Voice stealing OB6 when channel selected

Hi there!

First post, but long time reader. I found out something I can’t explain when using the OB6. I’m sure others have run into Prophet/OB6 issues when it comes to local control off. My ’ solution’ is like most: Midi out form OB6 to the Pyramid, and having a track from the Pyramid go to the OB6. When I want to play other connected synths with the OB6-keybed, I just turn the volume of the OB6 down.

So far the introduction of my setup :smiley:

Now what I noticed; When I have selected the OB6 channel on the Squarp pyramid, the voices are halved. I only can play 3 voices. The 4th note will cause voice stealing. Not sure why. I understand local control is on. So whether i select the OB6 track on the pyramid or not, playing the keys is always controlling the OB6. What I don’t understand is: Playing them when the midi out goes through the pyramid and out to the OB6 again, my voices are 50%.

I testes recording 6 voices. So, eventhough hearing 3, I played six voices and recorded it on the Pyramid. In playing back the recorded midi on the Pyramid, I do get 6 voices. So: 6 voices are coming out of OB6, 6 voices are recorded on Pyramid. 6 voices are sent out of Pyramid towards OB6. But when playing, this is not possible, and I only have 3.

I am very confused. Does anyone know what causes this?

voice stealing is controlled by synth, not midi/sequencer.

if you are getting half the polyphony…
then indeed sounds like the synth is ‘seeing’ the same note twice, and is playing on different voices.
(the timing would be so close, you’d not hear it)

local control should be OFF on your synth, so you get…
OB6 keyboard->pyramid->OB6 voice

otherwise what happens is your OB6 is playing the note locally, then it gets it from the pyramid and plays it again! (which is what you getting)

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Ah I see. Thanks so much for the reply, unfortunately, Squarp and Dave Smith don’t play nice together (cause of the synth). Local Control off is not an option on a Prophet or OB6 when using something like the Pyramid.
This is because for some (idiotic) reason, Local Control off does not mean ’ separate’ the keybed from the ’ brain’ . Local Control also has an effect on all parameters. This means if you have Local Control off and you adjust a parameter on the OB6 like a filter, weird stuff happens. As in, oscillator 1 will go to volume zero and other weird stuff.

I have talked to the people of sequential and they say it’s because the received midi is not correct, and they will not implement a regular Local Control. they say this option is not meant to separate the brain and keys. They started doing it on the latest synths, so I’m hoping for a firmware update, but this has been requested by tons of people for 5 years now.

This means the only way (without programming a midi module in between) is the way I am using it, or to by an extra synth/midi controller and use that key bed. I won’t have to use the midi out on the OB6 anymore and all is good.

I had hoped that my current method would be fine, but judging what you said: Same midi channel, so it cannot send and receive 6 notes in and out at the same time. So you get 3 out and 3 in, which results in 3 voices.

Thanks so much for your time!!

its honestly hard to know what the OB6 is doing…

k, to me this sounds like… (you’d have to check with a midi monitor to test)
when you turn local control off… then basically it remaps the knobs to new CC’s which do not match the CCs it required on the input to change the respective parameters

e.g.
for some (stupid/ill thought out?) reason twisting filter cutoff sends out CC 22, but CC 22 controls volume osc volume 1 … not cutoff…
the only reason I can think they would do this is to basically be considering it as a midi controller mode.
(the virus TI has a similar mode to this, but its completely separate from local echo off :wink: )

what I would do is…
use the OB6 only for notes… and turn local echo OFF.

then do not use the knobs on the front panel of the OB6 (so the OB6 doesnt send CCs!)
rather use a separate controller or program the CCs from the pyramid

or if you need to, then you need to on the pyramid midi in , turn CC off… so you filter out all incoming CCs

another alternative, is to get something like Blokas MidiHub (or other ‘smart router’) that would allow you to remap the incomings midi CC, to the ‘correct’ midi cc for input

thats would at least be my approach.


small aside : the pyramid is has a midi monitor, this can be very useful for tracking what is being recvd and sent. (settings->info) very useful to diagnose whats going on.

finally… please bear in mind I dont have an OB6, so the above is an ‘educated guess’ :wink:

You’re totally right though!
I will check that as an option as well. It is ofcourse nice to play with parameters when I have a sequence going, but that will be out of the question. Or well, only possible when all notes are recorded. For all synths…
I will for sure check the settings! And on the side convince my gf I need an extra keybed/controller. Thanks!

Not sure but wouldn’t it help to turn the Midi Echo option to Auto on the Pyramid?

yeah, it’ll sort of work - if it’s set to STOP ECHO (auto will not work)

but its kinda clunky… the issue is, you’re recording/playback is different (timing etc) from when you play in live, but might be ‘ok’,
but this is the reason I avoid the echo cancellation, and get the synth to do it :wink:

the other thing is… this’ll only work if the OB6 is actually sending the correct CC messages when local echo = on (i.e. doesn’t have the same issue as when local echo = off) - if not, then the recorded CCs will be ‘wrong’, and as soon as you playback, it’ll be borked.

but worth a try.

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