[Solved]: Arturia Buchla Easel MIDI

#1

Hi,

I’ve been trying to map the Thunder overlay to Arturia’s Buchla Easel via MIDI learn, and haven’t been having any luck: when MIDI learn is activated in the Easel, tapping on one of the pads on the Thunder to assign the parameter to the pad doesn’t produce any result. I tried all of the presets 1-9 but haven’t yet succeeded in controlling anything on the Easel via the Morph/Thunder. This is disappointing, since the demo videos show Thunder controlling the Buchla Easel in several places.

Controlling the Buchla Easel was my main reason for purchasing the Morph and Thunder overlay in the first place. Is there any more detailed info about configuring it as a MIDI controller for the Easel with MIDI learn? The info in the manual is scant, and there surprisingly doesn’t appear to be any discussion of it in the Community forum.

#2

No worries - this is all possible.
First - are you using the Easel V as a standalone or as a plug in with a DAW?
If plug-in, which daw?
The other issue is that MIDI learn is challenging with controllers that send multiple midi parameters per touch - the software hasn’t caught up to these awesome ideas yet!
I can detail that later, but first let me know the answers to the above questions.

#3

Here’s a quick and basic tutorial video on how to map the Sensel Buchla Thunder Overlay to the Buchla Easel V using MIDI learn:


Here’s a quick example of mapping the X-axis of the hex pad:
#4

Thanks for getting back to me - I have the standalone version of Arturia’s Buchla Easel, so am not using a DAW.

#6

Great, then those videos should be immediately applicable.

#8

Hi again Peter. I’ve been watching the videos and managed to get the Morph to control timbre on the Arturia Buchla Easel V via MIDI learn, exactly as in the first video.

Here’s the problem I’m having with MIDI Learn: I can ONLY assign one slider - any slider - on the Buchla to a pad on the Morph, but not multiple sliders to different pads.

When a connection is made, the pop-up on the Buchla indicates CC# 74, MIDI channel 2. However, it then turns out that ALL pads on the Morph then control the SAME slider on the Buchla; it doesn’t seem possible to assign different pads to different sliders, so I can control, say, Attack, Sustain, and Decay sliders, with different pads.

I have tried changing the CC# assignments on individual pads to, for example, a V Slider control, with different CC#s for different pads. I then send the new mapping to the Morph. It makes no difference: when I try to set up MIDI learn on the Buchla and tap the supposedly remapped pad on the Morph, it just defaults back to CC#74/midi ch2. I’ve tried doing this on different sets and then downloading them to the Morph, but it seems like the Buchla only recognizes the Pitch Bend number/channel.

My remappings are showing up on the Morph app interface and appear to be sending to the device itself (the LEDs flash, indicating a transfer), but the remapped pads don’t seem to be registering when the Morph connects to the Buchla. I’ve been trying to get beyond controlling a single slider on the Buchla for weeks now but can’t figure out a solution. Am I missing something here?

Thanks,

Martin

Thanks for any suggestions you may have on this!

Martin

#9

First thing to note:
The default startup state for the Thunder overlay is an MPE setup. That means every key sends out a note, CC 74, and pitchbend on every press. The channel will vary depending on the order you touch the keys, starting at channel 2. So if you are trying to use MIDI Learn with this setup, and only touch one slider at a time, the MIDI learn system will grab the first control it sees in the stream: CC74 on Ch 2. Read more about MPE here.

You may be missing the concept of presets on the Buchla Thunder Overlay.
If you use the SenselApp to edit the Thunder, and edit preset 3, for example, when you flash the Morph with your new map, it will load preset 1 by default. This may make it seem like there is nothing changed! You’ll need to use the “programmer’s bar” to select a preset using keys 1-9. See our guide for more info.

If you just want to use sliders, you can use Preset 5 - that is setup with single CCs for all the keys.

Hope that helps clear up the confusion!

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