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Ok so I'm normally pretty clued up on midi and programming stuff but this one has me baffled.
Just recently I've bought an Alesis Vortex Midi Controller (keytar) for use on stage. It has started to affect the my NS2 in a very strange way and I'm just wondering if you guys have any idea what might be happening. The Alesis seems to be causing the Nord to play 2 semitones lower than it should - but not all the time, just sometimes. The transpose light doesn't come on on the NS2 either. Its connected straight to my NS2 via an 8m midi cable - no complex setups, simply just transmitting on the same midi channel as the NS2 patch. Anyway, I disconnected it the other day after testing it (it DID transpose the NS2 - still no transpose light on the NS2 - so I gave up!), afterwards I went to play another patch just on the NS2 keyboard, the patch is a layer of piano (piano section) and a synth sound (synth section) and the synth patch was transposed even though I had disconnected the vortex and turned it off!! Anyway, after a few seconds of playing the NS2 just corrected the transpose and everything was fine again!!
Anyone got any idea what the hell is going on? IS there some weird midi transpose command that the Vortex is sending to the NS2? Even if that is the case, why did it affect the other patch even when the two units were disconnected?
It may be that the Vortex is sending Pitch bend messages (not transpose, which is not associated to any CC on the NS) of the lowest value and since the range of PB on the NS2 is+\- 2 semitones you get what you are hearing; try to switch off the pitch bend on the NS2 synth to see if this is the case.
A more in depth test can be done this way: connect the Vortex to the NS2 via a PC running a MIDI monitor and routing program (e.g. MidiOX on Windows) and check what type of data is being sent across.
Last edited by maxpiano on 04 Jun 2014, 15:15, edited 5 times in total.
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Thanks for your replies. Thought I'd give you a quick update.
I tried the alesis in soundcheck this weekend after doing a factory reset and it seemed to be fine. So I used it on the gig for the one main song I use it for and then turned it off and went back to playing the NS2 for the other songs in the set. I thought everything was fine until I came to use a piano/synth layered patch, so I start the song on piano and then bring the synth in on slot B and the damn thing is transposed again! No transpose light on again, Alesis turned off - nothing I could do but play the whole song on piano and then afterwards quickly turn the NS2 off/on again. This is just crazy!
I will have to hook it up to midi-ox or midi pipe to see what is happening.
Can you describe exactly what is connected to what and the midi settings? Can you set the patch transpose to 0 and re-save it? This is ineed very odd, specially as the transpose cannot be set via midi!
Pitc bend, as suggested is most likely... If you play the ns2 via the alesis and you pitch up with the wheel an do no return to 0, the synth remains in that up pitched state.
Thanks for your reply. I use it in a pretty simple way. NS2 set to receive on Channel 14, Alesis set to transmit on channel 14 both connected via a midi cable. I have turned off the accelerometer in the Alesis, a function which I don't use. I also don't touch the pitch bend wheel so it can't be a case of this not resetting itself. It is all very strange!
I think the only way to solve this mystery is to hook it up to a midi monitor to see whats causing this behaviour. I hope its something I can fix, either that or the Alesis has a fault which will a pain. Gonna check to make sure the Alesis is on the latest firmware this week too.
Seems rather an old thread, but if not resolved (or for others that may notice same anomaly) I thought I'd respond.
The Alesis Vortex (both the white 'wired' version and the new black 'wireless version) have a feature called Accelerometer. Basically, various (programmable) midi parameters are triggered simply by moving the position of the keyboard 'neck' up or down.
I have the black wireless version and noticed this pitch/interval change myself. Turning off Accelerator resolved the matter. Or you could keep Accelerator turned on and change it's function to modulation or something else generally more useful than interval change!
Darnit - read too late that the OP turned off Accelerometer! Well, perhaps was turned off under a particular patch, but remained enabled under a patch the OP subsequently selected. I think the feature is indeed enabled by default.
