Getting started with MPD

[fforge44]

Hello, Ableton, this is my first post. I've used ableton for about a year now and am fairly familiar with a lot of it. I recently got an MPD to work with. I have all kinds of questions and have researched quite a bit but it's hard to find specific info.
Say, to begin with, I've got the mpd working with ableton. Now I need to do some CONFIG. I'm still having trouble figuring out what to do with my GLOBAL settings.
Simple questions would be:
Pad Sensitivity- 1 through 16. I haven't found a noticeable difference in this settings.
Pad Curve- What is this? A through D. I'm guessing it's related to my bank usage?
Pad threshold- Again, haven't found noticeable difference in settings.
-Then we get to my knobs. I've seen they have preassigned functions, but they tend to mess things up when I experiment with them. Is there an easy template I could use to get started with mapping these knobs/faders?

Thanks for any help.

[Meef Chaloin]

For the global settings, have a look in the manual, it explains what these do.

Generally I would recommend getting this: http://www.nativekontrol.com/NPKLive_II.html

It will save you having to map things and it will work the same in every set you use.

[fforge44]

Thanks for the reply. The NPK looks useful in many ways. A great way to gain control without mousing around. I'm especially interested in the multiple modes that it can preassign. I'll check it out more.

I spent more time tampering with Thresholds and Sensitivity. Finally found adjustments that work well. Turning threshold down low and sensitivity high made it way easier to tap my pads and get clean sounds. Research and experimentation look to be the key. Sorting through tutorials to separate the good ones from useless is tedious but pays off.

[Meef Chaloin]

If you want basic use out of it there is a remote script for it, choose it in the Control Surface part in the Midi/Sync preferences page in Live. I'm not sure what the predefined assignments are for this, I would imagine the pads for Drum Rack, faders for volume and the knobs for macro. The good thing about this is that you won't have to assign these parameters, they will be assigned automatically for every set, the blue hand will show you which device the knobs control and you can control any device by selecting it without the need to assign anything. This is a very very basic version of what you see in NPKLive.