KX Studio, M-Audio Axiom 49, Roland R70.

[jtode]

Hey all. After a long absence from music, I'm looking to get a project studio together again.

At the moment I'm exploring what I can do with my gear at hand, at the moment the gear in the title. I'm running KX Studio (distro) through a Scarlett 2i2 and audio is working perfectly, but I'm thinking I probably just need to buy a dedicated Midi interface. I'm not even sure that what I want to do is possible, though it should be.

So, at the moment I have the Axiom plugged into the pc and the R-70 connected to its MIDI ports with traditional cables. Right this second, I have a simple midi drum track (just me bashing the pads a bit) which, if I play it, triggers the appropriate samples on the R70. The midi out on that track is connected to "USB Axiom 49 Midi 1" output. This is all working as it should be - there is a function on the Axiom that selects whether the out sends what is received through the USB cable or sends the local controls, and when I toggle it the drum track starts and stops bouncing the input meters.

I am reasonably certain that at some point last night, I created that drum track by touching the pads on the R70, so at some point the midi signals coming out of the R70 reached Ardour. Currently, they are not doing so.

I have had a fair amount of weird behavior out of this rig. I also don't really understand what is going on with Midi & Jack/Alsa/Catia - most of the time for recording midi I connect the "USB Axiom 49 MIDI 1" input to the track I want to record, it records, bobsyeruncle. But there is also the mysterious "USB Axiom 49 MIDI 2" input, which I had always assumed would be the route by which signals coming into the physical Midi In port got routed to the USB port, but that does not appear to be happening. Then there's the even-more-mysterious Midi Through Port-0 to Port-15

Anyways, I'm simultaneously reading the manuals for both pieces of gear (and boy did they write thorough manuals for drum machines in 1992), cause I don't know whether I turned off sending from the R70, need to configure something on the axiom, or if this is just some arcane bug with the midi implementation. I'm currently using "None" as the Midi driver.

Anyways, I'm reading manuals today, but if anyone has any relevant experience with this particular gear, would love to have some input.