Understanding MIDI Tracks

Okay, and one last thing I'd like to talk about in these MIDI tracks are these guys in gray here.

What They Do

Basically, these tracks give me a chance to send MIDI from external gear to my instruments, or from my instruments or controllers to external gear.

Example: MPK to iPad

For instance, if we look at this MPK to iPad, what I'm doing here is:

• Listening for MIDI from my MPK track (which is this guy).
• Sending the MIDI to the iPad.

So, I activate this. I've mapped this button here, which is a button I don't really use too often on my APC.

Activating the MIDI Route

Now, what I can do:

• If I turn it off, we don't hear anything because I don't have any sound activated.
• If I turn it on, I have my Korg iPoly 6 getting MIDI.

Effects and Arpeggiator

I can now:

• Go back to our Arpeggiator,
• Turn that on,
• Play with my effects, because this iPad is being routed through my live stream instruments bus here.

The live instruments are going in here, so I can put all these effects on it.

Sending MIDI to OP1

That's one thing that's kind of cool. I can also send MIDI from here to my OP1.

• This is my OP1 sound.
• If I get a polyphonic sound again, all those effects are coming on.

The Power of MIDI

It's very interesting to get MIDI through a different type of interface rather than just the keyboard. It's also pretty cool to access some of these sounds using the standard keyboard because playing these keys to me is just not that exciting.

Remember: MIDI can be sent to and from things, and the limit is really only your imagination.

How I Set It Up

The way I have these set up:

• I'm receiving the MIDI from the MPK track to my Ultralite.
• The Ultralite sends it out into my iPad, getting the MOTU or the MIDI from here.
• I send the MIDI from my Ultralite (which this is connected to) to the OP1.

Very handy, very useful! You can get a lot of cool things going on and find many different ways to control your sounds that way.