It's not just DSI equipment and USB. USB has more latency than MIDI and devices don't sync very well. It's not too bad for live performance and just 'playing in a part' to your DAW, but if you start sending clocks and trying to sync external devices, particularly sequencers, you WILL get some annoying glitches. I have found that a small number of multiport MIDI boxes provides reliable connectivity. My setup is not too complicated, but I do a lot of sequencing as well as live input...including voice substitutions (I generally record the MIDI even if I am playing in live). Most of this requires either 1) driving the system from a synth clock, or synching everything to your DAW (I use Reaper).

My setup:

DSI OB-6 - As well as an amazing synth, this is a pretty good controller...you can turn Local on-off and set channels with dedicated buttons, has excellent MOD and PITCH wheels, and a reasonable ARP and SEQ

Nord Electro 6 - Has a remarkable set of sounds and reasonable effects, including a wavetable synth with it's own filter and envelope (and a HUGE library of sounds from Clavia). It's also a MIDI controller with easy access to settings on the display with dedicated buttons (light=years beyond my Electro 3 which was very obscure to program)

MPD18 with the cork mod and upgraded gel screen - Really a bear to program, but I have done the templates

Beatstep PRO - I do the core of my sequencing with this; I have templates that match the MPD18 so that I can just forget about the pads, which have very poor sensitivity and velocity reproduction. I use the MPD18 for the drum track and the OB-6 for the two melody tracks (I sure wish that you could output MIDI from the OB-6 SEQ and ARP)...arghhhh

Roland SoundCanvas SC55mkii - I have had this since the earth cooled and it is a truly awesome sound module...still fresh, has a great set of TR-808 that can be programmed (with the front panel buttons, though). Running the BSP into the TR-808 or the JAZZ kit in this is amazing, plus it has the full wavetable set of Roland sounds. You can also play 255 polyphony on all MIDI channels simultaneously...(never done that, though)

Roland V-DRum TD-4 - to capture a live performance when I bring a drummer in...I can then map it to Addictive Drums, Jamstix, the SC55, etc...it's really more useful than miking a drum kit!

Reaper with a good set of VSTi from XLN (Addictive Keys and Drums), Applied Acoustic (have collected the whole set over 5-6 years), plus a few soft-synths. I use an older Focusrite interface (Saffire PRO 40) for all the recording, monitoring stuff...it has a nice software mixer and lots of routing and output capability as well as 10 channels of recording (someday I might buy an 8-channel add-on, but I have always gotten by and the sound quality is perfectly adequate. Also have a mike collection as I play woodwinds and hand percussion in addition to keyboards. I bring in my guitar, bass and drum buddies...

I use MIDI-Ox a lot for patching MIDI. I set up profiles and save them for various setups...e.g. I often want to play something on the OB-6, want to hear the synth in real-time and record MIDI. I set it up with the keyboard sending MIDI out, but not playing the synth, and then have the receiver (either Reaper, or BSP for example) loop the MIDI back out to the synth. Meanwhile the MIDI gets recorded in Reaper, the BSP can capture the sequence, all synched to either the OB-6 clock or the Reaper clock. I was never able to make this work using MIDI over USB...it was always glitchy.

The other aspect of this is that it is nice to have two ports connected to each synth or controller...two examples:

1. SoundTower sells an affordable software package for the OB-6 <$100 that lets you manage the library, backup, do sequencing visually, program sounds, etc. It works fine with the USB port, and this leaves the MIDI available for the musical stuff I want to do, so I can just have it all available

2. Similarly, Arturia provides the MIDI Control application that lets you set variables and do stuff that you can't access from the panel...also, that works fine with USB and I can still have a full 16-channel MIDI connection for sequencing work and patching to multiple other tools

It was a lot of thought and work to get this far, but it makes my workflow pretty simple...

In context of this thread...all this works without glitches...I had to discover all the glitches along the way, but there was a path to make it all work.

Good news for you. Both OB-6 and Prophet 6 do provide ARP and SEQ note out via USB or DIN MIDI. It's in the MIDI Global Menu. You may have to update the OS.

+ 1,000,000,000,000

Seriously, MIDI from the OB6 and P6 sequencers/arps was supposed to be available several firmware updates ago. I’ve installed the latest and IT STILL DOESN'T WORK! ARGHHH!


<edit>


What am I doing wrong? Please, what are the actual steps to make this work?

Thank you!

I did manage to get this to work; found it on a recent post to the sequential.com forum for OB-6:


I'm editing my post because I figured it out...key setting is using MIDI Out =Bth AND Param Xmit = nAS. This allows me to run the Soundtower on USB and the OB-6 music connections on MIDI SIMULTANEOUSLY...intuitively obvious once you know the answer, as always. This lets me edit my sequences in the Soundtower app and immediately hit play on the synth without fussing around with settings...streamlines the workflow and makes me happy (which is the most important thing)

You actually DO need (at least for my setup) OS 1.5.5 for this to work

https://instagram.com/p/Bw5qNn2Fbrb/

Just a quick clip using the OB-6 arpeggiator. This thing is my synthesizer soulmate.

It's in Global Menu 5 Parameter XMIT.
The setting ist NAS or CAS for:
NRPN CC
A Arp
S Sequencer

Another usefull feature is playing the SEQ without holding the record button. Put the OB in unison mode to do so.

YES!!! YOU ROCK UWAIN, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

OH HAPPY DAYS, WE HAVE SEQUENCER MIDI!!!

All I need to do to record the sequencer MIDI properly is set both Global-7 MIDI Controls to OFF and the 6+6 recorded 2 sequencer MIDI tracks to PT without issues. Then, set it back ON for normal usage.

Just realized this was so over the last few days. Nice.

Howdo everyone?

Here's a Sneak Peek at Volume I for the OB-6 by Robust American Patches. Just 14 sounds in this video as we're still busy producing the demonstrations. 1 more video ought to do it. The preset names are burnt into the bottom of the picture.

Sneak Peek at Volume I for the OB-6

The Bank is officially available but I haven't announced it besides here and the Sequential forum.

~

I lent away my OB-6 for a few months while traveling, and now that I got it back the arpeggiator is not working. Aside from the lesson to be learned about not letting ****tards borrow your gear, has anyone else had this problem? Any clues on what to do?

Did somebody mess with the clock/trigger settings? (Global menu--> seq jack) If the parameter is set to "external triggering" the arp probably won't run.

Well, of course, that has been checked. Not my first synthesizer. The arp is dead.

Then the synth is likely set to receive external clock while no clock is actively being sent to the synth.

A quick way to reset all the globals back to their default value is to hold the GLOBAL button and press WRITE. Exit the globals, and check whether the arp/seq begins to work thereafter.

I'm impressed with what I've heard, the comments are certainly useful, looking forward to the completed set.

Thanks for the feedback voyager! It's funny. I just played Star Trek the Motion Picture, again, in the wee hours of this fine morning. With the sound off of course.

Love that movie, old but one of the best Star Trek movies.

And that's where Voyager 1 is headed at the moment, too the stars.....

Turn on while pressing hold to start diagnostic mode. Check if all pots an knobs work. Turning Pots shows the values. If not you may dis- and reconnect the internal ribbon connector between main board and panel board. I had this issue on a P6 Module at certain temperatures. As all P6 and OB-6 share the same main board, this is worth checking.

Hi, thanks for the (swift!) reply, but that was pretty much the first thing we checked. And we've consulted the manual, tried to see if we've overlooked something. The arp really is dead. Our theories is that the synth may have received some bad MIDI data of some sort, or that something on a board or a chip may have died, for whatever reason. Do you think it's possible that we're on the right track with one of those theories, or are we completely out to lunch...?

Everything else seems fine. The synth sounds great, with no visible damage (it was rather dusty, though, to the point where a couple of buttons need a bit of extra push ).

Thanks. That's very interesting. I'll let you know how we go with this thing.

Hmmm there is no real way that the arp would just not run...does the sequencer play correctly?

Excellent, the more the merrier!

yeah, i saw those new analogaudio1 patches. As usual, he's killing it and making the synth sound like a million bucks.

YES, they sound great I'll probably pick them up....though I have to say his jump patch doesn't sound very good compared to Neptune's which sound as good or BETTER than the original.

That patch at 12:51 sounds so good.

Just got the classic set, installed this morning. A very good selection and variety of sounds and well worth the cost. Highly recommended.

Good stuff. Will keep an eye out for your post when it is released.

Thank You Sir! Still working on the demos...

Salutations to All!

All systems are go for Volume I for the OB-6!

All the demos are now up and we've got 98 of the patches represented in 4 videos. Patch 000: "Robust Init" didn't need a demo and Patch 088: "SpineyTines" is the one surprise. There has to be one surprise sound. We ended up not adding all the extra controller info text in these new videos. More time was needed. There is a special introductory offer available for the next 18 days. Here's the YouTube link so far as well as the patch list for this Bank.

The OB-6 Robust Patch List









Thanks you guys!

Randy