Have a midi controller control different things at different points in a live set

[piopiu]

Running in arrangement view, how can I set up my session/midi controller so that let’s say in song 1, 8 knobs are controlling a soft synth while in song 2 those same 8 knobs are now controlling something like a delay.

[[jur]]

Not an easy one, and you could do it in different ways.
First important needed info: are you midi mapping your controller's knob/faders, or are you running its Control Surface script?
Which Live version? Do you have M4L? Etc, tell us more about your setup.

[Calagan]

If Live could implement a midi learning feature (added to the midi mapping one), you could do that, and be able to control different things depending on the active chain.

By midi learning I mean something similar to Native Instrument synths, for exemple, where a specific CC will control a specific plugin or parameter.
Then, by excluding or choosing the midi focus on a specific chain (exactly like when you switch from an instrument to another in a song in the session view), you can choose to control a delay here, and a synth there, with the exact sam knobs...

I asked this feature for Live 12 in the center code but didn't have much interest (2 votes, mine included)...
https://ableton.centercode.com/project/ ... 48ff7a4426

Now, to do that you need M4L devices like this manual CC mapper :
https://maxforlive.com/library/device/2 ... -cc-mapper

Please feel free to ask for more details...

[Calagan]

Just for info (again) here is my complete suggestion for Live 12 in Center Code (if you don't have access to it) :

It could be AMAZING for people using Ableton Live on stage to have the possibility to choose between mapping and midi learn (like in NI and Arturia synths for exemple).

Mapping is "eternal" and the midi message you use (note or CC) becomes excluded from any normal use other than mapping : if you use CC64 to map something, you can't use your sustain pedal anymore for anything else. If you use the note C3 to trigger something, you can't play C3 anymore on the vsti synth you're playing.
Another issue : mapping goes through the chains, racks and midi filters. When I play live, all my songs are organized in scenes, chains, chains of chains and racks inside chains, so on song A I play a piano, on song B I play bass on the intro and rhodes on the chorus and so on.
Now, with this mapping system, if I want to control with the same knob on my keyboard many different parameters, depending on the song I'm playing adn the active chains I'm in (for exemple the volume of the piano on song A, a low shelf on the bass on song B-intro and a tremolo FX on the rhodes on song B-chorus), it's very complicated to manage because a mapped parameter will always be controled whatever the position in the chain.

Midi learn, at the contrary, is just a way to make a specific parameter react to a specific midi signal. I you don't want to control this parameter, you just need to filter the midi signal just like you are doing with chains.
If we could midi learn a specific parameter, and in particular the Macro Controls on each rack, we could very easily create a complex live setup where with the same knob or fader, we could control different parameters depending on where we are in the scenes and active chains.
To me, it would be very natural because it's exactly what's happening now with the midi notes : using chains you just restrict what you are playing to the active chain, and let the inactive chains protected against any midi signal (with the existing option to filter also CC signal)...
Why not do this with midi control of parameters inside Live ???

Another very interesting use : with the Ableton Live looper !
Try to imagine that you have 10 instances of the looper in your session that you want to control only when they are in an active chain. Impossible right now ! The mapping system obliges us to have only one looper instance for the whole set for each available midi button.
If we could midi learn things in Ableton Live, we could have a dedicated pedal for looping that would actually control ONLY the active loopers (and not all the loopers that are mapped with this particular pedal).

Maybe I'm alone in the way I'm using Ableton Live on stage (I play songs organized in scenes/chains, with a rack for each particular instrument I'm playing and a complex system of chains I can manipulate from my keyboard to activate the instruments I need).
But I think for other uses it could be an amazing workflow improvement to be able to use midi learn instead of mapping, and I don't think it's a very complex stuff to make available.

At least, if too complicated, to just restrict midi learn to the Macro Controls of each rack would be awesome....

[piopiu]

Not an easy one, and you could do it in different ways.
First important needed info: are you midi mapping your controller's knob/faders, or are you running its Control Surface script?
Which Live version? Do you have M4L? Etc, tell us more about your setup.

I’m midi mapping a launch control xl to Ableton 11 suite. I do have M4L and max. I’m considering switching to Ableton 12 suite because it seems Iftahs ‘Performer’ device might make achieving this possible

[chapelier fou]

I'm 10000% for this idea, and I've been working for a while on what I call a "contextual mapper".
It's basically presets of mappings that you can recall via automation, so e.g. when you trigger a scene, it will change the set of controlled parameters.
It's quite challenging to make it work nicely because of what @Calagan is describing.

To me, in a live situation, I don't need access to everything at the same time, but rather a set of very few controls available at one given time, spread across the entire set, in different tracks and different devices.
During one part of the song, I would for instance just focus on 2 sends, and 3 synths params. Then during part 2, I would play with 1 different send and a beat repeat, then another set of controls, etc....

I never found remote scripts, or Push, to be powerful in a live performance : I want access ONLY to what's useful, I don't care to be able to access everything. Push for instance is also really useless because you can't control stuff from several tracks at the same time. I simply don't get the point.

There are important things/issues :

- The traditional mapping system has many disadvantages.
To me, going through "track" MIDI is way more flexible and powerful, for remapping notes/ccs easily, to save several configs so you can switch your controller without having to remap everything, etc...

- There is one particular issue that's been bothering me when working on my Contextual Mapper :
if you're switching the set of mappings while you're moving a control (e.g. a knob), you'll likely print the value of the param you're leaving to the param you're mapping. That's because of MIDi having a very high priority. However, I found that using a controller spitting relative ccs can solve this : you just have to block incoming MIDI while the new param id is being set and manually set the CC value back to the controller when it's ok for it to receive it.

- Contextual mapping really shines when your MIDI controller has a screen.
I found the Faderfox EC4 to be the best controller especially since they add (on my request) the ability to set the screen displays via sysex messages.

- iftah's Performer, to me, although it's great in a way, is "pointless" since controls only have one possible target, so you have no access to different "contexts".

I'm open to discuss about my device if anyone is interested to test.

[S4racen]

This is the use case for CLyphX Pro and it's Bindings Add on...

You can trigger a new "Mapping" by clip name, scene name, arrangement locator or even MIDI Message.

It's literally a contextual mapper.

https://isotonikstudios.com/product/cly ... -bindings/

https://isotonikstudios.com/product/clyphx-pro

Cheers
D

[chapelier fou]

@S4racen :
Awesome. It's amazing how much we think the same way with the people behind clyphX ! (except they/he is way smarter than me and this is probably much more efficient in a Python control surface than M4L).
For some reason I never really got into it because I do my own devices in m4l and I really care about being able to maintain it in the future, while I'm always reluctant to rely on other people's skills/availabilty. I might give it a try finally...