There is a fix for Ableton that is completely free, consistent, and provides DAW-Sync capabilities. You have to set it up, but once it’s running it’s no issue, and no fiddling on startup. You do have to install virtual midi channels but these are completely noninvasive compared to typical virtual audio cables. I’ll do a full writeup tomorrow once I have time; I spent a good 4 hours banging my head against the wall to try and make something work that is free, not too hacky, and actually workable.
Why Ableton forces me to use this workaround is beyond me; it’s completely archaic that I can’t use my DAW to route midi channels internally. HOWEVER once this is set up you don’t have to touch anything! I can’t embed images so only links for now. I also can’t post links as I’m a new user smh my head here’s the pastebin to all the images: https:// pastebin. com/ad3fu0Vp
The short of it:
Download Element (free and very good VST host alternative to BlueCat’s PatchWork; loadable and syncable in Ableton): Element - Kushview
Download loopMIDI (endorsed by Ableton): loopMIDI | Tobias Erichsen
Install loopMIDI, then create a virtual midi port (click the plus bottom left) and title it whatever you want (Ignore Ableton Clock, that was from testing).
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Then install Element. It needs to find your plugins first before you load them into the floaty box area. Mine didn’t scan right away, so go to View → Plugin Manager and scan for them there.
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Make sure to select your virtual midi channel in file → preferences too. No idea about the transport, I just turned that on too:
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Inside of Element, set up the routing as follows (ignore everything else, can be deleted):
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To get the ScalerOut Midi block on the right, right click in the area where all the boxes float, get the pop up menu, and select your virtual midi channel:
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In the Node dropdown window on the left (click on Scaler 3, then open this up), make sure it looks like this (MIDI Channel to 16 rather than Omni):
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Make sure to save the current setup.
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You can now play Scaler 3 inside of Elements and you’ll see that you get both audio and the amount of data in loopMIDI is increasing, meaning that it’s transmitting. Make sure to obviously set the channels of the individual midi tracks in Scaler 3 to what you want them to be outputting.
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You can press play/pause with the spacebar and it syncs to the scaler instance. It also opens and closes up whenever you close or open elements; very noninvasive.
You now have a workaround to Ableton’s archaic lack of Midi Channel routing by hosting Scaler 3 inside of a VSThost, forcing it’s midi channel multi-output to a virtual midi channel. Next steps: Ableton setup.
To set this up in Ableton is relatively straightforward. Open Ableton and load Element into a new track all on it’s own. Open Element and load the session you just made; for some reason the session saved for me a folder back and not in the sessions folder.
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Next, set up your tracks corresponding to the midi channels in your Scaler instance. The “Midi From” dropdown menu will now have your virtual midi channel included in it (Mine: ScalerOut), so click on it. Next, for the specific midi channel routing just select channels 1 through 16 (Ch.1, etc.). Make sure you set the Monitor to In. Make sure to mute the instrument in Scaler 3 just for raw midi output to your DAW.
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Done!
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For proper DAW Sync you have to select EXT inside of Element when its loaded inside of Ableton in the top left of the window:
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You can now only start/stop Scaler 3 (and everything running in Element) when you have Ableton selected.
loopMIDI channels persist across PC restarts but the loopMIDI application itself has to be open for the channels to actually show up. To not have to tinker anything else on startup just put the loopMIDI .exe (a shortcut of it is fine too) in the startup folder. Otherwise loopMIDI minimizes to tray if you close it.
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OOPS! Seems like I wrote a full guide. Well, here it is. I’ll make a full post and update the existing troubleshooting thread for this problem. I also have 0 idea what I’m doing in terms of routing Bitwig-esque stuff so if there’s a step extra or something finnicky do give me feedback. But anyway, this worked for me, and it meets my standards of not being too hacky and annoying to deal with on every restart and still providing a good workflow albeit with an extra window and a few extra clicks. For me, personally, much more worthwhile to control all instruments from one scaler instance.
Fair word of warning, though, Elements is quite prone to crashing (on 11 Suite for me, at least, and quite consistently) if you try to delete it without closing out of your current preset (make a new file inside Elements where nothing is connected, then close the whole project) or if you close ableton too quickly after saving. Or I may just have too many plugins, idk lol.
Enjoy!! 