OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11

OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« on: February 23, 2021, 06:03:27 AM »
NB: The big forum post about the OB-6 and MPE is here: https://forum.sequential.com/index.php/topic,3226.0.html

I have just today purchased Ableton Live 11 (which has MPE support) and updated the OB-6 to 1.6.6 (which also has MPE support).

I don't have a MPE external controller yet. But I want to try Ableton 11's MPE with OB-6, by drawing in the new "Note Expression" section of the MIDI Clip Editor.

However, I have to say that the attached MPE instructions with the OB-6 beta firmware is like an alien language to me. I have no idea how to setup the OB-6 for MPE, nor how to use it within Ableton.

Can someone more experienced with hardware/DAWs please explain how to get it working?

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2021, 11:20:02 AM »
I have just today purchased Ableton Live 11 (which has MPE support) and updated the OB-6 to 1.6.6 (which also has MPE support).
I'm having an issue because the Ableton 11's external instrument device with MPE support, when set to output in MPE mode, cycles through MIDI channels 2-16, whereas the OB-6 is only listening to channels 2-7 in this new MPE mode. So this has the effect of only playing 6 notes, then skipping 9 notes, then playing 6 notes, ...

Maybe Sequential can increase the number of MIDI channels that the OB-6 will listen to, or make this range adjustable? I'm not familiar with MPE enough to know if limiting to channels 2-7 is something standard, I suspect not. There seems to be many different implementations of MPE.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2021, 11:48:07 PM »
Same pb here...

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2021, 08:29:44 AM »
I asked the same on Lives's forum. It doesn't seems to be any workaround for now.
I hope sequential or Ableton comes to a solution soon.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2021, 11:48:59 AM »
I have just today purchased Ableton Live 11 (which has MPE support) and updated the OB-6 to 1.6.6 (which also has MPE support).
I'm having an issue because the Ableton 11's external instrument device with MPE support, when set to output in MPE mode, cycles through MIDI channels 2-16, whereas the OB-6 is only listening to channels 2-7 in this new MPE mode. So this has the effect of only playing 6 notes, then skipping 9 notes, then playing 6 notes, ...

Maybe Sequential can increase the number of MIDI channels that the OB-6 will listen to, or make this range adjustable? I'm not familiar with MPE enough to know if limiting to channels 2-7 is something standard, I suspect not. There seems to be many different implementations of MPE.

Hi, the problem is not the OB-6. In MPE it is designed you have 2 zones: a 'lower zone', that uses Midi channel 1 as Master channel with the MPE member channels starting at 2 and going up, and an 'upper zone', that uses Midi channel 16 as Master channel with the MPE member channels starting at 15 and going down. The two zones allow for using two MPE systems on one MID cable (or two split zones on a keyboard). If one uses f.i. 6 channels for MPE in the lower zone, this will occupy channels 1 + 2-7. This implies the upper zone can then use a max of 8 MPE channels (8-15 + 16).

Thus the way OB-6 has set it up is correct.

I don't have ableton 11 (only 10), but somewhere in the MPE settings, look where you can set the Zone to 'lower' and the amount of member channels to '6'. Then this corresponds to the channels OB-6 listens to.
By the way, you can assign less member channels than an MPE device has voices, but never the opposite. The maximum of member channels should never exceed the maximum of voices.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2021, 11:50:53 AM »
I have just today purchased Ableton Live 11 (which has MPE support) and updated the OB-6 to 1.6.6 (which also has MPE support).
I'm having an issue because the Ableton 11's external instrument device with MPE support, when set to output in MPE mode, cycles through MIDI channels 2-16, whereas the OB-6 is only listening to channels 2-7 in this new MPE mode. So this has the effect of only playing 6 notes, then skipping 9 notes, then playing 6 notes, ...

Maybe Sequential can increase the number of MIDI channels that the OB-6 will listen to, or make this range adjustable? I'm not familiar with MPE enough to know if limiting to channels 2-7 is something standard, I suspect not. There seems to be many different implementations of MPE.

Looking at your screenshots: Ableton is assuming you only have a Lower Zone with 15 member channels...

Pym

  • **
  • 200
Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2021, 03:17:22 PM »
This is correct

With MPE the controller needs to be able to change this logic, setting zones and number of voices/channels.

The OB6/P6 are locked to 6 voices on zone 1 as a simple implementation because I can't think of many (if any) cases where you would need something different (barring polychain which was a conscious choice to not add due to additional complexity)

I'm sure Ableton will look into it soon enough, there are a couple other things I have brought to their attention so they are aware

I have just today purchased Ableton Live 11 (which has MPE support) and updated the OB-6 to 1.6.6 (which also has MPE support).
I'm having an issue because the Ableton 11's external instrument device with MPE support, when set to output in MPE mode, cycles through MIDI channels 2-16, whereas the OB-6 is only listening to channels 2-7 in this new MPE mode. So this has the effect of only playing 6 notes, then skipping 9 notes, then playing 6 notes, ...

Maybe Sequential can increase the number of MIDI channels that the OB-6 will listen to, or make this range adjustable? I'm not familiar with MPE enough to know if limiting to channels 2-7 is something standard, I suspect not. There seems to be many different implementations of MPE.

Looking at your screenshots: Ableton is assuming you only have a Lower Zone with 15 member channels...
Sequential

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2021, 07:38:29 PM »
I think I finally found a solution that works for me (Mac, Linnstrument, Live 11, OB-6).

Brilliant donation ware (I gave!) application called midipipe that lets you build a channel router:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10541/midipipe

So my pipe has:
- a MIDI In set to MidiPipe Input 1
- a Channel Router with channels 1-7 as-is, channels 8-13 routed back to 2-7, and 14-16 routed back to 2-4 (I'm fuzzy on what to do with 16 but it doesn't seem to hurt)
- a MIDI Output set to the OB-6

On my OB-6 track in Ableton, I have External Instrument set to:
- MidiPipe Input 1
- MPE

Now I can leave the Linnstrument in its default MPE mode (8 channels), and use the OB-6 with MPE in Live.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2021, 08:33:10 AM »
sounds good!
I have to try the same with Bome MIDI translator for Windows

I think I finally found a solution that works for me (Mac, Linnstrument, Live 11, OB-6).

Brilliant donation ware (I gave!) application called midipipe that lets you build a channel router:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10541/midipipe

So my pipe has:
- a MIDI In set to MidiPipe Input 1
- a Channel Router with channels 1-7 as-is, channels 8-13 routed back to 2-7, and 14-16 routed back to 2-4 (I'm fuzzy on what to do with 16 but it doesn't seem to hurt)
- a MIDI Output set to the OB-6

On my OB-6 track in Ableton, I have External Instrument set to:
- MidiPipe Input 1
- MPE

Now I can leave the Linnstrument in its default MPE mode (8 channels), and use the OB-6 with MPE in Live.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2021, 01:14:06 PM »
Same issue here with Ableton + OB6 MPE. Hopefully they fix it soon.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2021, 02:10:09 AM »
I think I finally found a solution that works for me (Mac, Linnstrument, Live 11, OB-6).

Brilliant donation ware (I gave!) application called midipipe that lets you build a channel router:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10541/midipipe

So my pipe has:
- a MIDI In set to MidiPipe Input 1
- a Channel Router with channels 1-7 as-is, channels 8-13 routed back to 2-7, and 14-16 routed back to 2-4 (I'm fuzzy on what to do with 16 but it doesn't seem to hurt)
- a MIDI Output set to the OB-6

On my OB-6 track in Ableton, I have External Instrument set to:
- MidiPipe Input 1
- MPE

Now I can leave the Linnstrument in its default MPE mode (8 channels), and use the OB-6 with MPE in Live.

Great workaround! Tried this yesterday night and it works.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2021, 06:04:28 AM »
Release notes for the Live 11.1 beta indicate that there are now a bunch of options which enable the range of midi channels to be specified for MPE.

Re: OB-6 MPE with Ableton Live 11
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2021, 07:27:07 AM »
Fantastic ! Thanks for the update