Hey Mooguys.
I’m studying the possibility of using Kenton Solo CV-MIDI converter with the Little Phatty. The first candidate is obviously the Pro Solo MkII.
However I wonder if the USB solo would work when just plugged on the LP’s USB Stage 2 edition here-, provided the synth is configured so that MIDI is sent over USB. Especially, will the synth power the Kenton?
Or should I go safer and choose the Pro Solo MkII with a good ol’ MIDI cable?
EMwhite might chime in soon 
Depends what you want. If you will ALWAYS have your laptop/PC/mac in your rig and don’t mind the PC running software for USB routing and don’t want to mess with DIN, get the USB model.
If you don’t want to be bound to a computer and would rather have a single, simple cable from your controller to the Kenton then CV to the Phatty, then get the Pro II.
The basic questions on what you are going to use as your clock source come to mind (Kenton can generate it’s own clock if you want that); you MIGHT want your Phatty to “SEND” clock out to the Kenton, then have Kenton send a divided LFO of a particular type back into Phatty’s Filter CV for instance. Of course you’ll need to power the non-USB version with an ac adapter.
The Kenton USB (like the Stage II) is a USB type “B” device which is the little ‘house’ looking connector. They typically expect to be powered from the other end of a standard USB cable, so in the case of most USB keyboards or in the case of the USB Kenton, no external power required (it comes from your PC).
As you likely know, Midi over DIN is old school, suffers from 32k baud and a daisy chain topology which adds to the latency while USB is typically 480+ Mbps and operates in a hub & spoke topology.
But I like DIN alot. I have a Novation SL MK2 keyboard plugged directly into my Minitaur (despite the Minitaur being plugged into my Mac). My Phatty is a Tribute so no choice of DIN or USB; but there is no substitute to having a single cable between two devices and being able to talk.
Speaking of which, there is a thread somewhere here with contribution by Demondan that talks about a device that will allow two USB type “B” devices to talk to each other; something that gets lost in the discussion about USB is the fact that while all devices are capable of bi-directional transmission of data, the handshake / discovery and conventions of devices being “A” or “B” is fairly strict such that peripherals (like printers, midi keyboards, synths) are always “B” and, what might be though of as a “master” complete with drivers (the computer). A variation of this is the USB hub where the hub acts as the master or concentration point, with a “B” offered to the computer.
I’m rambling here but hopefully gave you some food for thought. Hard for me to give you a cut and dry answer without knowing if you like to work with Ableton or Logic and laptop or iPad or avoid it all, etc.
Tell us more and somebody else will respond. And if not… 16 hours later, I will. I tried to give somebody else a chance, I really did; but in the end, I wanted to give you some feedback : )
Thanks EMwhite. This enlights me. As for details, I don’t want to use any computer in the process.
Exactly: I want tempo-slave the LP with a MachineDrum, say, and have the LP to transmit the tempo to the Kenton so that the CV the Kenton sends back is in sync.
I get that, but the LP USB port is type B, as you said. So I guess this one is not expected to power anything. Will the LP power the Kenton?
I’m rambling here but hopefully gave you some food for thought. Hard for me to give you a cut and dry answer without knowing if you like to work with Ableton or Logic and laptop or iPad or avoid it all, etc.
The LP will not power the Kenton. Both of those devices expect a computer/power on the other end of the USB cable, they both have the ‘B’ socket, and you can’t connect two of those devices together.
The iConnect box will allow you to plug in one unit, but afaik not both. For a non-computer setup, the Pro Solo Mk2 would be best.
Thanks Cliffman. So I guess the Pro Solo Mk2 is the way to go.
Or the MP-201 haha.
If you want your Machinedrum to be the clock master (and mmc aka control for start/stop) then you’ll need a simple 5 pin midi cable from Machinedrum to the Kenton; Then from the Thru in the Kenton another cable to the Phatty Midi IN. That’s it.
That way you can have Phatty’s Arp and LFO clocked to the Midi sync of the drum, and as well, have Kenton’s LFO synch’ed to the same clock. You can adjust the divider accordingly (ie each of the two end points have a clock divider so you can have it run faster or slower or on dotted 1/8ths for instance but at the same rate).
IF you want to use the Aux2 and Aux3 capabilities of the Kenton (you need a special cable for this), you’ll need a simple midi thru box to split the signal coming from Machinedrum into two; one to the Kenton and the other to the Phatty.
But there is no need to have Phatty send Midi if Machinedrum is your master clock. It’s simpler this way.
And I’m assuming you don’t have any use for Sync24 (like perhaps a XoXBox) which is ideally clocked form Sync24. Note that Kenton provides this, but again, it’s thought the multifunction port.
I’m not a Machinedrum expert but I recall that it did bass sounds, etc. so you might have the XoXBox angle covered, at least partially.
There is one options which is not covered by the topology I suggest above, and that’s the Midi->CV capability of Kenton. Seeing as you have the Little Phatty, I’ll assume that you are going to simply play it (not worry about another Midi keyboard to drive the Phatty via CV). And for what it’s worth depending on what Phatty you have, the pitch CV doesn’t work very well unless you want simple bend and slides via a ribbon controller.
On the other hand, if you wish to drive some Foogers like a Ringmod or FreqBox via the CV out of Kenton driven by a note sequence sent from Machinedrum (which I think is possible), you’ll be all set. So you can either drone or have a simple sequence from Machinedrum through kenton through a fooger. For that matter, you can also use the Gate output of Kenton to do clock sync’ed notes at the ‘last’ value.
It’s all good…
You’re right, this is simpler. Thanks 
Indeed I don’t need this.
I’m not sure I get this properly. are you sayingthe CV Pitch IN of the Phatty is not very… clean/useful/sophisticated?..
I will certainly try that
Re: CV in
I think it depends on your Phatty. A number of the Moog products track at something other than a strict 1v per octave. Some are capable of being calibrated with a scope (LP Tribute I think); some can be calibrated by procedure (Minitaur via SysEx command and reference voltage) and some require hardware mod (removal of a resistor on the analog board and add of a potentiometer in the case of Voyager OS).
Some Midi to CV devices allow for very small fractions of a volt to be dialed in (MP-201) some expect the synth to be calibrated and you’ll find accurate tracking across only a single octave.
If using an analog sequencer without a quantizer, certainly you can always dial in a precise voltage which is musically aligned to an in-tune semi-tone and my example below us that a pitch ribbon controller of Touchpad is a continuous controller so it’s up to the person playing to land on accurate pitch if that is the intent.
Thanks for that insight, EMwhite
Without factory mod the stage and stage 2 track at something like .97v/octave. There is an internal trim pot that can be added to achieve proper tracking (the tribute has this and several other trim pots as stock).