Moog Music Forum

Hi Moog team,

Recently I purchased a Subharmornicon and I've been trying to utilise the MIDI input. I have tried in all sorts of ways, but haven't been able to receive any midi information whatsoever.

Things I've tried:
- Ableton MIDI out on both my Motu M2 and Focusrite 6i6 (1st gen)
- Roland SH-4D (groovebox synth) MIDI out
- Multiple TRS and TS 3.5mm cables (although I believe it should be TRS, I wanted to try any cable I own...) straight out of my Arturia BeatStep Pro MIDI out (3.5mm output).
- Multiple MIDI-to-3.5mm jack adapters (FOUR! in total, from Arturia and other manufacturers. Sadly, the original Moog adapter was not included. But please don't tell me it should be the original one, I find that very, very unlikely to be the problem.)

Then I thought, it may be the firmware that is the issue. So I consulted the manual for patching the firmware of the Subharmonicon. I am using a Macbook Pro and downloaded SysEx Librarian just like the manual recommends. I've tried again, with both my interfaces (Motu M2 and Focusrite 6i6) which have a direct connection to my Macbook (No USB hubs or adapter cables are involved).
When I try to send the first SysEx file, Librarian says the file is sent successfully. According to the manual, the LED of Step 1 of Sequencer 1 should then be blinking on/off. However, it is not. It remains lit constantly (as if the SH were in the starting position of a sequence, ready to play).

I'm out of ideas of what could be wrong, aside from the patch input being broken. But that would surprise me, the unit is in excellent shape and I've never dropped/bumped it whatsoever. I've also never patched "hot" cables into the midi input

Hopefully you guys have any new ideas I could try to make it work...

Thanks in advance,

Tom

Hey Tom,

I'm not sure what the problem is but there are definitely two types of 3.5mm to DIN MIDI adapters. Type A and B. They have different wiring and are not interchangable.

I have about 6 of those adapters and bought a Sonoclaust MAFD to use with my DFAM. I had 4 of them open already so I thought I'd try those instead of the one sent with the MAFD. All 4 did not work. 2 were from Elektron and 2 were from Make Noise. When I finally tried the one that came with the MAFD, it worked. I guess it was the other type.

So maybe you only have one type. Just a guess.

.. and sorry, I know you said that's not what you wanted to hear.

Seems people are talking about this on the internet today. Someone just posted this over on Muffwiggler:
https://minimidi.world/

Might be helpful.

Notable to your testing is that if you search their DB the Subharmonicon shows as Type A, but Arturia uses type B.