Sending MIDI CC to active chain only?

[tjspurge]

I'm wondering if anyone has found a way to use a midi-mapped knob to send CC to only a selected chain in a rack?

For example, I have a channel in Live 10 which contains an instrument rack with 5 instruments, each on their own chain. I'm using the chain selector to move between them and I have a knob on one of my midi controllers which I want to use as filter cutoff for all of them, but only have it affect the selected chain. I've tried using a M4L midi filter but I can't seem to get it to filter CCs, only notes. I don't know if I'm misunderstanding how the filter works . I've also tried the "chain selector filters MIDI ctrl" option but it doesn't seem to do anything. I should also mention that the chains mostly contain Wavetable and Serum patches.

Any ideas? I'm trying to avoid using Clyphx or anything like that. There has to be a way to do this within Ableton's UI right?

[Calagan]

I'm interested about that too...

It's crazy the "chain selector filters MIDI ctrl" doesn't do nothing : it doesn't make any sense the CC messages are not filtered and are feeding all the chains... For live controling a specific device when you've got many vsti in a rack, it's a pain in the ass...

[timday]

OK so the workaround I can think of is
Put your VST in a sub rack inside the rack
Map the parameters you want to Macros in the sub rack (not the main rack)
Use blue hand to select the sub rack you want (the sub rack not the VST)
Only those macros will then be affected not macros on other tracks

Limitations
- only works for mapped control surfaces, it isn't MIDI cc
- you only have 8 macros so if you want to tweak more parameters than that it's a problem
- Moving the chain selector doesn't automatocally select blue hand, but you can map MIDI keys or buttons to do both together so if you hit a key it will move the chain selector and simultaneously blue hand the device.

I think this will do most of what you want apart from the 8 macro limitation. There is a 16 Macro M4L device if you want more but I've never tried it.

[Calagan]

Thanks for the advice, but the blue hand limitation is very problematic, specially when you use 2 or more keyboards/controllers (in a live context with 2 or more player) : then you need 2 blue hands and that’s not possible...
it’s crazy the midi ctrl filter in chain selector doesn’t work in this situation, I truly don’t get it...

[timday]

I can only imagine it's a bug. I mean it says "chain selector filters MIDI ctrl", but it doesn't. If you find a better workaround let me know.....

[Calagan]

Very strange ! I tried this morning, exact same live set, and or was working...