APC40 should show empty scenes, but doesn't?

[mikestjean]

Hi all,

I was under the impression (as per the small manual that comes in the box), that if I have a whole 8x5 section of Empty clips, even deleted stop buttons, that when I hold 'shift' on the Apc40, that that particular button should not be lit up... but it is! This is frustrating. I'm trying to separate my songs by leaving 5 rows x 8 tracks empty, so that I can quickly navigate to the next song... but the button representing that group of clips (when I hold down shift on the apc40) remains lit! Yes, I'm being redundant in my explanation! Any help?

I'm also trying to figure out if there's a quick way to view Send/Return Tracks A B & C, so I can mess with the parameters...

Why can't 'shift' + 'Send A', highlight Return A? It doesn't do anything else...

Ok that's two questions. Back to playing.

[beatpoet]

I don't even have an APC yet but I think I remember holding shift and an arrow moves 5 down, 8 over. Without, 1 down, 1 over.



Watch the videos.

http://www.ableton.com/touch

[mikestjean]

Right but that's not my point of contention. Forget individual clips.
When I hold shift, each button of the grid represents an 8x5 area of clips,
so the top left button represents tracks 1-8, clips 1-5.
For this example we need only consider one track, with 15 clip slots.
The first 5 slots of the track have clips
The second 5 are empty
The third set of 5 have clips...
clip
clip
clip
clip
clip
empty
empty
empty
empty
empty
clip
clip
clip
clip
clip

According to the manual (and common sense?), when I hold 'shift', the top left button should be orange (if no clips are playing);
the second from the top, furthest to the left, should be off
the third from the top, should be orange again.

But, that middle button, second from the top, that should be off, representing empty spaces, is in fact on... when it should be off.

Am I missing something?

[mikestjean]

I've got the manual out now, so maybe I can explain this once more more concisely... but also, I really should just be emailing Akai directly...

Page 2 of 'Quickstart Guide' manual:

"When the SHIFT button is held, this grid will change to Session Overview... While in Session Overview, the button LED colors represent the following:
OFF - no clips are present in this 8x5 grid
AMBER - clips are present in this 8x5 grid, which is currently selected
GREEN - clips are present in this 8x5 grid, which contains clip slots that are playing
RED - clips are present in this 8x5 grid, but no clip slots are currently playing


My issue is, when "no clipis are present in this 8x5 grid", but there are clips present in the lower (next) 8x5 grid, the button LED for the EMPTY 8x5 grid is RED whereas it should be OFF, because there are no clips present in the 8x5 grid

[sacredgeometry]

how odd i didnt know that was the case but it sounds logical....bump to see if anyone else can confirm this, it would be nice to know if they took this feature out or your set up wrong

peace

brian

[mrsakitumi]

You could always add a several dummy tracks to the far right of your set in session view (even label them "BLANKS" or something?).
Then place 5 dummy clips descending on the furthest right track between your sets.
You'd never need to see them, but they should provide you with the visual gap needed.

[mikestjean]

Does that solve the issue though? Even as a temporary fix... I'm not sure it reconciles the issue. I'm not looking to have a gap on the monitor, I'm looking to have the particular button LED which represents the empty 8x5 grid be OFF when I hold 'shift'.

Maybe they just didn't program it like that. It seems like they should have, and seems like they meant to, hence the manual instructions... waiting to hear back from Ableton directly.

cheers

[Panoramica]

Just got my APC40 today and I have this exact same issue. The Clip Launch View shows the 'OFF' state where no clip is loaded, but the Session Overview shows 'AMBER' for the selected empty 8x5 grid and 'RED' on all other empty 8x5 grids..

Please let us know how you go with Ableton/Akai support.

Dan

[sacredgeometry]

update ableton i think it was one of the fixes i dont have this issue running any version of live 8 on mac sorry

[Panoramica]

Thanks, but maybe I should have mentioned that I am running (a legit copy of) Live 7, which is supposed to run fine with the APC so long as you have the latest update installed (which I do - 7.0.16)

I would prefer to not have to bankrupt myself even further by upgrading to Live 8, if at all possible.

Is there anyone out there running Live 7 who also has this problem?

UPDATE 15/7:
As of tonight I have also tested this in a demo of Live 8.0.4, with the same problem.

I'm running Windows XP SP3 on quite an old desktop PC. Will try with some blank sets tomorrow, in case it is a compatibility issue with older sets.

UPDATE 16/7:
Hmmm same behaviour - have added a post over in the Support section: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=119730

[Panoramica]

Well I see that the just-launched Launchpad got it right:

"
AMBER: Indicates the currently selected block of clips,
which will be surrounded by the ring in the software.
GREEN: There are clips playing in that block of clips
(though that may not be the block of clips selected).
RED: There are no clips playing in that range.
NO COLOUR: there are no tracks or scenes in that range.
"

Maybe Ableton/Akai will see a reason to fix this on the APC40 now?

[chelemasty]

I guess you have a defective APC40. Mine doesn't do that.

[Panoramica]

Oh wait, just checked details in my other post [http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=119730]

Looks like Novation and Akai are in agreement.

It's just me that has a defective mind and wants it to work differently (no clips = no lights).

Oh well.

[mikestjean]

I'm still having issues with this, having updated to 8.1.4 on Mac OSX 10.6.3

and I'm pretty sure no one else here is getting it to work properly either... there's no reason why mine wouldn't be doing this...

where's support when you need them

[mikestjean]

If only to confirm that mine is the only one not working right, I made a super high quality video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilpk-Zyh0bs

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!