversion back n’ forth to cv)

the exception to this is MIDI THRU , which is why I mentioned it…

thats why I stated right at the beginning its ‘odd’.

to solve, the best solution attach a midi monitor , this way you will know what is getting thru , how and why…without speculation.

as I said above you can do via a computer, but I do like to do with a hardware device.
Ive used various, but the midiboy by blokas, is a cheap and easy solution.

you can also create diy devices to do monitoring using an arduino/teensy/rPI… all for a few $.

also some sequences like the pyramid/hapax also have monitors, although the more complex the device… the more careful you need to be that it is ‘telling the truth’, and not influencing what you are seeing. (e.g. by rebuilding or ignoring certain messages)

all very useful to have in your toolbox to track down midi issues when devices are ‘misbehaving’.

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