Hi, I recently purchased an old Solton MS4 sound module to use with a midi bass accordion. The unit seems to work ok but I can't get the internal midi to work with the accordion.All my connections are fine and the accordion has worked with other modules. I can get the modules internal voices to work but no midi signal. I assume the midi is somehow turned off internally but can't figure out how to access it. Any help would be much appreciated, Thanks

Welcome to the forum. I can’t help with this problem but may I suggest you edit your post title to include something like Problem with Soltan MS4 and Accordion. The right people will see it.

You have about a day before you cannot edit a post.

Good luck.

Have you checked MIDI channel assignment on accordion and sound module? They must match. Devices often default to Channel 1, but not always.

Richard

Hi Richard, yes I've tried all that. all I want is to play a midi bass accordion through the sound module but it won't send any midi at all.

Hi Carry,
Are you trying to use band in a box through the accordion ? If so, the Left Hand won't work the chords etc....Band in a box is basically styles only which you use for backing tracks.
I'm a box player as well so reckon I know a bit. Tell us exactly what you're trying to do with biab and we can help more

For accordions, right hand is channel 1, left hand chords channel two and left hand base notes ch 3.
Hope this helps

Hi Graham, what i'm basically trying to do is play a midi bass accordion (right hand only)through the Solton MS4. As the bass in the module would normally be set up for the left side, I think I will have to change some of the internal settings
of the Solton. This is the best way that I can explain it. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

OK Carry But are you also trying to use band in a box as a midi module ? What I'm getting at is that you won'r be able to change backing chords via your left hand, all those need to be done manually which isn't as daunting as it sounds. You COULD use band in a box live using a high spec laptop, I know a load of folk on here who do this

Furry, he's not asking about Biab, this is the Tech S.O.S. forum read the FAQ's. This forum is for people to post questions like this that DO NOT have anything to do with PG Products.

Carryduff I agree this is most likely a midi channel issue, just play with it more it should work. The way Furry described the midi channels is the same as on my B3 organ clones. Upper manual is channel 1, lower is 2 and bass pedals is 3. The left hand bass buttons is channel 3 but you want to play bass with the right hand meaning the accordion is transmitting the right hand on channel 1.

Ok, I just searched for the MS4 and see it's a full blown Ketron arranger module. Cool. I like arrangers I have a Korg Pa1XPro. I was going to download the user manual but the sites I found want to charge for it presumably you have it, if you don't you can get it from Ketron.

This module isn't just for accordians, it will work with any midi controller. Since it's an arranger it receives on all 16 midi channels and the styles will have all the different parts set to default channels at least that's how my Korg does it. The manual will explain this maybe under a chapter titled how to use a controller keyboard or something. It may also have a separate mode for a user that does NOT want to use the arranger function and just wants to use it as a sound module. Perhaps for what you want you have to set it in that mode. If I had the manual I'm sure I could figure it out for you.

Whatever it is you have to match the channel the accordion is transmitting from the right hand to the channel the MS4 is using for the bass part. I also found this accordion forum, you could try posting your question there:

http://accordionworld.co.uk/index.php?topic=160.0

Bob

My apologies, I wasn't aware this was an open for all part. Needing new glasses !

Yes Jazzmammal everything you say is correct, I finally realised that I had to get the right hand to play the bass Programs which would otherwise be assigned to the left hand accompaniments so after delving into the midi structure and changing all the settings including the split point (very important, would only play 1 octave before) I now have exactly what I was looking for, well pleased. A big thanks to everyone who took the trouble to reply

Great, glad you got it sorted.

Bob