Using one 01v96 to remote control another, can I do it?

Greetings, I found your forum through Kristian Johnsen’s thread on remote controlling his 01v96 and other midi desks. His requirements are a little different to mine so I though I would ask for help with my situation.

The Church I attend has built a lovely sealed booth around the sound desk - acoustically stupid (I call it) the sound equipment it now encloses is an 01v96 with a Behringer ada8000 to add to the amount of inputs from the band and give me more balanced aux outs.

I have been using Studio Manager with a silex (network usb port) and a laptop, also remoting into the laptop via vnc on an iPad (and even iPhone)

We have another unused 01v96 from a different venue and I was wondering if I could get some long midi cables and connect them to the spare 01v96 so I can sit in the same sound field as the congregation. I basically want to clone the desk so whatever I do on the remote desk is mirrored on the desk in the booth (with the real audio)

can I do it?

Thank you for any help - a bit about me as its my first post, I started young as a musician and slowly built up a (very) non profitable sound company with a friend, I did it for the love and had fun, Using the Yamaha digital desks, Nexo, EAW mains and also did a bit of live recording using the adat expansion card in the 01v96 and a Mackie SDR recording timestamped broadcast .wav files
I also worked in theatre and taught stagecraft in a college. then I met my wife - stepped away from Gigging and PA and took a day job as a media tec in a school, I now film, edit, animate, teach and am also really into photography. Still keeping my hand in live sound at Church and playing the odd gig.

Cheers

Al

Hello Al, and welcome!

You can control one console from another, and if you’re using identical consoles, most functions can be mirrored.
This document describes how to do it using DM2000 consoles, but the procedure would be similar for the 01V96.

Basically you need to connect the MIDI in on console #1 to the MIDI out on console #2, and the MIDI out on console #1 to the MIDI in on console #2 and then set the MIDI settings on the consoles to receive and transmit Parameter Change messages. You also need to make sure the consoles have the same scene memory and settings before they are connected, done by saving a setup file on one console and loading that file on the other.

If you want to connect the consoles via USB I think you’ll need a computer in line as the USB on the console can only connect to a computer, not to another console.

Try it with the MIDI cables first to see how it works and then look for ways to extend your range, either long MIDI cables, wireless MIDI or a USB/computer solution.

Thank you Andy, a brilliant and speedy reply, just what I needed! I now have enough info to start experimenting.

Thanks again,

Allan

Just an update on my situation…

I have been using 2 o1v96’s with midi cable connections - about 3 meters outside of the ‘sound booth’ this gives me complete control over the mixing desk in the booth (apart from level meters) it works great. My next step is to use a Silex USB wifi server to connect into studio manager remotely from anywhere in the room. the desk in the booth with the actual audio running through it will be connected via usb cable into studio manager.
So far I have beed able to connect both desks into the computer and control them independently, however so far I am unable to ‘mirror’ the desks so one control on one desk moves the same control on the other.

does anyone have any insight on this? I have followed the instructions as per the link in Andy’s post above and it seems to imply that direct mirroring is possible using studio manager in between.

Thank you for any help.
Al

Just to be clear, are you saying that when connecting the 2 consoles together as described in that document I linked, you can operate one console from the other, but when you connect SM to one of the consoles, you can control the console you’re connected to but it doesn’t control the other simultaneously?

Or do you mean something else?

Hi Andy, In the document it outlines 2 different ways of connecting 2 desks together.
The first is via 5pin midi cables - this works fine.
The second way is using 2 USB cables into a computer and using studio manager, in this way the desks are not linked together (there are two separate desks in sm) I am unsure if this is because I have not done something right or if it is how it’s meant to be.

Hope this helps

Al

If you want both, connect them both ways. Use the MIDI cables to mirror the consoles AND the USB to connect them to your computer. My thought was that you’d only need to connect the USB to one of the consoles, but not sure.
Try it and let me know.

Hello Andy and AKendall. I made a “table” a while ago (so new firmware could have changed things) of what goes out of the midi output from an 01v96, depending upon what you put in, and where you put it in (move something on the desk, move something in studio manager, inject into the input or the output of studio manager with mii-ox etc. You will probably not be happy, as it depends upon whether it is an encoder, on/off button, or other button etc… they all behave differently!
You can find the table here:
http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=443&d=1293999729
in a pdf called “Yamaha Desk Input + Output Midi Messages.pdf”

It is a bit hard to understand. I had trouble laying it out in an obvious way. If you read all of the notes then it could become more understandable!

I would suggest that when you are using SM you only connect to the desk that is running the audio, and then maybe use Bome (or other) to send a sysex dump instruction every now and then so that the other desk is properly updated. Or maybe you could use Andy’s “Yammie” to record from SM and replay to a second instance of SM at regular intervals (maybe too “exotic”?).

Best wishes,
David Kent.

Man, you sure were working hard putting together all that info!

Hi, I am trying to achieve a wireless link between two desks, mirroring each other. Using MIDI cables won’t ultimately help me with this - I am now investigating using some sort of MIDI bridging software that will send the signals from one desk to the other (via a computer using USB). I’ll let you know how it goes.

Al

Thank you David - hopefully I won’t need to get too embroiled in this - nice work though!! I think I need a simple midi bridging program which will emulate a midi cable connected from one desk to another (via USB)

Hi, I am new to this forum and had just discovered this thread.
I think Studio Manager cannot clone two different physical desks.
One software that can bridge MIDI inside a computer is Copperlan, which I use to freely patch MIDI ports to and from several applications inside my laptop. Connecting hardware ins & outs together must be possible. That software can also send MIDI to other computers on a LAN and directly to compatible pieces of gear. Copperlan is free but proprietary. Jack is another free software, and is open source, but seems a bit complicated to handle, and (so) I don’t use it.

I guess that it must be possible to link both 01V96 via USB and a common computer, and this kind of software. For example :
USB-MIDI out 1 from desk A > Copperlan virtual MIDI cable > USB-MIDI in 1 into desk B
USB-MIDI out 1 from desk B > Copperlan virtual MIDI cable > USB-MIDI in 1 into desk A
Then configure both desks like akendall did when linking them through standard MIDI cables, except for the ports assignements that should be USB-1 (or whatever between 1 and 8) instead of MIDI.
One or both usb cables could be extended by some wired or wireless mean, although I don’t master that.

It should also be possible to remote control any one of the desk with studio manager using another of the eight virtual MIDI ports embedded in the USB cable. The direct connection between the desks should clone the settings to the other :
Studio Manager < USB-MIDI 8 > Desk A < USB-MIDI 1 - COPPERLAN OR JACK - USB-MIDI 1 > Desk B

It maybe also be possible to patch the MIDI outs of both desks to the same MIDI in of Studio Manager (using Copperlan as a merger) >> any change on any desk will be reflected to studio manager (but not to the other desk, bad idea !), and then patch Studio Manager’s MIDI out to both desks’ MIDI ins (using Copperlan as a splitter)… Maybe consoles’ IDs will mess things up…

(I assume that the USB port on a 01V96 acts like the one on a 01V96i, giving 8 virtual MIDI ins and outs between the desk and the computer)