Ableton / 2 midi controllers

[stefan erhalder]

you can use as many midi controllers as you want with ableton live but live only supports 2 midi-in ports. so if you want to use more than 2 controllers you have to make a daisy-chain. this means you connect controller 1's midi out to controller 2's midi in and turn on controller 2's merge funtion, so that the midi in gets merged with the controller data generated by controller 2. the merge funtion is important because most midi devices only send their own generated midi data to the out port and the midi thru port only carries the midi in port data. then make sure that your controllers use diffrent midi messages/conroller numbers. the most easy way to make this is to set one controller to only send on midi channel 1 and the other only send on channel 2. this way it doesent matter if you use the same controller-# twice.
merging diffrent midi signals is also possible by software, so if you have a multi port midi interface you should be able to merge multiple midi ports to one virtual port inside the computer by software. i think there are freeware drivers available to do this. or you can use a hardware midi-merge box.

but remember, if you just want to use 2 diffrent midi controllers which both have a usb port - you can forget the above stuff and just make sure they transmit data on diffrent midi channels.

[skept]

thanks so much for this post and the additional information. i have been wondering about this for a long time!