AZSlow Control Question

[oneofmany]

Hi. First post on the new forum. (2nd ever, and 1st put me onto the AZSlow forum haha). 

I have been on again off again trying to make my Novation Impulse 61 keyboard use either ACT or AZSlow to allow use of the mixer controls. Initially I was trying to use it with my i5 Acer tablet (which has one USB port). I could get ACT to sort of work, but not reliably, but never the AZSlow. I had my keyboard plugged through a Steinberg UR44 interface via MIDI In/Out cables. The UR44 is USB, hence my attempt. Although in both above control surfaces I could see the keyboard commands, and set some, I could never get the template for the keyboard created by Hermu to setup.

I finally tried to set it up with the keyboard plugged in via USB, and after re-installing the Novation MIDI driver have it working perfectly. What I realized is that the two Novation input and one Novation output MIDI devices do not surface when device is plugged into UR44 MIDI ports. Instead I am presented only the UR44 MIDI device for input/output. I thought it would pass through and function, but no luck.

I setup everything on a traditional PC where I could plug each device in via USB, and all of the above MIDI options are available to choose for device, and as long as I choose the Novation options, everything works fine. 

I would prefer to use my touchscreen 2-in-1 with the audio interface and the MIDI cables if possible, for portability reasons. 

Is there any reason that the audio device MIDI does not want to work with the AZSlow control surface plugin?

Thanks,

Grant

[azslow3]

I will try to explain the question, but I am not sure I have undersood it correctly.

In short, try USB hub. I know at most places it is suggested to plug an audio interface directly without any hub. There is even a rumor that slow USB device connected to a hub slow the whole port. All that is not always true. If the hub is implemented according to the USB specification, everything should work just fine. Especially with low IO interfaces like UR44, the bandwidth is sufficient and USB was specially designed to share connections. F.e. I have an USB hub with 10m cable and 8x8 interface, DP and surface coexist on it without difference from direct connection.

Now the answer. MIDI cable support just one "connection", while USB can carry many MIDI connections. That is why connected by MIDI your keyboard does not operate the same way as connected by USB. You can reconfigure your keyboard so it sends all controls to MIDI, then reconfigure AZ Controller preset to react on that messages. But without such modifications there are no signals or they are different.

[oneofmany]

Thank you for your response.

The last part of your answer makes sense. That would explain why the Impulse driver sets up with two MIDI inputs, where the UR44 only displays one when connected by USB. The keyboard must be using that second exposed device to transmit control data.

I mistakenly assumed since I could "see" the CC events in your control surface plugin when plugged in via MIDI In/Out ports on the UR44 that they were the same in both connection methods. Obviously they are not. 

I have attempted to setup the proper controls numerous times both with ACT and using your controller, but for some reason have never fully succeeded in making everything work like the template provides, even after reading all of your in-depth explanation posts on your site ?.

Unfortunately, my StarTech USB hub doesn't work (mine is powered), nor did the CyberPower (powered) I had previously. The UR44 works fine using it, but since the keyboard gets it's power from the USB cable,  once the keyboard is plugged in it does not power on. I normally used a Hi-Cap Samsung phone charger with USB A to USB B to power keyboard when using MIDI cables. I may look at another USB hub. As one of my attempts, after I had only the Novation setup using the USB port, and everything working perfectly, I simply inserted the USB hub into the chain, and nothing worked. Once hub was removed, everything worked. 

Thanks again. 

Grant

 

[azslow3]

If controls are sending the signal throw MIDI (different), you can "Forget all assignments" in the Options tab and then in the Hardware tab assign actual values.