Maschine Plus MIDI mess

Nothing wrong and no solutions.

This is how it is made: once plugged to the computer and used as a controller for the software, you lose access to the 2 USB ports. They just didn’t implement a way to use them as an hub (which was instead possible with Kontrol D2 ports).

If you ask me the reason, frankly I don’t know what to answer…

PK The DJ

This is in fact incomprehensible…

The standalone Maschine+ is basically a Maschine MK3 controller, with an added internal computer.

If you compare the two, you will see that the MK3 does not have these ports, therefore they are part of the internal computer - which means they work when the unit is used standalone (the computer is enabled), but when in controller mode (internal computer disabled) the unit becomes a MK3, so the ports are not active.

darkwaves

For what it's worth:

I have all of my gear connected to a iConnectivity MioXM. Maschine sees it as a midi interface (though I have to go through a USB hub or it will constantly crash). I have my main keyboard and a couple of synths connected to the MioXM via USB and an old rompler connected via midi cables. One day I'll connect my old MPC 1k as well; maybe.

The Mio is also on my network; so my desktop, laptops, phones, tablets, etc. can all control those devices. For my specific setup, I have a profile for my desktop and one for maschine+, but I could probably get away with having a single profile that could work with either device (assuming I don't try to sequence my desktop with M+ or vice versa). Everything is connected; always. It doesn't matter if my computer is on or if M+ is running.

As an example; I have an old Pixel C sitting around. I have an app called "midi hub" that allows my tablet to connect via RTPMidi. The Mio initiates the connection once it sees it on my network. If I open that app and then open Koala sampler; it's now just another instrument in my room connected to midi via wifi. Grab my iPad, load drambo and now I can send a bunch of euclidean sequences via midi to koala. Silly example, but it would be pretty simple for me to send those same sequencers anywhere without touching a single cable. My desktop has several RTP connections configured and M+ sees the hardware i/o as hardware. Routing becomes trivial if I'm using either.

It's not perfect. Sometimes I get hung note when using my keyboard over the network, but it's rare enough that I've not bothered looking into it further. It feels weird to go all fanboi over a midi interface, but I'm very happy with the flexibility it provides.

All comments

Nothing wrong and no solutions.

If you ask me the reason, frankly I don’t know what to answer…

This is in fact incomprehensible…

Thank you very much for your answer @LostInFoundation

I guess the only alternative is to buy a MIDI hub and exclusively use the 5pin MIDI ports

…or using other midi ports on your computer for the USB midi devices…isn’t that easier? (Many more recent devices doesn’t even have 5pin)

http://www.subtlesoft.square7.net/MidiPipe.html

If you have an audio interface that has some form of MIDI, you should be able to use software to route MIDI DIN to USB and vice versa.

I currently use MIDI Patchbay on Sonoma and it works perfectly.

https://github.com/notahat/midi_patchbay

(I've never tried the PC version, but here's the link)

https://soundigy.com/midipatchbay.php

PK The DJ

This is in fact incomprehensible…

The standalone Maschine+ is basically a Maschine MK3 controller, with an added internal computer.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/135301#Comment_135301

That wouldn’t solve what I am trying to achieve.

What I want is to have all the necessary connections set to be able to jump between standalone and controller mode without changing any cables.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/135312#Comment_135312

It doesn't sound like that would be possible. Since the M+ is acting as a controller in that context, that would basically require every input/output to be routed over USB. Which isn't impossible, but it doesn't sound like a usecase that NI planned for.

Actually this makes me wonder if the MPC could even do that?

I think the most straightforward solution is an USB hub with all your midi gears plugged in.

This will allow you to change only its single cable (from M+ to computer or viceversa).

But not touching any cable at all…mmmmh…don’t know

At the very least, you'd have to switch the hub between the M+ being the host and the computer being the host. At that point the easiest would be a USB A/B switch. Plug the USB hub into a switch and then A/B it into the computer and the M+ but still you're looking at a manual switch. Perhaps that's good enough?

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/135320#Comment_135320

Yeah, a switch would be good enough 😅

But wait a second… the 5 pin MIDI ports of the Maschine+ work in both standalone and controller mode right? So something like the Blokas midi hub should be good to handle all the routing and allow for the MIDI connected interfaces to run on both modes? Right?

https://blokas.io/midihub/

I don't think so, but it might? Easiest way to find out would be to just test it yourself. Run MIDI Monitor, select the USB M+ interface, route a MIDI device into the 5 pin MIDI IN connector and see if it shows up in MIDI Monitor.

Usually you need software to do this, I don't know of any hardware that will map USB MIDI to MIDI DIN. Loopop has an entire video on MIDI and has a chapter where he talks about doing this exact thing. Timestamped link to the part about USB/MIDI/DIN

https://youtu.be/neXswJJcatc?t=549

darkwaves

For what it's worth:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/135331#Comment_135331

I don’t need this to connect a minibrute S2, Launchpad pro mk3, midi keyboard, Korg nts-1, dx7, etc, since all of this devices have 5pin or mini Jack midi outputs…

I need to power them separately yes, but no need for a converter like that one.

Just old midi connection but with a hub, to have more midi inputs