forcing a 'midi remote' update, from midi?

mux · Post by **mux** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:30 am

I'm sure the subject isn't actually what the bit I'm looking for is called, but it's close.

I'm using a Behringer BCF 2000 with a lot of presets, with all the buttons mapped to clip launches (sixteen buttons times sixteen presets is a good amount of clips). I've finally managed to get the LEDs on the buttons to light up (and STAY lit) according to which clips are currently playing! The trick was to set the Behringer to use CC's to trigger the clips, "toggle off", set the button-down value to 1 and the button-up value to "off".

Anyway, when I change presets on the BCF, the LEDs change to whatever LEDs were on the last time I used that BCF preset - which doesn't at all reflect what's currently playing. If I enter MIDI map mode then exit again right away, Live sends an update or a refresh or something, and the LEDs all change to reflect the status of the clips in Live.

How can I force a refresh like this without using the MIDI map button? I want to be able to hit a button on my BCF and have Live send it an update as to the current status of the knobs/buttons/faders, but I can't map a controller to the "MIDI" button in Live.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:00 pm

do you have midi in and midi out set to REMOTE and TRACK? Also set the control surface to get automap going. I believe TRACK OUT does this. My BCR works great in this capacity.

mux · Post by **mux** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:16 pm

yes, it's set to REMOTE, and I'm not sending any TRACK data.

I'm not using Automap, I've got every button, slider and knob hard-coded in the BCF to be different CC's, and I switch between "songs" in my live set by switching presets on the BCF. The problem is the BCF has a memory, and saves it's state (like, buttons 3, 5, 7 "on") in the preset.

Say I'm playing my third song and the clips that are running are mapped to buttons 2, 4 and 6 in preset 3. I switch to preset 4 to start playing clips from my next song, but preset 4 in the BCF has saved the LEDs 1, 3 and 5 as "on", even tho the clips that correspond to those buttons aren't currently playing.

If I hit the "MIDI" button in the top right corner of Live, then hit it again to leave MIDI Map Mode, Live sends out the state of all the MIDI mappings - ie, the level of every slider, the state of every button, etc. What I'm trying to do is find out how to map a button on my controller to that function - how can I hit a button and cause Live to send out all that info to my controller?

mux · Post by **mux** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 6:28 am

well, so far the best idea I've had is to use my little USB keyboard and map a macro to "CTRL-M, CTRL-M" - maybe with a 200ms pause in between them to get rid of the audible glitch that occurs if I do 'em too fast... :/

Anyone know a better way? I'd love to have a button on my BCF cause Ableton to send out the current settings...

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:58 am

Well, you can always use Boomes midi translator to have a midi message translated to a combination of keystrokes. But I wonder if there isn't an easier way...?