Humusprivate beta

5. MIDI, controllers and sync

Goal: put your hardware on the patch, and keep the patch in time with everything else in the room.

You leave with: a controller mapped to the knobs that matter, and a clock shared with another app or box.

Ports

Humus has eight MidiIn and eight MidiOut ports, each assigned one device in Settings. A MidiIn organism on the canvas picks a port and sends notes down dotted cords. A node's MIDI Receive mode chooses omni, cords only, or one channel; cords only is the default, so nothing plays until you wire it.

Steps

  1. Assign a port. Settings > MIDI & OSC, your keyboard on port 1.
  2. MidiIn on the canvas, port 1, cord into Rhizome. Play.
  3. MIDI Learn. Right-click Acid's Cutoff, MIDI Learn, turn a knob on the controller. It maps and the window closes itself.
  4. Shift combos. Hold a pad while learning the next knob: that pad is now a shift and the knob has two jobs. Latch it and it is a bank.
  5. See every mapping. Control > Parameter Control (F3) lists what moves what. Right-click a knob > Clear all control to start it over.
  6. Map the Metapad. Its MIDI X and MIDI Y take two controllers, or an XY pad.
  7. OSC. Enable OSC input and map a slider from a phone app the same way. A game pad joins the same bus by itself.
  8. Clock. Control > Generate MIDI Clock sends the tempo to hardware; Chase MIDI Clock follows it instead. Ableton Link on the transport shares tempo and bar phase with every Link app on the network.
  9. Pitch bend reaches every pitched instrument, and BendRange on each sets how far.

Shot list

  1. The port grid, a device dropped on port 1.
  2. MidiIn wired, the keyboard played, Rhizome's voices stacking.
  3. Right-click, MIDI Learn, a hardware knob turned, the window closing.
  4. A pad held, a second knob learned, the mapping reading "note + CC".
  5. The Parameter Control window, every mapping in one list.
  6. An XY pad sweeping the Metapad.
  7. A phone slider moving a knob over OSC; a game pad stick doing the same.
  8. Link on, a second app on the network snapping to the bar.
  9. The wheel bent, Acid sliding.

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