Arduinome/Monome + Polygome + Ableton Live, instructions and video

I am going to explain in this post how to run Arduinome/Monome with Polygome triggering sounds from Ableton Live in a PC with Windows Vista (it should be quite easy to translate these instructions to any other midi sequencer or similar OS). Polygome is IMO one of the coolest apps for monome.

I am assuming you have already installed your monome and now all the basics about it (monomeserial, setting the right prefix, etc...).

First thing you need to do is to install Midi Yoke. At the time of writing this post, there was no Vista version for Midi Yoke, but the XP/NT version happens to work if you disable Windows Vista User account control (Control Panel=>User Accounts=>Disable User account control). You need to disable the user account control both when installing Midi Yoke and when using it. If anyone knows an alternative for Midi Yoke that works with Vista, please let me know.

Once Midi Yoke is installed, open Ableton Live "Midi Sync" configurations (in options=>preferences) and Enable the "track" and "Sync" from "In From Midi Yoke: 1" and from "Out To Midi Yoke: 2". Add your synth of choice to a Midi channel and arm it. Press the Play button (this is necessary to generate the sync clock).

In Polygome:

1. Select "Out To Midi Yoke 1" as midi output destination
2. Select in the clock options "beat clock" as clock source.
3. Disable the internal clock
4. Set the "Send beat clock to" to "Out To Midi Yoke 1"
5. Set the "Receive beat clock from" to "In From Midi Yoke 2"

Pressing any Monome button should trigger the predefined patterns and start making sounds.

Here is a video I made using Polygome:



The drum sounds are the same I used for my AVR synth demo here. The synth sound is one of the synths available in Ableton Live. Eveything was configured as explained above. Sorry about the poor video and audio quality (and my lack of skills with Monome, I need to practice more).

More arduinome stuff here