BSP and Volca Bass

[mrs1977]

Hi All, I'm new to midi programming and am having difficulty getting the Beatstep Pro to control the Volca Bass. I know it's possible to do so, because there're videos all over the internet of folks doing so. However, I haven't found a walk-through of using the MIDI Control Center to setup the Beatstep Pro to control the Volca Bass.

Does anyone of such a tutorial or can anyone walk more through the process. Additionally, I'm using after-marker 1/8" TRS to DIN breakout cables, because mine did not come with any secondhand. The Arturia ones cost $48 in shipping. I believe these should still work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank!

[megamarkd]

Hi All, I'm new to midi programming and am having difficulty getting the Beatstep Pro to control the Volca Bass. I know it's possible to do so, because there're videos all over the internet of folks doing so. However, I haven't found a walk-through of using the MIDI Control Center to setup the Beatstep Pro to control the Volca Bass.

Does anyone of such a tutorial or can anyone walk more through the process. Additionally, I'm using after-marker 1/8" TRS to DIN breakout cables, because mine did not come with any secondhand. The Arturia ones cost $48 in shipping. I believe these should still work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank!

Why do people keep the adaptors?  Contact the seller you bought from and see if they will say "oh sorry I forgot" and get them to you.  Bloody useless without them!  There are few places on eBay that sell the adaptors which are wired correctly for use with Arturia, Novation and others.  Don't buy ones that are made for Korg, they do their wiring in reverse to what you want.  Triple check an adaptor you look at on eBay (and the like) to ensure they are wired for Arturia products.  Try Reverb, Tindie and Etsy also (that's TINDIE.com if you are not familiar with the site, don't let your search engine or browser try to send you to a dating site!)
If you are handy with a soldering iron (or know someone who is) get a couple of DIN5 sockets and a couple of 1/8" jacks and make them yourself.  The pinout details are here: https://www.midi.org/articles-old/updated-how-to-make-your-own-3-5mm-mini-stereo-trs-to-midi-5-pin-din-cables

The only other way to get MIDI out of the BSP without the adaptors is via USB and a USB MIDI host, or running into a computer and then out again with another MIDI interface.....

In the meantime you can only really run the VBass as a tempo-synced slave and use it's internal sequencer.  Go into MCC and set the clock out to the 1 step Korg setting and use a 1/8" lead from Clock Out on the BSP to the Sync In on the VBass.  I've not used my Volcas like this so can't give any advice on anything beyond the setting.  You may need to set things on your Volca to allow it to nicely sync with the BSP.

Once you have a MIDI connection it's all plain-sailing with the BSP being a simple MIDI step sequencer.  You shouldn't need to really make any adjustments in MCC to run your VBass with the BSP, if anything consult the VBass manual as to how to set it up to play nicely with the BSP.  I have a couple of Volcas and if I don't want their sequencers to run when I hit play on the BSP I need to set them to internal clock.  That way I can play sequence them without their internal sequencers also doing so.
I you do want to run the VBass' sequencer in-time with the BSP, then set it to auto clock.

[mrs1977]

Hi, this is super helpful, thanks. When I bought this off reverb, the box came with a whole in it and the guy said he packed them, but they must've fallen out during damage in transit. Reverb gave me $15 for my trouble. Should've one more research as a the shipping on the Arturia brand ones s $48. I bought new ones online, and I doubl-checked the description and they said work for Arturia BSP, but maybe they don't. I'm also splitting the MIDI signal to a volca sample and fm using a Belkin headphone splitter (which i watched some videos doing and read up on as a valid midi splitter). Thought that might've been the issue, so i plugged one of the adapters straight into the midi out and no luck. I will look again for the right adapters or make my own--i build pedals, so this shouldn't be too hard. Thanks again!

[megamarkd]

I'm also splitting the MIDI signal to a volca sample and fm using a Belkin headphone splitter (which i watched some videos doing and read up on as a valid midi splitter). Thought that might've been the issue, so i plugged one of the adapters straight into the midi out and no luck. I will look again for the right adapters or make my own--i build pedals, so this shouldn't be too hard. Thanks again!

Oh no, that Sonic State video...it's misinformation.  Yes using a Belkin headphone splitter will let you distribute a source but from what I've seen, it will only work once.  If you try to divide the signal into three it will divide the 5v signal to the point that the data will become too weak to be complete.  This may depend on the whether the device that is your source provides "powered" MIDI, but I've yet to see it work in further than a simple single split and in the Sonic State video, they never show more than two devices running off the splitter.  I've had some grief directed at me for saying this but I stand by my statement.  MIDI may be a digital signal, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suffer from signal degradation.  Using an unpowered MIDI splitter will reduce the voltage of the MIDI signal with each split the same as splitting an audio signal without any make-up gain.  I suggest paying the few dollars more for a decent powered MIDI splitter/thru box.  MIDI Solutions makes an unpowerd thru-box that works with most sources, but I tend to like Kenton.  The Kenton Thru 5 does require you sacrifice a power point but ensure you never have a situation where a devise can't power the splitter as occasionally happens using MIDI Solutions' thru box.  That said, I seem to remember that MIDI Solutions has on their site a list of devices known to work with their unpowered MIDI splitters.

With regards to making your own MIDI adaptors, it's dead easy.  Grab a DIN5 socket, a 1/8" TRS jack and a decent length of shielded to-core cable.  Solder them up like in the picture below and then make it all look nice and tidy with some heatshrink. Bingo, $3 dollar DIN5 to 1/8" adaptor.  Click the picture to go to the article on https://midi.org it originally came from.

[BodoBrute]

Once you have a MIDI connection it's all plain-sailing with the BSP being a simple MIDI step sequencer.  You shouldn't need to really make any adjustments in MCC to run your VBass with the BSP, if anything consult the VBass manual as to how to set it up to play nicely with the BSP.  I have a couple of Volcas and if I don't want their sequencers to run when I hit play on the BSP I need to set them to internal clock.  That way I can play sequence them without their internal sequencers also doing so.

Yep. All you have to do is set the BSP and the Volca to the same channels, disable the internal sequencer of the Volca (it's somewhere in the manual sheet), and off you go. I use the BSP with the Volca Bass and Beats, and I find that much more convenient and hands-on than using the Volca's internal sequencer.

I'm also splitting the MIDI signal to a volca sample and fm using a Belkin headphone splitter (which i watched some videos doing and read up on as a valid midi splitter).

We (megamarkd and myself, that is) had discussed that topic a while ago in another thread  .
It works really nicely with 2 Volcas (Bass and Beats in my case - I am successfully using the Belkin splitter mentioned in the infamous SonicState video myself), but connecting three might cause problems due to insufficient voltage, as he pointed out already. I never tried using three since I only have the two Volcas I mentioned .

In that case a MIDI splitter or Thru Box would be a better idea.

[mrs1977]

Hi All, yup it was the cables, thanks for the support. My VB and VFM are running smoothly right along, together. My newest challenge to is to get the VS and the BSP to play nicely. My VB is on MIDI channel 1, my VFM is on MIDI channel 2, and using firmware 2.0, I configured the Drum section of the BSP to have the pads send out MIDI channels 3-16. Unfortunately, I get nothing to come out of the Sample, when doing that. I unplugged one of the other Volcas to check for voltage, but that wasn't the issue. Is there something I need to set up in the VS for it to receive the MIDI in this manner? Thanks, again, for the support.

[mrs1977]

Additionally, I think I'm still going to use a MIDI through splitter rather than that Belkin splitter. But I only connected the VS to the BSP and it still didn't work. Any support on how to get the VS and to receive individual MIDI channels per pad would be great appreciated. Thanks!

[megamarkd]

The VSample has a very well known issue when it comes to addressing it.  This cable apparently solves the issue: https://www.retrokits.com/rk-002/
The BSP Drum seq can assign different channels per pad so could possibly a solution without buying the RK-002 but you will only transmit one pitch per pad.  You set the channels by creating a drum map in MCC.

[mrs1977]

I thought the new BSP firmware was supposed to address this issue, making the cable unnecessary. Is this not the case? Thanks.

[megamarkd]

I thought the new BSP firmware was supposed to address this issue, making the cable unnecessary. Is this not the case? Thanks.

I don't own a Vsample so really can't say how to set up a BSP to run one, but I'm guessing it's all about using MCC to set different MIDI channels to the different pads in the drum map.