Control selected track \w keyboard shortcuts

[re:dream]

@ wiffbi

Can I assign more than one controller to STC?

I have an LD8 with which I am controlling most stuff: but I am thinking of getting a second LD8 specifically to control sends.

[wiffbi]

@victorypoint: I sent a request describing the bug to support – I could not find another way to contact Ableton about bugs. I don’t expect to much, the API is not a officially supported product (although I assume this will affect M4L as well, so there might be a little chance).

@The Finn: yes, there are two ways:

A)
If you have enough free slots in your Control Surface settings, then simply add another Control Surface and select "Selected Track Control" in the dropdown. I do this with Kimidi and my LPD8.



or B)
You could combine both your LPD8s into one virtual MIDI port (you need software like MIDI Pipe – sorry, OS X only – that does virtual MIDI ports) and assign that to STC in the Control Surface settings in Live.


Of course, option A is way easier and does not require additional software.

[re:dream]

Thanks

But on further reflection and investigation I realized I can assign more than one bank of controls to my LD8. Which will save some money.

[alltomorrowsparties]

This is so interesting. I have been thinking about this style of workflow for a while now.
Use the mouse and screen for navigating to track/insert.
Use a controller for mixing/tweaking
It makes complete and utter logical sense.

I know this isn't a new concept or anything but it just wasn't feasible before the Ableton rack format (even if u had visual feedback like with a mackie control, it was still fairly tedious!).

Now with 8 endless controllers, I can mix and tweak and know exactly what encoder is gonna do what and I fly through productions and mixing. Even the act of changing from 'navigating' to 'mixing' is pleasurable. It breaks up the monotony of mouse tweaking and find it focuses me.

I was thinking about writing a max/msp patch that would simply display all tracks and inserts on a nice grid so you could so it would be even easier to navigate to the right track and the right insert.


Anyways this looks like it will sort out the final frontier in my quest for workflow nirvana. Couple of questions. I presume something from ableton (perhaps a mackie protocol?) is telling your script what the selected track is. Then I presume your script uses this information to change the incoming midi data to the pertinent track. If this is correct, I presume then I will have to midi map my mixer to whatever cc's your script is going to spit out to Abe? Is this correct?

Finally, I presume there is no 2-way midi feedback a la mackie? I currently use a novation nocturn and I like the feedback it generates with the leds around the encoders. If as I assumed above there is no 2 way communication with STC, I'm thinking I could -in some way- split up the outgoing midi messages from the nocturn and have the nice visual feedback used for racks and STC would handle the track exclusive stuff. I am not asking you to figure this out just interested in knowing if you have heard of anyone else doing this.

That last sentence was a bit of a mouthful, please disregard if it invokes deep head scratching

[re:dream]

, I presume then I will have to midi map my mixer to whatever cc's your script is going to spit out to Abe? Is this correct?

I don't know anything about Midi and Mackie but I can answer this part. There is a MIDI implementation chart on the website and you just edit your midi device to emit the relevant control codes.

Now with 8 endless controllers, I can mix and tweak and know exactly what encoder is gonna do what and I fly through productions and mixing. Even the act of changing from 'navigating' to 'mixing' is pleasurable. It breaks up the monotony of mouse tweaking and find it focuses me.

Ca you tell us more about your setup? It sounds really interesting & I would like to learn more about how you do this

[wiffbi]

Anyways this looks like it will sort out the final frontier in my quest for workflow nirvana. Couple of questions. I presume something from ableton (perhaps a mackie protocol?) is telling your script what the selected track is. Then I presume your script uses this information to change the incoming midi data to the pertinent track. If this is correct, I presume then I will have to midi map my mixer to whatever cc's your script is going to spit out to Abe? Is this correct?

Like The Finn said, yes. You need to send the MIDI CCs or notes that are listed in the documentation of STC:
http://stc.wiffbi.com/midi-implementation-chart/

To give you some background: Live offers something called "MIDI Remote Scripts". These scripts are written in Python and have access to a so called API (Application Programming Interface) – this API offers access to a lot of stuff in Live, among it the current track. Also, the API offers a way to subscribe to MIDI messages, that the Python script is interested in. So whenever Live receives a MIDI messages, that comes in on the MIDI device specified in settings and that the "MIDI Remote Script" subscribed to, it forwards it that Python script and that then does its thing.

Finally, I presume there is no 2-way midi feedback a la mackie? I currently use a novation nocturn and I like the feedback it generates with the leds around the encoders. If as I assumed above there is no 2 way communication with STC, I'm thinking I could -in some way- split up the outgoing midi messages from the nocturn and have the nice visual feedback used for racks and STC would handle the track exclusive stuff. I am not asking you to figure this out just interested in knowing if you have heard of anyone else doing this.

The thing with MIDI feedback is a bit complicated. STC does not have it (yet) as it originally started as a simple computer keyboard-shortcut tool, that did everything with relative MIDI CCs (giving MIDI feedback via relative MIDI CCs does not make sense, also a computer keyboard cannot give any useful feedback). Live has these _Framework-Classes, which one could use to build MIDI Remote Scripts. They offer MIDI feedback. The thing is, they are not that flexible when mapping e.g. encoders to do actions that usually buttons are meant for, and for other things. In some ways STC is more flexible. But then, when not using the _Framework-Classes, one needs to implement its own MIDI feedback. And the thing is, inside Live, you only get Pythonic values for things like volume, etc. So one needs to convert them to MIDI values. Furthermore, when selecting stuff (tracks, devices), it would need to send the initial values. All that is possible in Live, but complicates STCs code. I have it on my internal wishlist myself, but I currently just do not have enough time for a sparetime project.

Regarding your idea splitting the MIDI from your nocturn would not help much. You need the feedback from inside Live, and that would be STCs job. But maybe someone else has ideas?

[Amyas_Wilson]

Hi

Thank you for this amazing useful script!

Do you think its possible to include the clip parameters like loop in/out, loop on/off, clip length, transpose and volume? they are midi assignable so it shouldnt be too difficult...

Also it would be awesome to be able to duplicate the playing track with one midi key, similiar to the cmd + d shortcut, i use this very often to make variations dont want to use the keyboard though.

Cheers from Germany

[wiffbi]

@Amyas_Wilson: thanks for the nice feedback! Regarding clip-parameters: I will look into this. Some of it is only available in Live 9’s API (e.g. volume a.k.a. gain on audio clips) – that is the thing, although some things are MIDI mappable, they are not available via API.

Regarding duplicate track: I have an update coming adding some of Live 9s new API-features – among them is "duplicate track". So again, this is Live 9 only. I myself have not updated (yet?), still running version 8, but I can test in the Demo-version. So if you are not yet on Live 9 and absolutely want this, you would need to upgrade.

[alltomorrowsparties]

I don't know anything about Midi and Mackie but I can answer this part. There is a MIDI implementation chart on the website and you just edit your midi device to emit the relevant control codes.

Thankyou, i understand now. when i was referring to 'my mixer' above i was referring to Abletons mixer. That is really cool how your script and Abe communicate with eachother so nicely. I often wonder-given the lack of controllers that cannot figure out what track Abe is on-and given how you have managed to allow ANY midi controller to do this- do Abletons engineers have a built in copyright or some kind of licensing thing or at least some kind of 'lets make this obtuse enough so people will give up......maybe in order to sell more push controllers.... Or am i just being cynical!!??

Ca you tell us more about your setup? It sounds really interesting & I would like to learn more about how you do this

Sure thing. Well after many years of my Mackie controllers gathering dust(even when using Logic), i asked myself why. The reasons are pretty obvious when you think of it.....

There are 4 distinct jobs you need to do to make music in any daw.
1- NAVIGATE find play position (verse chorus etc), find track, find plugin,
2- TWEAK....(instantiate plugins, tweak plugins, eq, pan, aux etc)
3- RECORD
4- EDIT tracks audio/midi

1- NAVIGATE.it is way easier to use a screen and mouse to select a track, and plugin than scrolling through banks of 8 [or even 16 or 24]. it is also way easier to point and click a mouse or use locators to find play position than using a shuttle wheel....

2- TWEAK- it is way easier to tweak a plugin with a controller AS LONG AS YOU CAN SEE WHAT YOU ARE CONTROLLING. The mackies were pretty good at this (although i did have the advantage of having the 32 encoder MCU so i wasn't incessantly flipping through banks of 8/16
However it was not always apparent what every label did.....think "modFrqEnv4" and "lfoOsc1mod"
3-RECORD- although the mackies were quite good for this, i nearly always used mouse for this as i was generally using the mouse for navigation/editing takes so why bother breaking up the workflow to arm/press record

4-EDIT- Well this is just a no brainer. screens and mice win.


So this implies a hybrid or augmented means of controlling i think, but it also implies a wariness of an 'everything box' like push.. Currently I use mouse where it makes sense and using an 8 encoder nocturn in conjunction with customized racks and [soon to be] STC, i can control everything else. It is incredibly simple but I think also a really pleasurable way of making music.

[alltomorrowsparties]

To give you some background: Live offers........

And thanks for all the background info. you've been most helpful

edit....sorry actually that post above i thought i was replying to you! i'll get back to you on what you've just said as i'm really interested in the API and its potential.
thanks and sorry my bad

[re:dream]

There are 4 distinct jobs you need to do to make music in any daw.
1- NAVIGATE find play position (verse chorus etc), find track, find plugin,
2- TWEAK....(instantiate plugins, tweak plugins, eq, pan, aux etc)
3- RECORD
4- EDIT tracks audio/midi
.

Doesn't that kind of leave out PLAY?

[re:dream]

Currently I use mouse where it makes sense and using an 8 encoder nocturn in conjunction with customized racks and [soon to be] STC, i can control everything else. It is incredibly simple but I think also a really pleasurable way of making music.

That sounds sensible. I am at the moment using

(1) Akai LD8 with 3 banks of presets assigned to STC.

- one preset controls the most common session related commands (global play/pause; mute track; solo track, launch clip, track volume, master volume, etc)
- the next has all the knobs assigned to sends
- the third is a dj setup focusing on cue, crossfade and some dj effects
- I am contemplating setting up a fourth with knobs assigned to loop brace control. But not sure about that.

(2) Push, to play and record

(3) Mouse and keyboard, for browsing libraries.

I hardly ever edit anything at the moment. I guess I would use the mouse & screen for that.

I feel I am 95% on the way to a nice flow. If Live 9's browser could default to the User Library in Places it would be just about perfect.

STC is absolutely essential to all this; I agree with Funken that it is a must have. I don't have kimidi, as my main setup is on a PC.

[alltomorrowsparties]

Currently I use mouse where it makes sense and using an 8 encoder nocturn in conjunction with customized racks and [soon to be] STC, i can control everything else. It is incredibly simple but I think also a really pleasurable way of making music.

That sounds sensible. I am at the moment using

(1) Akai LD8 with 3 banks of presets assigned to STC.

- one preset controls the most common session related commands (global play/pause; mute track; solo track, launch clip, track volume, master volume, etc)
- the next has all the knobs assigned to sends
- the third is a dj setup focusing on cue, crossfade and some dj effects
- I am contemplating setting up a fourth with knobs assigned to loop brace control. But not sure about that.

(2) Push, to play and record

(3) Mouse and keyboard, for browsing libraries.

I hardly ever edit anything at the moment. I guess I would use the mouse & screen for that.

I feel I am 95% on the way to a nice flow. If Live 9's browser could default to the User Library in Places it would be just about perfect.

STC is absolutely essential to all this; I agree with Funken that it is a must have. I don't have kimidi, as my main setup is on a PC.

i presume you use push for your plugins? your setup with the LD8 is not too dissimilar to how i hope mine will be with the nocturn and STC except i hope to use the mouse to my advantage in order to prevent bank changes/page flips....that is if i select a track with the mouse, track specific controls vol/pan/mute/solo/cue/arm/aux will take precedence. If i click a plugin slot, plugins will take precedence.

So thats basically everything being one mouse click away. With an 8 encoder/8 button controller (i hope)

For transport, i think i'll just use the keyboard. Its sitting there doing nothing anyways

[alltomorrowsparties]

So I tried STC out tonight...
1- awesome job thankyou
2- With the novation Nocturn the buttons work great.
3- however the endless encoders leave a lot to be desired when compared to the original nocturn script. i specifically chose the nocturn for it's endless encoders to avoid 'pick-ups' & 'snap takeovers' but something is seriously going wrong somewhere along the line.
It says here http://stc.wiffbi.com/midi-implementation-chart/ that STC requires CC's to be in 2's complement format. I have no idea if the Nocturn is currently outputting this or if it IS in fact able to output in 2's complement so this may be responsible for the erratic behavior I'm seeing with the encoders??

I'll keep at it

[alltomorrowsparties]

Also interesting to note that- with my nocturn at least- you can combine multiple controller scripts and have them all running of a single controller.

Discovered this while trying to find a workaround for the post above.....so now I have STC dealing with all the track exclusive stuff and the orignal nocturn script is being called when i touch the encoders

Another thing to note (see picture below) is if you want to combine two scripts the script at the topmost of the dropdown in the midi preferences pane menu takes precedence over the ones beneath it.....and seems to swallow all commands that are useful to the topmost script thus allowing all other MIDI data from the topmost script to pass through to the next script in the hierarchy

This is useful in a number of ways....as it means that you can combine 2 or more scripts and not have to worry about them conflicting with eachother
Or-in my case-this processing hierarchy will call the nocturn script (which is good for encoders) when encoders are turned and calls STC when buttons are pressed.

Here's a screen grab showing 2 scripts being called from one controller....

If this isn't news to anyone, please disregard and apologies if this is common knowledge