Ableton Forum

Hi Everyone,

I feel like a right spanner right now,

I just bought the Akai MPD 32 and tried it out with Ableton's drum racks and it's great. But when it comes to mixing I've hit a dead end. I've spent hours trawling through the manuals and youtube tutorials, but found nothing on how to edit this thing so I can control panning on Ableton's mixer. I'm sure it's easy, but right now, it's Mission Impossible.

Needless to say, I'm losing my mind here.

Thanks in advance,

Eun ji

Enter midi map mode in Live (screen turns blue, ctrl+m is the shortcut on PC) and choose a pan within Live. Then wiggle a knob on your controller. Exit map mode.

That is the simplest way. It only works assuming that in MIDI Preferences in Live you have the mpd turned on in the 'Remote' column.

A more complex way is to implement blue hand control. With Live 9's drum racks, this can actually be a pretty fun method.

Thanks yur2die4,

I never expected such a quick reply.

Yes I have "remote" turned on in preferences and I did try midi map before, but I was
hoping to be able to edit those knobs with the Vyzex editor.

I mean, what if there are say, 24 tracks you want to pan, what then?

Also, how can you change your tracks from going from "armed" to "mute" or "solo"?

Sorry for all these questions, but the manual doesn't really cover it. Just shows
you the basics and assumes you know what CC commands you want to programme in when
I don't have a clue what they are.

The blue hand control sounds interesting though. I must give that a go.
Can you jump up a bank using it? Because when I press bank B or C I'm still stuck
with the first bank. It's maddening. You buy this piece of hardware to solve your
problems and you end up with even more. Technology eh?

I'll google blue hand control with ableton and mpd 32 and see what I can find.

Thanks again for your helpful advice, it's very much appreciated.

Eun Ji.

Live's strength And weakness is in its open ended midi mapping. There literally are no preset mapping parameters. You select a control and define it. When it comes to having lots of tracks, that can definitely be counter productive.

A few things to consider.

There is I think a script for the mpd 32 which has the type of functionality where it acts similar to an APC controller with the border around the clips in Session View and the ability to move around to different tracks.

Another option is 'selected track control'. There is a website for a script written called this. They list on the site a large number of midi cc#'s to use to control the functions that the script offers. This might be your best bet.

With blue hand control, the biggest benefit is using it for actual devices, although it is doable with channels in a roundabout way. It maps to the 8 macros of a selected rack, or to certain parameters of any selected device. There is a list for how it handles devices in the Help section (control surface reference).

I hope this is enough to start you off. I think selected track control is your best bet, and I'm pretty sure that also implements some blue hand type control. And has the advantage of giving you specifics cc's to set your hardware to.