daniel wrote:

So I think I know the answer here, but I'll throw it out there anyway.

Hypothetically, if I had a reface CP, and an old korg M1, and I want to play the cp sounds from the m1 keyboard...easy enough.
But can I also play the m1 sounds from the cp keyboard at the same time?

Yes.

I'm guessing no, because in each direction they need a common midi channel, and I suspect one cannot assign a different midi channel to the sounds versus the keyboard on the reface line.

Your guess would be wrong.... At least as far as the capabilities of the reface CP. Turn LOCAL CONTROL = OFF, to prevent the reface CP from triggering itself, the MIDI OUT channel of the reface CP is fixed as Channel 1.

Hmmm so if I turned local off on both the CP and M1, set them both on midi channel 1...what happens? I could try this with my CS I guess, I just thought you might know and save me from digging out my M1 from the closet it currently resides in. lol

By turning Local Control OFF, you disconnect the keys of the instrument from its tone generator... So signal only goes out via Midi. You said you wanted to play the other from the opposite keyboard - and that is what will happen.

MIDI since 1983!

Indeed.
However while I have done a lot of midi via sequencer, workstation combis and so on, I've actually done very little that required local off.
Anyway cool that it works, and it means a plan for a rig will work perfectly.....even if there is no mellotron/rompler reface in the future.
Ironically, part of the goal is to not utilize midi any more than absolutely necessary.

Ironically, part of the goal is to not utilize midi any more than absolutely necessary.

We have made it goal to use MIDI wherever possible. 🙂 It is one of the art forms most powerful tools!!!

Well here is where I am coming from.
When I started playing keyboards in the 70's, you generally needed a few different instrument, most of which really only did one basic sound.
So I had an electric piano, a combo organ, a string machine, and a mono synth.
There were limitations of course, but advantages too.

Then came the workstation era, where you could have a single instrument capable of many sounds and combinations, but it involved a fair amount of pre-planning and menu diving. Pretty amazing results are possible though.
However I found myself getting a series of quite different gigs, and having to spend a fair amount of time simply setting up combis. It worked fine, but I did find it less spontaneous than I like.

When I got the CS, and played the YC and CP at a store, I really fell in love with the idea of more instruments that don't do a zillion things, but what they do they do really well, and are very immediate and intuitive to get the sound you want, and even subtly change it within a song, or solo or what have you. I find I am more creative for writing or improvising when if I get an idea, I can just do it by going to another instrument for that sound, or tweeking a knob or slider to change or evolve a sound based on my inspiration in the moment.

The small size of the reface line means that a person could have a 3 or 4 or 5 keyboard rig without taking up a ton of stage or studio real estate, and where sound choices can happen on the fly without menu diving or remembering program numbers.
Doing gigs with the CS has been so much fun. I am not even running the ios app for patch recall, I am dialing patches in like I did in the 70's and I just love the spontaneity of it, and the fact a patch doesn't sound exactly the same each time, to me is sort of more interesting.

Right now the rig I find myself visualizing is made up of all the refaces (though I would be likely to go with a second CS rather than a DX just out of my preference in sound and the process of subtractive synthesis) and a single full sized keyboard. Ideally something like the NP31 76 key DP, but I do want some rompler and/or mellotron type sounds, hence the question of using my old m1 as a keyboard for the CP and the CP accessing the rompler sounds. I would probably be better off using my Kross 61 than the m1 sound wise, but I don't love the key bed on the kross....at all. (I do love the weight though!)

So some of this I'm sure is nostalgia, but I also see a real practical application as well. Probably the ideal is some sort of hybrid rig with refaces and a workstation and some midi involvement, for layering and such.

I would always use midi extensively for recording though, and also for notation software.

I would always use midi extensively for recording though, and also for notation software.

This probably its most powerful feature. When MIDI first hit in 1983 the big deal was playing two instruments from one set of keys... not many would have guessed that sequencing and notation would eventually be the biggest advantages.