(I’m using Ableton Live Suite 12 on Windows 10 x64)
I bought MiniFreak (Hardware) yesterday and registered it in my Arturia account to get the non-demo-version of MiniFreak V (VST, version 2.0.2.594).
What is working:
- I could update the firmware
- I can use the standalone MiniFreak V app with “Linked to MiniFreak” button
- I can use Ableton Live with ONE MiniFreak V (VST) with “Linked to MiniFreak” button
What is “buggy”:
- I can use Ableton Live with ONE MiniFreak V (VST) without “Linked to MiniFreak” but then only CC messages are sent, not CTL messages.
- I can get CTL messages working if I inside the VST press “Settings” → “MIDI” → and choose any MIDI controller besides the MiniFreak one. If I choose MiniFreak CTL messages are being sent to the VST, but the VST doesn’t react to it (regardless if I send this from my MiniFreak (HW) or any other MIDI controller). To get this to work again I have to choose another MIDI controller than MiniFreak, AND THEN ANOTHER MIDI controller. So If I press MiniFreak it will stop working with CTL messages and if I choose another controller it wont work, but when I choose another AGAIN it will work. So in order to get MIDI to Work I press “Settings” → “MIDI” → “Keylab” → “generic”.
What is not working whatsoever:
- I can not use two MiniFreak V (VST) at the same time. I can send CC to them both, but only one of them will respect and react to CTL messages, given that above choices are made (chosing a non-MiniFreak two times). Meaning that only ONE of the VST:s will listen to CTL at any given time.
- I can force another copy of the VST to listen to “knobs” by choosing the “Linked to MiniFreak” button, but that will as stated above kill all CTL messages so it’s not very useful in automation in Ableton Live.
Conclusion, what’s broken:
- In total this means that I can now only control CTL messages of one VST at the time, I haven’t found any way of controlling two VST:s at the same time, other than that I can send CC notes.
- Somehow the VST is broken when it comes to CTL listening and I think it is related to the option of being able to synchronize with the MiniFreak. Somehow the code seems to be different for CC and CTL. And I suspect it is the VST, because I get this behavior with all of my MIDI controllers, and the VST always “breaks” after I’ve tried to choose MiniFreak as MIDI controller.
So… Right now I can load multiple MiniFreak V (VST) in Ableton Live, but in practise I can only fully control one of them. So broken.
UPDATE:
I tinkered some more and managed to get a better result.
I can control CC and CTL of two MiniFreak V (VST) if I:
- Create a new project in Ableton Live
- Don’t use “Link to MiniFreak”
- Use another MIDI controller than MiniFreak
If I choose MiniFreak as MIDI controller the VST will stop listen to CTL, and then I need to choose another controller (than MiniFreak) followed with again choose another controller (than MiniFreak), to get it to work again.
It seems that I can link one of the VSTs and then unlink and get back the behavior I had before. So there seems to be some kind of state where the project can get messed up. It is unclear to me if the “Settings → Settings → Global Settings → MIDI Channel” option affect this work/wontwork bug.
UPDATE 2:
So I managed to fix my broken projects by creating new MIDI tracks within the project, with new MiniFreak V (VST) and then copy over the recorded MIDI and automation.
I did notice that when I create a new MIDI track and add the MiniFreak V (VST) to it, it by default doesn’t listen to CTL. You have to do the “set another MIDI controller than MiniFreak, twice”-trick to get it to work.
It might be that this bug of only being able to control one VST at the time problem never comes back, which would leave me with “only” having the bug of that the VST needs to have it’s MIDI controller changed, twice, before it works.