This is my first post on this board. I've been working on getting my FCB1010 setup for live performances and ran across this thread (and several others). I've been wanting to get my FCB1010 to control different Amplitube presets from WITHIN Ableton. I can report that I have success!!! Thanks to this thread and other resources on the web.
Because I've gotten so much help from this board and threads on setting up my FCB1010 I wanted to post to this thread with my results. I know this is an old thread, but hopefully it will help someone else out there who needs to use the FCB1010 to control Amplitube presets from within Live using the pedal board. Here goes........
This has been difficult. I started setting things up earlier this week and it's taken me a few days of pretty intense effort to finally get a set up that works for me.
Based on everything I've read online and the info from Jasthemusicman I downloaded iFCB and used the provided Live Setup sysex. So, my FCB1010 is using the Mackie Control emulation. If you haven't done this, then do it because it makes everything 1,000 times easier. Yes, I did the Riverdance, but after paying the $20 for iFCB I'd say it is EASILY worth it.
So now that you have your FCB1010 set up using iFCB (on the Mac) and it is emulating a Mackie Control device you want to control Amplitube from within Ableton. Here you go.......
There are two solutions. One solution will recall the amp presets from Amplitube. This solution allows you to run one instance of Amplitube and you can call up the desired presets with the FCB1010 from inside Ableton. The downside to this is THERE IS A DELAY WHILE THE PRESET IS LOADED.
This method requires no MIDI mapping Ableton.
To do this you need an empty MIDI track inside of Ableton and an audio track with Amplitube loaded into it. Select MIDI in from your FCB1010 on the empty MIDI track. Mine is labeled USB UNO Midi interface. If you can't see it in your drop down list make sure that your FCB1010 MIDI interface in Ableton Preferences has Track turned on. Route the MIDI out of the blank MIDI track to the audio track containing amplitude.
Now you're going to have to change some settings on your FCB1010. All of the pedals are already assigned from the sysex. In order to open an Amplitube preset from inside of Ableton you're going to need to send a PC (program change). You'll need to remap a pedal to call up an amp preset. For this exercise I remapped pedal 6 (in bank 3). So go to your iFCB click on pedal six. I turned off (unchecked) everything except for the Program Change 1 box. Pick a value. For this exercise I chose value 35. Then send this new mapping to your FCB1010.
Now go back into Ableton and open up Amplitube inside of Ableton (click on the little wrench icon in the Amplitube status bar). Click on the MIDI button. It will open up The Amplitube MIDI dialog box. Make sure that Preset is selected at the top. At the bottom left corner will be a box labeled Program Change. PLace your mouse in this box, click the left mouse button and scroll up until the value in the box matches what you set in iFCB (for this example it is 35). Click okay. The MIDI dialog box will close. Now click Save or Save As at the top of the Amplitube screen (NOT the Ableton screen. Find the save button on the top of the AMPLITUBE screen inside of Ableton).
You're done. No need to go through MIDI mapping. The secret is the blank MIDI track. For this example, any time you press pedal six (in the appropriate bank) it will send a PC value of 35 to the blank MIDI track which will direct it to the audio track containing Amplitube and open up the preset.
I believe you need to remap a pedal for every amp preset you want to open. So if you want to open a different preset, you'll need to assign a different PC value to a different pedal on the FCB1010 and save this PC value with the appropriate Amplitube preset.
Again, note that if you switch between presets with this method (two or more pedals mapped to two different PC values) within Ableton there will be a small delay in sound while the new preset is loaded. After finally getting this work I was disappointed, because I needed my presets to switch instantly.
If you need an INSTANTANEOUS switch between amp presets you'll need to do solution two.
Solution 2.
Solution 2 uses MIDI mapping (unlike solution 1) and you will need a separate MIDI controller capable of sending simultaneous MIDI notes. A simple MIDI keyboard will do. You won't use this to switch between presets (that's what the FCB1010 is for), but the FCB can only send one MIDI note at a time, and you MUST be able to send multiple notes simultaneously for this work. So, you need a MIDI keyboard to set this up, but once it's set up, the FCB1010 is all that's needed to switch between presets.
Solution 2 makes a small addition to this EXCELLENT description on making a multifx chain in Ableton. I'll try to describe the highlights, but this video is outstanding and helps a lot, so the best bet is to watch this video...
http://www.anthonyarroyodotcom.com/thea ... eton-live/
Did you watch the video? Hopefully yes, if not here are the steps, but I'm not going to describe them in detail since the video is so good!!
Let's assume you need 3 presets.
Add three instances of Amplitube into your audio track.
Highlight all three and group them together into a rack.
Click the display chain button on the rack to display the chains. There will only be one chain present.
Add a chain for each Amplitube instance (in our case we add two more chains)
Move an Amplitube instance to each chain. So, in our case we have three chains each with a single instance of Amplitube in it.
Click on the yellow chain button to display the chain selector.
Go to the second chain in the list. Place the mouse in the white chain activation area right next to the second chain and the pointer will change to a drag handle. Drag the small, blue line until it reads 1-1. Repeat this for the third chain, but place the small blue line at 2-2. So, you will have three chai locations: 0-0, 1-1, 2-2. If you watch the video this will make perfect sense.
If you've done all this, you're almost set. Go into MIDI mapping in Ableton. Since this example has three Amplitube instances, we need three MIDI notes. I'm going to use C2, D2, & E2. Make sure the white chain selection area is still visible in MIDI mapping. Click on the top of the chain selection area . WITH YOUR MIDI KEYBOARD press C2 & E2 SIMULTANEOUSLY. The MIDI mapping square in the chain selection area should read 16/C2:E2. The 16 isn't that important. It just means my MIDI keyboard is sending signals to Ableton on channel 16. The C2:E2 is VERY important because it defines a range of notes used to activate the chain. The FCB can't send a range of notes, this is why we used a MIDI keyboard.
Look to the left and the MIDI mappings in Ableton should be displayed. The first column will say 16 (or whatever channel your keyboard is sending MIDI to Ableton), The path should say something about the audio effects rack The NoteControl column should say Notes C2:E2 and the last column should say Chain Selector with a min value of 0 and a max value of 127. Because we have three chains in this example, we need to change the max to 2 instead of 127 so that the three Amplitube presets are associated with 0, 1 & 2. Make sure to tap enter after you change the value in the Max box to 2.
You are now done with the MIDI mapping. Turn on all Amplitube instances and you should be able to select any one at any time using the MIDI keyboard. When you hit C2 on the keyboard it will send audio to the Amplitube instance in the first chain, D2 sends audio to the amplitude instance in the second chain and E2 sends audio to the Amplitube instance in the third chain. Verify this works using the MIDI keyboard.
Great, but what about the FCB1010?
Go into iFCB and make some program changes.
All you need to do now, is program the FCB1010 to send the three MIDI notes we selected. In this case you'll need to program the FCB1010 to send a C2, D2 & E2 from some pedals on some bank. If you're using iFCB and the Live Setup Sysex, you're going to have to change three pedals. In the Live Setup Sysex you may notice that the MIDI notes already mapped run from 0 - 31 and then from 74 - 101. As long as you choose MIDI notes that don't conflict with these already mapped assignments, you should be fine. For this example, in bank 3 I decided to have pedal 6 assigned to note C3. For whatever reason the iFCB mapping is off an octave from Ableton. So if I want Ableton to interpret the incoming MIDI note as a C2, I have to map the note in iFCB to C3. Yes, it's confusing, but everything about setting up the FCB1010 is confusing. Why should this be any different? So, pedal 6 is now C3. You should see that the number next to C3 is 48. As long as we avoid note values in the 0-31 and 74-101 range we should have no conflicts. Map pedal 7 to D3 which is note 50 and pedal 8 to note E3 which is note 52. Send these changes to your FCB1010.
We're in the home stretch.....
Everything should work except that it doesn't Not quite yet. Remember that my MIDI mapping in Ableton refer to channel 16. It turns out my FCB1010 sends data into Ableton using channel 1. So even though I have the correct notes mapped to the FCB1010, the pedals do not change the Amplitube presets in my multifx chain. Yet....
The last thing to do is go back into MIDI mapping, highlight the chain selection area and press pedal 6. The MIDI mapping should change to say channel 1 instead of channel 16, but all other values should stay the same. Now Ableton knows to look for these notes to switch the chains in the multi effects rack on channel 1 instead of channel 16. This should work like a champ!!
The plus side to this method is that the amp sound changes are instantaneous because you're running three instances of Amplitube simultaneously. The downside is that it's a little CPU intensive because you're running three instances of Amplitube simultaneously.
Method 1 described earlier is far less CPU intensive, but the preset changes do not happen instantaneously. There is a slight delay as each preset is loaded. Each method requires that you have a separate pedal available to recall each preset. So, if you want three presets, you need three available pedals.
Somebody who is better at programming the FCB1010 may know a way to use a single pedal to cycle through the amp choices?
I hope this helps. I know switching Amplitube amp presets from WITHIN Ableton using the FCB1010 has been difficult to find. I looked and looked for a solution. These two methods work for me.
Hope this ends up being useful to somebody!!
I don't know, maybe Ableton can't "read" some MIDI CC (coming from FCB1010) to get some signals into Amplitube or whatelse. 