Easy(?) fix for APC40 colorblind trouble

[dstroud]

UPDATE April 30 2015: I'm editing this post to let you know that I've made a tool available for Mac users or a Max patcher that can probably be easily modified for PC users in the LiveAPC40 folder at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oequh24lz0ql ... IlTLa?dl=0


Hi folks,

Here's a fun fact from Wikipedia:

In the United States, about 7 percent of the male population – or about 10.5 million men – and 0.4 percent of the female population either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2006).

For those with an APC40, this is a big problem. In my case, I only have trouble telling the difference between the orange and greens- which is unfortunately the most common. The difference between red/green and red/orange is more noticeable.

An idea for a feature request could be the ability to set more detailed preferences for the APC40, possibly from within Live, such as the option to rapidly pulse the active clip or maybe just to swap the colors so that red indicates an unplayed clip and orange is used for record (less commonly used). I know that rapidly pulsing an LED appears dimmer (the sleep light on a Mac computer for example), so this could be amazingly helpful.

I figure that this is more of a design issue with Akai than it is an Ableton issue, but I also figure that this may just be a software implementation that Ableton could implement. Maybe a workaround could be devised in Max For Live.

Anyway, thanks for hearing me out. If there's anyone else who has trouble with this, maybe we can politely bring this to the attention of Akai and Ableton. I'd hate to think that something as as small as this could make the APC40 unusable for so many people. I love the APC40, but here's to hoping that I can get more use out of it.

[dstroud]

Followup: This is an easy change to the outgoing MIDI to the APC. Hacked together an implementation in MidiPipe, but it's sloppy.

[Debrecini]

+ 1

I've got one of these bad boys on order. I'm also red green colour blind and was concerned about this before purchase. Thankfully my colour blindness is only mild so I'm hoping I'll get away with it. But if something like this can be done I'm sure it would be appreciated.

[sraposa]

+1

Got a demo of the APC40 the other day and since I'm one of the "7 percent", I couldn't tell whether a clip was playing or not based on the orange/green. I'd love to see an option where the currently playing clip flashes -- or turns bright blue or something.

Glad to at least hear there's a MidiPipe workaround... but I wonder if that'll work 100% of the time? i.e., will it do the trick once things get fancy with Max for Live? Guess we'll find out.

-Scott

[dstroud]

I'm pretty sure that any remapping done with MidiPipe/MaxMSP/Midi Translator will work with Max For Live since you can tell Live that any device is the APC40 as long as it returns the correct 'handshake'.

I used to use Max heavily but I don't have a license unfortunately. If someone has the inclination, they could easily make a background app from Max that anyone can use to remap different pad states to preferred behaviors. My real question is if we can do this JUST using Max For Live, since I hear that there are some MIDI limitations.

In the meantime, MidiPipe works OK and I'll be glad to share details if anyone is interested. Here's my setup:
Formerly orange pads are changed to red (unplayed clips)
Formerly red pads are changed to blinking red (recording)
Formerly blinking red pads are changed to blinking orange (pre-record)

D.

[kaioconnell]

Add a vote for Ableton/Akai to make these part of the prefs so we don't need extra tools to do it.

In the mean time, tried working with this in midipipe, with zero success, even trying to do just a straight midi thru to the apc borked the handshake. I was able to get it to work with Bome's, but I'd really rather get midipipe to do it's thing prop, any suggestions?

[dstroud]

Hey Kai,

I take it that the other info I mentioned at CDM didn't get this working with MidiPipe? Are you still having the issue where the handshake fails and the red box stops appearing?

FYI, if anyone else is trying this, I have some info up at idisk.mac.com/dstroud-Public/LiveAPC40 although it doesn't seem to be working for everyone yet.

[kaioconnell]

Yup, tried with your instructions, the ableton side is all setup properly. Even just doing a straight pass through with only a midi in/midi out makes the handshake fail. Which ver # of midipipe are you on?

[dstroud]

MidiPipe 1.4.3 and Live 8.0.4 here.

Just to make sure I understand, you're only trying to modify the Output MIDI stream in Live, right? That's the one that I'm routing through the APC40 Mapper virtual MIDI input.

Say you have the Live prefs set up normally and the red box is appearing like it should… does it go away when you change only the Output to APC40 Mapper? If so, does it reappear when you switch back to Akai APC40?

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe I renamed APC40 in Audio Midi Setup. Is yours names 'Akai APC40'?

[kaioconnell]

Correct, only changing the output, and I'm on the same live and midipipe vers. My APC is named the same. The box goes away if I divert to midipipe and comes back if I switch it back to the apc or to bome's. What do your "midi in" and "midi out" tools look like/which options were set in pipe, they had to be set when I opened the file from you and I'm wondering if maybe I'm missing a setting there. Like I said, running the APC through Bome's still works so I must just be boffing something in the config in midipipe. Ugh, feeling like a doofus over here. Thanks for all the help, and here's to hoping Ableton can make things right for us 7%'ers

[dstroud]

I think you're right about this having to do with MidiPipe since Bourne's gives you no trouble. I bet that the virtual inputs break when moving from one machine to the other (perhaps they don't rely on the default name alone?). Maybe it's best to just scrap my file and start really basic on one of your own to see if you can even get the handshake trick working.

In MP, create a Midi In tool and select Edit Virtual Inputs. Create new virtual input called Mapper (I figure that using a slightly different name will let us go back to my pipe and select a the new name if this works). The next tool in the pipe should be a MIDI Out where you can select Akai APC40 - Akai APC40.

If you leave this running and then launch Ableton, you should be able to select Mapper in the output section of the MIDI prefs. If this works, it's probably just a matter of opening my pipe and changing all of the virtual inputs over from APC40 Mapper to Mapper.

Of course if this doesn't work, yeah, you're a doofus. At least that's my excuse because I'm stumped.

Honestly, we really need to get something together in Max or Max For Live when it ships. I hacked this together one night and meant to go back to try to clean it up and look for redundant data being sent, etc… (pretty sure it's there). But since it works perfectly fine as far as I can tell, I've been to lazy to do so.

[dstroud]

Hey Kai, what version of Live are you on? I just read the changelogs and it sounds like 8.0.5b4 doesn't let you use virtual ports with the APC40. If so, does Bourne's let you do the same with the default APC40 port? I'm getting worried here.

[kaioconnell]

no, I'm on 8.0.4, haven't tried the beta yet, i'll get back to y'all when i give it a try though.

[dstroud]

Bad news folks, it looks like this workaround no longer works in the 8.0.5 betas because of the change mentioned here:
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=119282

"Changes from Live 8.0.5b3 to 8.0.5b4:
When using the APC40 Controller surface script, we check if the selection MIDI ports are the one from the APC40"

This means that we can no longer use a virtual port to change the colors sent out to the APC40.

Ableton folks, this is a really big problem for us and, while I'm sure that this change is well intentioned, I really don't see that it's beneficial since once can still select the "wrong" port. The only difference is that now instead of MIDI being sent to the "wrong" device (which is harmless), it's apparently not sent at all?

I think that, considering the number of users that this will inconvenience (in my case, make the APC40 virtually useless), it's not worth whatever convenience there is to those users who have trouble selecting the correct ports (which should be auto-selected, I believe). The irony with this is that I am experiencing this on Mac OS X which does not have the issue of ambiguous port naming that is described in the update notes.

[kaioconnell]

oh come the frack on! I'd call abes to get on their case since no one seems to be paying attention to us, but trying to get a call into their support line seems harder than finding a virgin the day after prom Come on Ableton we're counting on you!