This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.

Elektron Tonverk MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Elektron Tonverk: what it answers to, and the 250 controls it offers, on firmware 1.4.1.

At a glance

Firmware

This page describes firmware 1.4.1.

MIDI channel

Any one of 1 to 16.

Parts

Audio track, 8 of them: each on a MIDI channel of its own, taking notes and controls.
Bus track, 4 of them: each on a MIDI channel of its own, taking controls, with how notes reach it not recorded.
Send FX track, 3 of them: each on a MIDI channel of its own, taking controls, with how notes reach it not recorded.
Mix track: on a MIDI channel of its own, taking controls.
MIDI machine, 12 of them: each on a MIDI channel of its own.
Subtrack, 8 of them: inside each Audio track, sharing its MIDI channel, told apart by NRPN MSB, 1 to 8, taking controls, with how notes reach it not recorded.

Voices

Not recorded.

Note range

0 to 127: C-1 to G9, counting middle C as C4.

Velocity

Sent and received.

Aftertouch

Answered, of a kind its documents do not say. It sends aftertouch too.

Pitch bend

Not recorded.

Program change

Received and sent, with 128 presets.

MIDI clock

Sent and received.

Start and stop

Sent and received.

Control change

158 controls, in the tables below.

NRPN

Supported. 92 of the controls below have one.

System exclusive

Not recorded.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by part and group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("elektron/tonverk") has loaded them.

Audio track

Trig

Source

Filter

Amp

FX

FX LFO

Voice LFO

Modulation envelope

Voice

Mixer

Without a group

Bus track

Trig

FX

FX LFO

Mixer

Send FX track

Trig

FX

FX LFO

Mixer

Mix track

Trig

FX

FX LFO

Mixer

Subtrack

Subtracks SRC machine

MIDI machine

Source

Where these facts come from

Source documents

• Tonverk User Manual, OS 1.4.1, dated 23 September 2026, its user manual, read on 5 October 2026 (the file read).
• Tonverk - Elektron, its download page, read on 5 October 2026 (the file read).
• Tonverk OS Release Notes - Elektron, 1.4.1, dated 23 September 2026, its release notes, read on 11 October 2026 (the file read).

How they were read

The Tonverk User Manual, 130 pages, created 2026-09-23 by its own metadata and offered as "Tonverk User Manual - EN" (download_page) on the day its maker announced "Tonverk OS 1.4.1" (download_page). Elektron publishes no separate MIDI implementation for this instrument and puts the tables in the manual's own Appendix D: "This appendix lists the CC and NRPN specification for Tonverk." (manual p. 120).

EVERY NUMBER BELOW BUT FOUR COMES FROM THAT APPENDIX, which is pp. 120-124 and three tables. D.1 gives 74 controller numbers against four columns of track kind; D.2 gives 43 NRPNs for audio tracks, every MSB nought; D.3 gives 49 more whose MSB is the subtrack. Notes/4606_extract_tonverk.py reads all three off the grid the publisher drew, and Notes/4606_write_controls.py wrote the block below as it stood until 2026-10-11; the subtrack rows' keys, labels and part were changed by hand that day. The appendix's one word on how the audio column bears on a track running the Subtracks machine is a footnote to its Audio tracks* heading, "* = Several of the Subtracks SRC machines' parameters are controlled using NPRN values." (manual p. 120), in its spelling. It does not say which of the audio column's numbers still act on such a track.

AND ONE FIGURE OUTSIDE THESE DOCUMENTS AGREES WITH THE READING IN A WAY WORTH RECORDING. midi.guide lists this instrument at 435 NRPNs, which is exactly 49 times eight plus the 43 of D.2 - so whoever compiled that entry expanded the subtracks the same way, and read the same 49 and 43 rows. It is not a source and nothing here rests on it; it is a third party arriving at this appendix's own arithmetic independently, which is the only corroboration available for a maker who publishes one document.

THE GRID COST THREE ROWS BEFORE IT WAS READ PROPERLY, AND THE WAY IT DID IS WORTH CARRYING. This publisher draws a table's header and its body as two blocks whose column edges differ in the first decimal, and the body's rules stop one short of the table's bottom rule, which belongs to the header's block. So reading the blocks apart loses the last row of every page - here controller numbers 51, 103 and 110, each the last on its page, each silently absent. They are recovered by matching edges within two points and taking the union of the rules. Page 122 also carries the end of one table and the start of another, five columns and three, so a page cannot be read with one set of column edges either.

SIXTEEN TRACKS IN FOUR KINDS, WHICH IS WHERE THE PARTS COME FROM. "The Tonverk sequencer has 16 tracks. 8 Audio/MIDI tracks, 4 Bus and MIDI tracks, 3 Send FX tracks, and one Mix track." (manual p. 20). Each has a channel of its own: "TRACK/BUS/SEND/MIX CHANNEL selects the dedicated MIDI channel that is used to receive or send" (manual p. 76) parameter data for it, and set to OFF a track neither receives nor sends. The manual also says they are the tracks' own numbers, "The MIDI channels dedicated to each of the tracks are the same as the track's number." (manual p. 36). Choosing freely is new in 1.4.0, "It is now possible to freely select a MIDI channel for each track." (release_notes), so p. 36 reads as where a track sits until it is moved. No page calls that a default. There is a seventeenth channel besides - "AUTO CHANNEL selects the MIDI channel that will give access to the currently active track." (manual p. 77) - and the manual notes that the track sharing that channel then listens to nothing, which no field here can say.

TWO PAGES SAY WHERE A NOTE GOES, AND THEY DO NOT SAY THE SAME THING. "The 128 notes in the standard MIDI range (0-127) all trigger the preset of the active track" (manual p. 30) in its chromatic variations, with no word on the channel. And "The presets can also be played chromatically using an external MIDI device connected to Tonverk. The MIDI channels dedicated to each of the tracks are the same as the track's number." (manual p. 36), which reads as a note reaching the track whose channel carries it. The second is what the parts below record, each audio track taking notes on its own channel. The first holds on the AUTO channel at least: "If an external MIDI keyboard connected to Tonverk sends MIDI data on this channel, the keyboard will control the active track." (manual p. 77). Either way a setting has to allow it: "RECEIVE NOTES will, when active, enable playing Tonverk using an external MIDI keyboard." (manual p. 76). Until 2026-10-11 this account took the first page alone, and said notes go to no track of their own. And eight of those notes mean something else again on a track running the Subtracks machine: "The subtracks are triggered over MIDI using these note values: 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, and 72." (manual p. 30). So a note is a pitch or a subtrack selector depending on the machine. The eight MSBs are the subtrack part below. The eight notes stay in prose: the page lists them without pairing each to a subtrack, and a part's note map is the whole part's and cannot give one note to one instance.

THE DIRECTIONS ARE ALL SETTINGS AND ALL TWO-WAY. Clock: "CLOCK RECEIVE determines whether Tonverk responds to MIDI clock sent from external devices or not." (manual p. 76) and "CLOCK SEND determines whether Tonverk transmits MIDI clock or not." (manual p. 76). Transport the same, with "TRANSPORT SEND determines whether Tonverk transmits MIDI transport messages or not." (manual p. 76). Program change both ways, with a channel for each direction. And the controls: "RECEIVE CC/NRPN will, when active, make it possible to control Tonverk's parameters from an external MIDI device sending CC and NRPN data." (manual p. 76), against a channel that is "used to receive or send" (manual p. 76) - so every control of the appendix is two-way and none of them carries a direction of its own. Of the four controllers outside the appendix, the mod wheel and the breath controller are two-way as well and the two pedals are received only, for the reasons given below.

WHAT THE MANUAL GETS WRONG, RECORDED AND NOT TIDIED. Two consecutive sections print the same sentence. 11.1.11 is headed PITCH BEND and 11.1.12 AFTERTOUCH, and both read "Opens a menu where you can assign up to four parameters to the MIDI aftertouch command." (manual p. 52) - so the pitch bend section describes aftertouch, and what pitch bend's four assignable parameters are is stated nowhere. The misprinted CC 31 is the other one, above. A third is smaller: not availble for available, once on p. 50 and once on p. 51. And the appendix's footnote spells NRPN NPRN (manual p. 120), while two of its rows drop the slash their neighbours print.

FOUR CONTROLLERS OUTSIDE THE APPENDIX ARE CARRIED AS RECEIVED ON THE AUDIO TRACKS, AND THE MIDI MACHINE NAMES FOUR IT SENDS. The track setup menu assigns parameters to "the MIDI mod wheel command (CC #1)" (manual p. 52) and to "the MIDI breath controller command (CC #2)" (manual p. 52), among settings that "are only available for audio tracks (Track 1–8)" (manual p. 50). So each is a modulation source the player routes to up to four parameters, as aftertouch and pitch bend are here, and not a parameter with a place of its own.

THOSE TWO ARE RECEIVED BY THE TRACK AND SENT ON THE CHANNEL ITS MIDI MACHINE'S CHAN SETS, SO EACH IS WRITTEN TWICE. A track with a sound machine answers to them. The same track can hold the MIDI machine instead, "which then converts the audio track into a MIDI track" (manual p. 20), and that machine has a parameter of its own for each: "MW (Mod Wheel) controls the modulation wheel data sent on the MIDI track." (manual p. 99) and "BC (Breath Controller) controls the breath control data sent on the MIDI track." (manual p. 99). Those two lines print no number, and that they are 1 and 2 is the menu's naming. Each is off until it is switched on (manual p. 98), and it goes out on the channel the machine's own CHAN parameter names (manual pp. 77, 98), a setting apart from the track's channel. So the audio part's two say direction: receives, and the sending is on the midi_out part, whose channel is that CHAN. The bus tracks can hold the MIDI machine too, with the same SRC, FLTR and AMP pages (manual pp. 20, 64, 86), so midi_out counts twelve, one for each of tracks 1 to 12. Until 2026-10-15 the two carried no direction on the audio part, which said both ways on the track's channel.

THE PEDALS ARE direction: receives: NO PAGE NAMES EITHER AMONG WHAT A TRACK SENDS. The 1.3.0 notes have "Added support for MIDI sustain pedal (CC64) and MIDI sostenuto pedal (CC66)." (release_notes), and that line is all any document says of them: the manual never mentions a pedal, and the note says neither which kinds of track answer nor, in so many words, that the instrument receives them. They are read as received, and they are written on the audio part because a pedal holds notes and the audio tracks' presets are what an outside keyboard plays (manual p. 36). That is a reading and not a statement. The MIDI machine also has sixteen slots a player sets to any standard controller, "The selectable commands are the standard MIDI Control Change Messages." (manual p. 99), so a track can be made to send 64, 66 or any other standard controller. That is the player's choice and not the instrument's map, and no direction here counts it.

None of the four is in Appendix D, where 242 of the 250 come from. The manual's text prints two more numbers the appendix lacks, the MIDI machine's bank changes: "BANK (Bank) sends a bank change message on CC 0 MSB." (manual p. 98) and "SBNK (Sub Bank) sends a bank change message on CC 32 LSB." (manual p. 98). They are on the midi_out part, sent and not received, beside the machine's mod wheel and breath: no page has this instrument answer to either. So the text prints six controller numbers the appendix lacks, and all six are carried. A picture of that machine's screen shows eight numbers in its slots, as examples (manual p. 99); two of them, 8 and 40, are controller numbers that no table and no sentence gives. Until 2026-10-13 the four were named here and not carried, and until 2026-10-15 the bank changes were not carried.

NOT CARRIED: what each machine puts on each data entry knob. Appendix A runs thirty pages and names the parameters of every SRC and FX machine, and the MIDI appendix publishes the slots rather than the meanings - SRC 1 Data entry knob A (machine dependent) and so on through 40 of them, 32 so marked and eight (SRC machine dependent). That is the same shape as the Analog Rytm's 220 rows and gets the same answer, with one difference worth noting: outside the Subtracks machine's own table, this maker publishes no number against a machine's parameter, so there is nothing here to decline. The generic name is the only name printed.