Trick to switch banks of MIDI mappings on nanoKontrol, etc.

[miyarakira]

Hi All,

Here's a trick I devised to switch between "banks" or pages of
functionality on nanoKontrol and other MIDI controllers. For
example, in one moment I can be controlling one set of tracks,
and with a push of a button, the same faders, knobs, buttons
control another set of parameters, devices, etc.

I know there's a utility in development for this purpose (MapEase
on the Beatwise Network) but as of yet I couldn't get it to do what
I wanted, so here's a work-around solution within Live. It requires
an IAC port and ClyphX.

The main idea is to route the nanoKontrol input to several channels on
an IAC port, and switch between channels with ClyphX command clips.
Then you can assign separate MIDI mappings to each channel.

Here are the steps.

- Create an IAC port in Audio MIDI Setup, i.e., "nanoset".

- In Live, under Preferences -> MIDI/Sync, turn Remote On for "nanoset"
input, and Track On for the ouput. For the original nanoKontrol port,
turn Track On and Remote *Off* for the input.

- Create three MIDI tracks. The first one is for ClyphX commands, and the
other two for channels, i.e., "N1" and "N2".

- For each of the channels, set "MIDI From" to the original nanoKontrol port,
and "MIDI To" to the IAC port, "nanoset". Under the "MIDI To" channel selection,
choose unused channels, for example I use Ch. 10 and 11 for N1 and N2.
Set Monitor to IN.

- Here comes the tricky part, setting it up to toggle between the channels using
one button. If you have more buttons available, for example on a Launchpad,
you can assign a button for each channel.

- In the ClyphX track, create two clips with Quantization None. Name each clip
with this command: [] "N1"/mute ; "N2"/mute. You need two clips, so that the same
button in each channel triggers the toggle clip.

- For the MIDI assignment: first, turn track N1 on and track N2 off, and MIDI map
the button you're going use to switch banks (I'm using the "Cycle" button) to the first
ClyphX clip. Then turn N1 off and N2 on, and MIDI map the same button to the
second ClyphX clip. Finally, turn track N1 on and N2 off again, so you can start
from the first channel.

- For visual feedback, you can have the button unlit for the first channel
and lit for the second. Go to Korg Kontrol Editor, and set the Button Behavior to
Toggle. For some reason, I had to set the Off Value to something other than zero
to make it work, so I have it to 126, and the On Value to 127.

- Now you can have a separate set of MIDI mappings for each channel. Make
your mappings for the first channel, then use the toggle button to switch to the
second channel, and map a different set of assignments.

So, that's it. Takes a bit of effort to set up, but the added value of having a whole
another bank of controls is worth it for me. Theoretically, you can expand on
this and create more than two channels.

Over the last year or so, I've had some valuable help on this forum, so I thought
I'd contribute to the bag of tricks. I hope someone finds it useful.

Cheers!

[Discreet63]

Hi,

Great trick,
I followed step by step your trick, But when I push the cycle button it mutes one track but doesn't active the other and vice versa...
Any idea?
I thought may be it is easier to do it with midi pipe but i'm not very good in midi routing...
Thanks for the help