MIDI Controller for Rig16

Fuse AudioFuse
#1

Hello Sound Explorers,

Just got the Rig16 and trying to get it set up for stand-alone use.

First issue: I have a BeatStep and was thinking I can use it to control 16 individual channel levels on the Rig16, and 16 channel mutes. Thru the AFCC MIDI page, I’m able to map channels 1-8 but cannot find anyway to select channels 9-16 to map to. I want to do this so I can mute various instruments during play. Not seeing anyway to do this. AFCC has a dropdown to select channels to display, but it only says 1-8.

Second issue: Same setup as above… using BeatStep to mute/unmute and change levels of channels. When I plug the Rig16 into MacBook Air with Logic Pro, the mutes and channel levels have no effect on what Logic Pro is seeing. Sure, I guess I would then have to map the BeatStep to Logic Pro, but that seems like an extra silly step? That would mean the USB out is pre-fader then? Can this be changed?

I’m used to just running my instruments into a mixer, and sum to Logic. Thinking using a MIDI controller with the Rig16 is going to be a mess, and I should just get a separate 16 channel mixer to run before the Rig16? That would be a shame though… defeats the purpose of the Rig16 mixer capabilities.

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#2

Hello ! And welcome on our forum.

First issue: MIDI control of the 16Rig is working by pages. It means you will map only 8 channels and two buttons to go to the previous or next 8 channels. The AFCC is indicating which channel is currently selected in the mixer on top of the channels.

Second issue: You are right. Currently you can only control the Mixer of the 16Rig, and not the inputs parameters. This will probably be addressed in an update as we think this is important and useful for everyone. You already know the workaround, using your DAW MIDI mapping to handle that while we take the time to implement MIDI input control.

So yes, the current MIDI implement of the 16Rig is very good for a standalone/live use where you use the mixer, but become less powerful in a studio settings.
We are aware of that and we will improve it at some point.

Cheers !

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#3

Hello Tim,

Thank you for your input. I also spoke with Arturia Tech Guillaume—he said the same regarding the page/bank of channels, and added that I would only be able to see changes/bank selections by going back to the main mixer page on the AFCC. Unfortunately I am not able to select the page/bank for 9-16 no matter how I map, and I’ve tried many different presets/buttons on the BeatStep to no avail. I’m thinking this is because I am using the BeatStep and not a dedicated MIDI DAW controller? I’d appreciate any recommendations on controllers if the BeatStep is just not suitable for this. I thought that it would be ideal since it had 16 independent (and assignable) rotary encoders and buttons. It is also entirely possible I am not assigning things properly on the BeatStep—but I can get 1-8 working the way I need so I can’t be that far off.

Regarding future MIDI updates… let me try to explain better what I want to do:
Before I purchased the Rig16, I ran all my instruments into a mixing board with monitors. I could easily mute instruments during performances and change levels of instruments from the mixing board live. When I wanted to record a performance, I would simply sum out of the mixing board into an interface and to Logic Pro.

What I was hoping I could do with the Rig16 and BeatStep, is have the BeatStep act as a mixing board to mute and level control over individual channels during live performances, and then simply plug the Rig16 into Logic Pro to record the live performance—but instead of L+R, I would have all 16 channels recorded. I am able to record no problem.

Having to re-map the BeatStep as a DAW controller for Logic Pro is a minor annoyance… but I’m wondering if I should just get a 16 channel analog mixer with direct outs to the Rig16? That would solve both problems.

OR how about Arturia come up with a MIDI Mixer Controller for the Rig16? Call it the Mix16. That would be awesome so long as it was priced under the Rig16!

Also… you said: “Currently you can only control the Mixer of the 16Rig, and not the inputs parameters.” Is this also why, when I change a channel’s level with the BeatStep, I see the fader move, and the volume reduces in my monitors, but the VU meter next to the fader doesn’t change (still shows full input from my instrument?)

Thank you again for your time—looking forward to any further input.

Mike

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#4

Update: I got the AFCC to change MIDI banks. The error was mine–I had a duplicate MIDI assignment on the BeatStep.

However, I have determined that the only assignable buttons that will work are the 1-16 pads. Not the Stop and Play pad (even though MIDI Control Center lets me assign values to them).

So, if I assign pads 15 and 16 to bank down/up, I can successfully change channel banks. Problem is, I have to use pads 1-8 to control the channels–I cannot assign pads 9-16.

I should probably look for a dedicated DAW MIDI Controller.

#5

Hi ,hot some questions too regarding mixing with 16rig in dawless configuration.
I’d like to use 16rig to simplify my audio routing and to have the same routing in daw configuration or dawless configuration. ( For the moment i need a mixer for dawless and my audio interface for daw control , it doesn’t really make sense.
In dawless mode I’d like to midi control levels, pans and sends from a midi controller for at least 8 stereo sources and 2 stereo sends
Can the 16rig do that ?
In perfect world I’d like to use motorised fader control surface . Does the 16rig also sends midi information about its current state?
Do far I haven’t found the perfect midi control surface for that user scenario as it seems most daw controllers don’t allow the motorized faders to just send and receive midi in some dawless mode. ( Behringer xtouch does midi but it’s not configurable) … Anyone can advertise a good controller ?

#6

Hmmm weird, I don’t know the BSP very well, if it sends a MIDI CC it should work. And if this is assignable in the MCC, it should probably send a midi CC.
You should consider contacting our support team, they may have leads to help you on this one.

Yes, the mixer is fully controllable from MIDI so you can do that.

Not yet.
It’s too early to say that we will do it but we may.

#7

Tim - Even though I can reassign the Stop and Play in the MCC the buttons have no effect in the AFCC MIDI page. Guillaume from Tech Support mentioned the Stop and Play trigger and output multiple messages at the same time, even when they are reassigned, and that was probably why I was having issues.

Regarding Rituun’s needs… I think we are having the same issue: A MIDI controller can operate the 16Rig standalone, but when the 16Rig is hooked up to a DAW, that MIDI controller has no effect on the sends to the DAW. Therefore, the MIDI controller needs to be re-mapped to the DAW, OR a second MIDI controller is required to be connected to the DAW full time. Both solutions seem silly.

I thought I would have to buy a 16 I/O mixer to place ahead of the Arturia so I can mute, pan, etc. into my DAW. But there’s not a lot of affordable mixers with 16 or more ins, and 16 or more outs… I’d have to do a bunch of busing and that’s more complicated than it needs to be.

Simpler (and cheaper) solution is to build 16 individual preamps with NE5534s, add a mute switch to the output of each, then run that to a line level buffer (NE5532) ahead of each channel on the 16Rig. Of course that would get expensive if I decided on transformer coupled :grimacing:

Final note… MIDI issues aside, I absolutely LOVE the sound of the interface. Night and day difference from the SSL interface I was using.

#8

I agree that’s sad.
We are aware that the needs of being able to map MIDI to the inputs parameters is important and we will adresse that in an update.

#9

Any news here?

I am trying to walk a fine line here between being polite but also sharing how bad the situation is.

In short: Bank switching makes a lot of sense for DAW integration (it’s basically required) but for standalone mode and DAWless users, it’s a fatal design flaw.

I almost didn’t buy the 16rig because of this, but I decided that I would accept the world of workarounds. However, I do still hope the dev team understands how debilitating of a blocker the bank switching is for standalone scenarios.

I have 21 synths in my studio (with another on the way). I can fit my most commonly used lead and bass voices on the 16rig thanks to the ADAT expandability.

The 16rig SHOULD be the showcase device that tames my whole synth rack. But for bank switching ruining it, I would be recommending the 16rig to all my friends.

Here’s why:

While my 16 ‘main’ synths all fit, they are also all unique, especially in how they sit in the main mix (or don’t) and how they each use the AUX busses (or don’t). They are NOT symmetric and bank switching forces me to invent some artificial symmetry in their mixer setup. This is a maintainability mess as well, as I have to think about every config change in terms of the multiple channels it might break.

It’s also just infuriating to have enough physical controls on my MIDI controller but have half of them sit unused while doing bank gymnastics with the other half. Technically each of my physical controls has an alternate function, so I could be controlling 32 parameters if I didn’t have to squeeze through banks of 8.

I presume having a setting that disables bank switching is “hard”, or you guys would have done it already. I similarly presume that bank sizes > 8 are equally difficult.

Have you thought of any other schemes? For example, could we associate bank numbers with midi channels? This would allow for banks in the architecture while making them more transparent to the user (assuming they set up their controller mappings correctly).

I’m just brainstorming here.

I really do think doing something to alleviate the bank issue would represent a quantum leap in usability for standalone/DAWless users.

Thank you for consideration,
Francis

#10

Hi @francish - I had the same reaction as you - you’ll probably find my complaint in this regard in another thread. Others have also raised this as an issue.

I also had plenty of physical controls available - I’ve lots of midi controllers in my set-up - which made this bank switching limitation really irritating once I started configuring the 16rig and integrating it into my set-up.

In the end it was so critical to me to be able to control my mix properly, that I spent time to write a program and have it running in an attached tiny computer - a Raspberry PI - to perform MIDI-mapping. My program sends bank flip midi messages to the 16rig if necessary when I use faders, etc. for channels not in the currently selected bank. After a certain amount of debugging - I’m happy enough with how it works. I currently have 14 channels (mix of stereo and mono and 2 stereo aux returns) which I can control with 14 strips on my midi controllers which I can use to mute/fade/control aux send levels.

BUT!!! I really don’t feel this should be necessary and I can’t understand why a bankless mode is not supported. You can configure (on the midi page) for bank sizes of 2, 4 and 8 - it would seem like a simple and obvious thing to also offer a bank size of 16.

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#11

It’s pretty disappointing how little attention Arturia has given the 16Rig since launch, especially considering how half-baked some of its features are. It feels like they may be stretched too thin there these days. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary next month. I hope we’ll see some improvements soon.

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#12

I have been holding back on the purchase of a 16Rig and two X8 ins because the MIDI mapping capability is so lacking.

The plan was to use the rigs as a standalone mixer that is also a multichannel audio interface when I want to record something.

Ideally the interfaces would be out of the way with everything connected where it needs to be.

I have an Electra One controller that I am otherwise using and I would have wanted to control the mixer with that.

The current way of “relative” MIDI mappings where all state is kept on the controller for certain things makes it impossible to have a robust setup like this.

There is no way to know which bank is selected because the controller doesn’t have feedback over MIDI and it is not possible to query the current state either.

Having a way to do absolute MIDI mappings would at least improve things with the banks for example.

What I mean by absolute here is that instead of having two mappings to navigate to the previous/next bank, there would be one mapping, a CC or note on, where the value/note byte of the MIDI message is used to select the active bank.

At least that way, a scriptable MIDI controller like the Electra could sync itself with the 16rig by resetting certain things into a known state.

The same thing goes for mute/solo as well, there needs to be an absolute mapping for them because otherwise it is not possible to build any robust MIDI control surface for the mixer.

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#13

I wouldn’t let the midi software deficiencies stop you from getting the 16Rig–I absolutely love mine despite the midi issues. Sound quality and ease of use is great.

The work-around I found was to route the instruments I frequently mute to channels 1-8. That way I don’t need to switch banks. Not ideal, but it works for me. And although those mutes don’t send out to my DAW, I’ve just been cutting where I want to mute in the DAW. I would still like the option to mute the 16Rig’s audio to the DAW, but again, I’ve found the work-around to be sufficient. Plus, I’ve had some mixes where I’m like ‘huh, I should/shouldn’t mute here, or there…’

I saw the other day that Arturia released an update for the 16Rig but I haven’t seen any release notes regarding improved midi functionality. I’m not brave enough to update as my 16Rig works. Anyone update theirs? Any change to midi?

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#14

Wait, so you run your 16 Rig as a mixer while simultaneously recording to the DAW? How does this work? The way I’ve been doing it, I have presets for when I’m using it DAWless, and then I switch presets for when I want to track into the DAW. The only changes in the presets are Aux routing and USB 1-2 gets soloed. If there’s a way to use both at once, that would be incredible. I’ve been wanting to monitor instruments via the AFCC while I record into the DAW, but this ends up being not so usable when all my sends are routed in the DAW.

#15

No… the 16Rig will not function as a mixer while recording. I wish it would. That’s one of my biggest gripes the with 16Rig.

#16

Is there any other interface out there that works like that though? It would be pretty amazing, but not sure how it would work.

#17

Maybe I’m not understanding what you two mean, but you definitely can use the 16Rig as both a mixer and an interface at the same time. I keep mine set up with the main mixer containing all of the inputs with an instrument connected plus the USB 1-2 source (which is the DAW main output). I leave the instrument channels muted except when I’m tracking and want to monitor directly.

The matrix is set up with each analog source mapped to its corresponding USB destination, which I can then route into DAW tracks.

The main mix is routed to my monitors.