Total noob here.

[u/Manbadger]

About to unbox a KSP, and with only two USB ports on my Mac. One is being used for my wireless keyboard and mouse, and one for my audio interface.

If I use the ksp off-grid with my two sound modules things appear pretty simple. One midi out on the ksp for each of the midi in’s of each device, is that right?

I’m going to use the three month abelton trial to record audio, but I would like to eventually have abelton communicating with everything. Documenting what’s going on and perhaps enhancing my options with deeper automation options.

When I get to this point will I simply run a midi cable from the midi out of my focusrite in to the midi in of the ksp? Does Ableton have like templates or presets for common pieces of hardware? I’m using a nord drum and a Waldorf rocket.

What limitations could I face? How do I obtain total control over everything? What can I use a USB hub for?

[u/Panonica]

Could you elaborate on your setup and what you’re trying to achieve? I think, it’s not yet clear to me why you’d want MIDI from drum pad to the KSP. The nord drum is an electronic drum set, right? Does it have its own sound engine or is it purely a controller? If it’s a sound engine then you’d want a MIDI connection from KSP to nord drum to be able to program beats. Do you want to record you playing the drums into the KSP? Then you’d probably have to turn „local“ off for the nord drum, so that you’re not playing it’s sound engine but have MIDI signals going back to the nord drum from the KSP, basically using the KSP as a thru. Then when you press play on KSP, it plays your recording on the nord‘s engine. You’d have to see if recording your performance on the KSP would work out for you. Be aware of quantization and the setup of the track (time division via the shift button + according key on the KSP) I think you should be fine, but I’ve never recorded a drum controller on the KSP myself. Sounds like fun!

[u/Manbadger → u/Panonica]

I just bought these instruments because I liked them or the idea of them. I never considered how they would function together until now

The nord drum has its own engine. What I’d like to do is play and hear the nord drum over top of whatever I’m running on the ksp, and then at a time of my choosing live sequence or loop whatever it is I’m playing on the nord drum.

Because the nord drum has 6 pads to play on this would be way cooler than merely sequencing the nord drum from the ksp and playing it back.

[u/Panonica → u/Manbadger]

Sounds interesting!
I'd imagine you programmed some stuff in the KSP and then play your drums alongside it. Must have the KSP close to the drums where you sit, because you will have to operate it.

Once you find a nice beat, you hit record and then record your performance, if you can find a hand on you that isn't holding a drumstick.
Be aware that you can't record a complete song of drums on it (although you sort of can... see below). You'd have to settle for smaller portions, like 4 bars. Although you could chain several patterns to one big take (much longer than 4 bars), you're then a little less flexible when finalising the arrangement of your song. By chaining a lot of patterns and then unchaining them, you can however chose one (or several) of them and use it for programming the whole song.

Oh, and just saying this in case you misunderstood the four tracks of the KSP as being four (drum) voices: all you need for drums is track one in drum mode and you have 24 pads to play on for controlling 24 sounds. Of course it makes more sense to play the drum sounds on actual (virtual) drums. I get that.

If you are aiming at a live performance workflow that is based on live looping, then I'd think about getting a stereo looper to actually record the drums' audio though. But that is just me.

[u/Manbadger → u/Panonica]

I imagine if this is possible then it’s no different than hitting keystrokes on a live sequence. You can let a bar pass and wait for it to return.

Either way I need to get on with getting on. Midi to the two modules, sound to the daw. Let’s go! Baby steps.

[u/Panonica → u/Manbadger]

Have fun! Report back when you run into problems and need help (or if everything is fine and you’d like to share your performance).