I've been learning Pd for a couple months now, piecing things together from other people's questions on this forum, but now I have to ask my own question... (which happens to be my first post)

I have been able to successfully control my novation X-station synth and/or my electribe sampler with midi messages from Pd. I just bought a second midi to usb cable (some M-audio thing) and that works too. But what I couldn't seem to figure out is how can I send one set of midi events to the sampler and another separate set of events to the synth.

Specifically, I want to be able to program a beat and control that with one set of midi notes, but not have them go through to the synth. And I want to program a synth line, but not have those notes triggering the sampler.

I tried doing the "use multiple devices" and I have both things show up, but I don't know how to do what i'm trying to do. I read something about maybe using [noteout 1] and [noteout 2] or something like that.... I'm kinda stuck. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Have you tried to set each device to its own midi channel (1 and 2 or wutev), and then using [noteout 1] and 2?

Yes, I tried setting the sampler to midi channel 1 and the synth to midi channel 2 but so far i've only been able to control one thing at a time or both simultaneously. Actually, I think I got some sort of error when using multiple devices saying one of the midi outs was bad or something like that. (I'm at work right now, otherwise I'd have more specific information. I'm just going by what I remember from last night.)

The only thing I can think of that I haven't tried yet is something I read about midiindev or midioutdev, but that seems a bit over my head in terms of step by step how and where to type this in and set it up.

also, FYI, I am running this on a macbook. The x-station synth has a built-in usb connection along with midi in and out. I had been hooking the sampler up to the midi out from the x-station, but anytime I sent notes to control the sampler, the synth would also sound on whichever note it got. I want to be able to sequence a beat on the sampler without it triggering notes on the synth and vice versa.

I'm not 100% sure if I really needed to get the m-audio usb to do this, but I thought it might make it easier to have two separate usb connections. I've been able to succesfully control both devices using the different connections, just not separate like how i want.

Also, I don't want to sound too demanding, but the more simplified the explanation the better... such as "here's an example of a patch that will do what you want." That would be amazing. I'm still learning and I think I learn best when I see a working example or specific instructions on how to create a working example. Thanks in advance.

>>I had been hooking the sampler up to the midi out from the x-station<<

does the x-station have a midi 'thru' port too? or just in and out? because if you want to send midi to the sampler via another device, you'd probably have to have a midi thru port to do that (if i recall correctly)

if you don't have a midi through port, then i think it would be best to use the midi-usb device you have.

set the electribe to receive on midi channel 1 only. and then attach it to the the midi-usb device with a midi cable.

connect the x-station to the electribe's midi 'thru' outlet with a midi cable. set the x-station to recieve on midi channel 2 only.

then open pd and set midi output to the midi-usb device name, and then [noteout 1] should talk to the electribe only, and [noteout 2] should talk to the x-session

one more thing:
does the x-station have its own power source? if so, then disconnect the usb cable. you won't need it. but if the device needs usb for power, then maybe you can still leave it connected via usb as well, but don't select it as a device in pd, because it will be receiving midi messages via the electribe anyway.

one more thing again: really if the x-station has a midi through port, then just attach that to the electribe and all your worries should be gone.

ok... I think I just figured it out, or at least i made a breakthrough of some sort. It turns out I think it might have been a midi setting in a sub-menu on the x-station that was specifying what was controlling the synth. I just found that and set it to 'midi in' as the control source of the x-station's synth.

the noteout 1 and noteout 2 are now working the way i want them to... so as of right now I have opened up a bunch of new possibilities. i always wanted to be able to program patterns for the x-station because the synth sounds really good (and i'm admittedly not that great of a pianist) so this is a good thing.

thanks everybody. i'm sure i'll be back with more questions sooner or later.