Congo Junior, QLab & MSC

In our venue we have three areas using a Congo Junior. I've now installed Mac Minis in each area and am looking to control the Congo Jnr's using MSC.

In one area- we already had a MOTU 828 MKIII which is connected to the Mac Mini via USB to allow more sophisticated audio. As this has MIDI in and out, I connected it to the Congo and started triggering lighting cues without issue using QLab.

In another area however, there is no need for any external soundcards so I purchased a run of the mill cheapo USB to MIDI lead (literally £8 from Amazon), connected the USB to the Mac Mini and the MIDI (in every possible combination) to the Congo Jnr. QLab sees the device, I can patch it, and when I send a MIDI command using MSC the 'MIDI SEND' light flashes on the device.

There is however no response from the Congo. All is set up - accept MSC is ticked, all the other checks have been made, but the desk simply will not respond.

 

Device IDs are the same on both QLab and the Congo.

The only thing that is different is that QLab sees the MOTU as one MIDI patch - whereas this cheap MIDI thing comes up as two patches in QLab - I've tried using one, the other, both together... still nothing.

What am I doing wrong? Surely the answer can't be to just buy a more expensive USB to MIDI converter, and surely I don't need to buy a MOTU or similar to achieve this?

Any help greatly appreciated! 

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  • Hi Luke,

    Sounds great.

    Currently the Mac mini is connected via Ethernet to our network. Would it be as simple as also connecting the Congo to the same network, or will I need to simply to put a cat5 cable between the Mac mini and the congo?

    If the latter, I'd need to get a USB to Ethernet adapter in order to accept the network connection and connect via Ethernet to the congo.

    Does that make sense?

  • Normally this would be a closed (non-Internet) network with just the Mac Mini and the Congo (and any other associated ETC network devices).

    If the Mac Mini needs to reside on another (for example, internet) network, then perhaps a USB network adaptor on the Mac would be appropriate to create a second network.

    If it is an option, you might use the Mac's wifi connection for internet, and its hard-wired connection for Congo.

    Luke

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