Control Ableton device chains
I have created a device rack containing 4 loopers in different chains. If I map the chain selector to a macro button it is easy to scroll between the chains using one knob on my midi controller. However instead of using one macro button and map this to the midi controller I would prefer to use one push button for each chain. This push button I would also map to "start record" on the looper. This means.
Push midi button 1-> select chain 1 and start recording on looper 1
Push midi button 2-> select chain 2 and start recording on looper 2
Push midi button 3-> select chain 3 and start recording on looper 3
Push midi button 4-> select chain 4 and start recording on looper 4
Any suggestions on how I can solve this challenge? Maybe there is some built in features in Ableton I can use which I have not yet found or maybe I need to develop something in Max - but I am not quite sure where to start and wanted to post this thread to see if anyone has any good ideas:)
Can't you just send values straight to the chain selector and looper parameters from a max device? Sounds pretty straightforward to me
I do exactly this using laptop keyboard number keys mapped to a custom M4L device which sends out Midi CC values when a [live.button] is pressed. I map the number keys to the buttons, and also map the pedals on my FCB1010 to the same CC values so I can either use the number keys or the midi pedals to set the looper.
A full write up from a few months ago is here, which includes the “PK Button 2 CC” M4L patch:
wow nice write up
This is brilliant! Thanks to your very detailed write up I have now made a working setup using midi yoke:) Many thanks!
(Just a quick post question - my midi controller by default only goes to CC:16 but it would be nice to use something like 127 for this Yoke communication. Do you know if there is a way in Ableton to manually map a cotroller to a CC by typing it or similar?)
KMLL, Are you sure that you aren't looking at a channel value? channels are 1-16 and CC numbers and values are 0-127.
There is no way to manually setup a midi mapping in Ableton. However, you can use a separate midi simulator app over midi yoke to send the appropriate message while Ableton sits in midi map mode. I do this using MIDISimulator and the IAC bus on mac, and this procedure should be outlined in the Ableton forum post I pasted above.
There is a way to manually map CCs in Ableton with M4L, just make sure the CC is routed to a MIDI track that has your MIDI M4L device and within it do this:
Just be aware all MIDI data loses its channel data once it enters a track so you can't have any other CC on any channel that's going into that track identifying itself as 127
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that the OP is looking for a way to create a manual mapping in Live’s midi mapping browser window?
Otherwise, Jdudeo’s point about parsing and handling midi messages is quite easy in Max if you are routing the messages to into the M4L device’s track based on MIDI channel in Live’s mixer.
ah, well it's the same effect really as far as I know, though I didn't really understand how being able to map manually would solve OP's problem
Thank you both for the advises and info and for pointing me in the direction of MIDISimulator:)