Possible MiniLAB fix, Ableton 9, Windows 7 device manager mess.

[Smoothaction]

More than capable Lenovo ideaPad, Windows 7 Ultimate, Ableton Live 9.2.1, MiniLAB.

Recently purchased a new MiniLab. I thought, "Great! This will be awesome as a UNIVERSAL MIDI CONTROLLER." You know, since it says so right on the box and hardware. Well, it was way too much hair pulling from initial plug in, and I certainly have criticisms about Arturia's instructions and customer support. I have never had so much trouble getting Ableton 9 to recognize a midi controller, or any other DAW/MIDI combination ever. Also, just getting my PC to recognize the hardware at all was nothing short of frustrating.

The instructions are simple enough. Download software, install, register, good to go. However no matter what I did (uninstall, restart, reinstall, change usb ports, change cables, in every conceivable order, etc...) my PC would simply not correctly recognize the MiniLAB in the "sound, video and game controller" area of Device Manager. It would, without fail, always be listed under "unknown devices". Uninstalled there, repeat, try new usb port, reset usb port, it went on forever. This meant the hardware would not communicate with the MIDI Center, Analog Lab, or Ableton (yes, I put the user config file in the correct location for Ableton). I'm computer literate and the Arturia MiniLAB instructions are dead simple (too simple?), but for a CLASS-COMPLIANT device this should have not been a problem.

My first encounter with Arturia support was less than spectacular. I stated most of these issues, within the ridiculously limited character text box, and although I did get a fairly quick reply (4 days) the response was completely inadequate and totally dodged the core issue. Not verbatim, but essentially the response was "Of course it will work. Just turn on "Track" and "Remote" tabs in Ableton's MIDI configuration." This would've been fine if my system correctly recognized the MiniLAB, since it's supposed to be class-compliant, but It didn't and I have serious doubts the CS rep thoroughly read my inquiry to begin with.

More research reading about more problems with the MiniLAB, Win7 MIDI issues, etc...

I reached out again, and got a better answer that still didn't get to the core issue. Basically it was, "You should see the device in the 'sound, video and game controller' area of Device Manager, then you..." No, it's wasn't there and that's why I'm contacting you, Arturia. At least he/she was much nicer in their response. Now, I'm not completely sure who's at fault here. It's highly possible my Win7 just hates the MiniLab because I wouldnt be the first one, or the included software didn't install properly 37 times, but come on... The MiniLAB forum is 95% technical issues.

I found a solution that wasn't stated anywhere, so maybe this will help someone down the line. I only wanted to use this as a universal midi controller, just like it specifically says on package and product. Couldn't have cared less about Analog Lab, I just wanted the most basic of MIDI functions for Ableton. Like a universal MIDI controller should do.

Again, my issues were:

1. Installation of Analog Lab and MIDI control center did NOT assist my computer in recognizing the "class-compliant" MiniLAB. No matter what.
2. MiniLAB was only popping up in the "Unknown Devices" category within Device Manager. No matter what. I could go into far more explanation if needed.
3. Customer Service. Not trying to bash the Support Team, it may very well be my system. I'd still pay closer attention to the actual content of the inquiry, though.

SOLUTION

This is going to sound ridiculous, but all I did was apply the default YAMAHA USB MIDI DRIVER found within the driver list included in Win7. Seriously. That's it.

I understand if you folks at Arturia will refuse to recommend a different driver other than your own. I hope you also understand people would actually like to use your product, and avoid giving blanket statement solutions to fairly specific problems.

Fully functional, awesome product now. Zero issues with Ableton. Haven't even opened Analog Lab, probably never will. MIDI control center works great and recognizes it no problem as the MiniLAB. Hopefully this helps someone, and hopefully the support team reads this and can help someone else out when the device simply won't be recognized correctly. As of now there are more problems than solutions as far as I can tell, but I'm happy in the end and would be glad to elaborate the process if someone else is experiencing the same issue.

Thanks, I'm enjoying the MiniLAB finally!

-Smoothy

[Rfaith]

In my case, the controller is recognised just fine by the MIDI ControlCenter, but AnalogLAB just doesn't see it at all. Most of the time I don't want to be using a DAW but recording ideas "notepad style", maybe even as audio, so I depend more on the Arturia drivers than I feel I ought to. I'm sending back the MINILab in my case. The problem with a Universal MIDI Controller is the usual one, parallel universes.

It's a shame, because Analog Lab isn't too bad considering the extremely limited editing options, but when it can't even see the keyboard it is mated to, it's a bit crazy.

I discovered just now (throught the Intel Chipset scanner) that my chipset drivers are 4 years old even though this machine is less than a year old, so it may be that a refresh of chipset drivers, which should include USB handling, might improve the odds. If not, the RMA is the only route for me, sadly. I really like the Arturia interface design for the hardware, which is what makes the inability to get the hardware talking to the software so frustrating. At least I managed to audition the soft synths, briefly. Jupiter 8 & ARP 2600 sound quite nice.

[Smoothaction]

Hey Rfaith,

After reading your post I just tried AnalogLAB. I seem to have a similar issue - midi controlcenter picks it up the hardware fine and syncs as MiniLAB, but AnalogLAB will not communicate to the hardware. I've checked the 'box', no workey, then see the 'box' has been unchecked. I didn't buy this for AnalogLAB however, I wanted a basic MIDI controller for ableton (which works wonderfully after the above headache) but just playing the AnalogLAB with the mouse yielded some cool sounds. It is a shame, really.

[Rfaith]

I agree that MINILab is a nice idea, I just feel that the implementation isn't 100%, but it may be very close. With 30+ years in IT I'm only too well aware that sometimes it can be one tiny bug that makes the whole thing look like a house of cards.

Before I send my unit back on it's RMA I'm trying one last time to make it work for me (yes, I care about it!), so I'm firing my stuff up in Windows (10) with the device manager open, and the "Devices and Printers" window also open. I can watch USB devices come & go. In the devices & printers I can see what the system thinks is connected (and look at their properties) and in device manager I can see "hidden devices" and see whether any more of those are being created (when I first went in there were 10 minilabs (!)).

Anyway, today's discovery is that the MiniLab and SparkLE are showing up in "devices and printers" as "audio device". I thought, "okay, seems fine".

Then I went to a USB soundbar that I'm using for this testing and looked at how it identifies itself, and the soundbar says - "audio device, input device". Not only does that seem a bit backwards for a soundbar (unless perhaps it has an integral mic, which it doesn't!), but it tells me that for some reason my Arturia peripherals are not identifying themselves to the system as input devices. I would expect any half-decent software to look for input devices it can use as part of its startup routine.

So what I think may be happening for me, under Windows 8/8.1 & 10, is that the hardware components identify themselves to the system okay (to the point that they are visible, at least) but for whatever reason are not identifying themselves as input devices. It's quite possible that they're supposed to self-identify as inputs but fail to. When the software comes along it may ask Windows to "get me the device ID of the MINILAB from your list of input devices" and of course they don't come up in the list because they've appeared on the system only as audio devices. If I can get either hardware to work for me today one of the first things I'll do is see whether they have self-identified differently and become an "audio device, input device". That would clinch it for me, and in thanks Arturia could send me all their stuff (updated of course) in return for my diagnostic work! They don't want to know what my last freelance hourly rate was, and how many hours I've spent on this. That's why my RMA is reluctant - I'd rather spend time on things than waste it.

[Rfaith]

Well, after about 15 attempts I finally got the SparkLE (the least unreliable of the two) to be recognised by Spark2 without "trying another USB port" - which is a great way to create loads of hidden USB devices to clutter things up.

The SparkLE didn't show up as an input device, but something did come out of this.

SparkLE & MiniLab appear in the "Sound, Video and Game Controllers" entry in device manager, one entry each.

When it is working, SparkLE appears as a "USB Composite Device" under the "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" entry in device manager; when it is NOT working, it appears as a pair of entries under "Software Devices", called SparkLE[0] and SparkLE[1].

When SparkLE is working the pair of entries under "Software Devices", called SparkLE[0] and SparkLE[1] are grayed out.

So it seems that SparkLE and MiniLab are misidentifying themselves under Windows 8.1 and 10 as "Software Devices" rather than as "USB Composite Devices". I wouldn't mind betting that the Arturia AnalogLab, Spark2 and MIDI Control Center are looking for "USB Composite Devices" and not finding any, which would be why you can select either of these devices in the software interfaces (because they show up reliably as "Sound, Video and Game Controllers", but then fail to connect to them because behind the scenes they are not in the approved list of "USB Composite Devices". Instead, they're "mis-filed" under "Software Devices" - where they just don't work.

Now, Arturia and Microsoft could bat this one back and forth all day, but in the end "Mohammed must come to the mountain", and it'll be Arturia that needs to make this connection/identification sequence more reliable. Whatever the hardware is "saying" to Windows 8.1/10 is causing Windows to put the hardware into different device categories, and the Arturia back-end software fails to find them because of this. That's my working theory; it may not be 100%, but I'm sure it is in the ballpark.

[Rfaith]

One other note...

I finally managed to get the MiniLab to appear as a composite device like the SparkLE, rather than a "software device". MIDI Control Center can see it, the MIDI window in that program shows SYSEX and notes passing back & forth. Thought to myself "whoopee, I can start up AnalogLab and see how it goes... but...

AnalogLab now crashes. It looks as though it is firing up, then just dies.

APPCRASH
P1:Analog Lab.exe
P2: 1.2.3.782
P3: 559279c3
P4:Analog Lab.vst
P5:0.0.0.0
P6:559279b2
P7:c00000005
P8:001fb7e7
P9:
P10:

This is getting beyond comical. The path between a creative idea and a record of that idea should be as short as possible - not an obstacle course! Maybe a reboot would make the MiniLab/AnalogLab happier, but I just spent an hour getting Spark2 and SparkLE to communicate, so, first I'd have to do all that again because of course they never pair up straight away! I just want to get back to making music.

[Scaayt]

SOLUTION

This is going to sound ridiculous, but all I did was apply the default YAMAHA USB MIDI DRIVER found within the driver list included in Win7. Seriously. That's it.

I'm having this same issue, could you please explain how you apply the Yamaha driver?