How to map a Korg nanopad2 x-y pad to Live controls

Discuss Live-ready controllers other than Push.
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honeybadger
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:41 pm

How to map a Korg nanopad2 x-y pad to Live controls

Post by honeybadger » Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:16 am

My nanopad2 arrived today and I was irritated that the x-y pad didn't work automagically. I fished around forums without much luck, then tried this. Seems to work. Thought I would spare you the irritation, dear reader.

TL;DR: Create a custom control script for your nanopad2. Ta-da! :D

At length:

1. Create a custom control surface script as explained on the Ableton site:
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... ace-script
You don't even need to edit the default script— you just need Live to recognize the nanopad2 as a control surface.
Put it in a folder with a nice name.

2. Restart Live and select your newly named control surface in Preferences > Link/Tempo/MIDI
(Or whichever tab has MIDI prefs in it in your version of Live.)
See https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... l-Surfaces

3. Still in the MIDI preferences, choose how you want your MIDI ports to sync up with Live. I've got mine set as:
In: Track, Remote
Out: Sync
I'm not sure this is correct, strictly speaking, but it seems to be working so far.
(Presumably the Sync Out will help if/when I figure out how to sync the nanopad2's arpeggiator with Live's MIDI clock. No luck yet, will repost if I figure that out.)
Close Preferences.

4. Now get into your device, enter MIDI map mode (Cmd-M/Ctl-M), click the first control you want to map, engage the X or Y axis on your pad, do it again for the second control you want to map, hit Escape to close MIDI map mode, and you're on your way.
---------------------------
Honeybadger don't care.
In case you forgot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

honeybadger
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:41 pm

Re: How to map a Korg nanopad2 x-y pad to Live controls

Post by honeybadger » Sun Oct 16, 2022 10:23 pm

As promised, here's that piece of a user remote script to map the nanopad pads to the drum rack more elegantly.

Documentation in code.

You can leave the pad channels set to -1, or assign them whatever channel you prefer.

Code: Select all

# The Pad settings below allow you to assign Note
# numbers that will be used to play the visible pads in
# Drum Racks.  The arrangement of the Pads is as
# follows:
#   1     2     3     4
#   5     6     7     8
#   9    10    11    12
#  13    14    15    16

# Mapped nanoPAD2 pads so that, in the factory setting for scene 1, 
# left half is the 'lower half' of the Ableton drum rack, 
# and the right half corresponds to the 'upper half' of the rack display.
#
# The MIDI Notes (sent by nanoPAD2) will map thusly to Drum Rack view:
#	45	47	49	51
#	44	46	48	50
#	37	39	41	43
#	36	38	40	42
#
# Corresponding to nanopad2 positions:
# 	37	39	41	43	|	45	47	49	51
#	36	38	40	42	|	44	46	48	50
# 	rack bottom			|	rack top				


Pad1Note: 45
Pad2Note: 47
Pad3Note: 49
Pad4Note: 51
Pad5Note: 44
Pad6Note: 46
Pad7Note: 48
Pad8Note: 50
Pad9Note: 37
Pad10Note: 39
Pad11Note: 41
Pad12Note: 43
Pad13Note: 36
Pad14Note: 38
Pad15Note: 40
Pad16Note: 42
Pad1Channel: -1
Pad2Channel: -1
Pad3Channel: -1
Pad4Channel: -1
Pad5Channel: -1
Pad6Channel: -1
Pad7Channel: -1
Pad8Channel: -1
Pad9Channel: -1
Pad10Channel: -1
Pad11Channel: -1
Pad12Channel: -1
Pad13Channel: -1
Pad14Channel: -1
Pad15Channel: -1
Pad16Channel: -1
---------------------------
Honeybadger don't care.
In case you forgot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

OwlSeeingI
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2022 5:43 pm

Re: How to map a Korg nanopad2 x-y pad to Live controls

Post by OwlSeeingI » Thu Nov 24, 2022 5:54 pm

Looks awesome. I'm going to give them a try. Thank you!

honeybadger
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:41 pm

Re: How to map a Korg nanopad2 x-y pad to Live controls

Post by honeybadger » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:17 am

OwlSeeingI wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 5:54 pm
Looks awesome. I'm going to give them a try. Thank you!
Sure thing! :wink:
---------------------------
Honeybadger don't care.
In case you forgot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

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