Easy(?) fix for APC40 colorblind trouble

[Richard Ellis]

Hi Guys,

have been looking for a colorblindness workaround since I picked up my APC-40. It's currently rendered useless to me as I can't make out anything going on with it.

I'm half inclined to open it up and change the LEDs myself, but don't know what to expect on doing so.

Good work to you both for highlighting this.

ABLETON, please can you help us out.

We're being indirectly discriminated against with the current LED assignment.

I like the idea of DStrouds flashing implementation - Seems to me to be the only way to differentiate between clip status without taking the unit to bits...

[dstroud]

Rich,

I have some info on the MidiPipe workaround up at idisk.mac.com/dstroud-Public/LiveAPC40 but I don't think that Kai got this working. If you care to test this out, let us know if you have any luck. Also, I had the same thought about the LEDs, but they use tiny SMDs and I believe they only have 2 colors (red/green) that blend to make the orange. I don't have trouble with any other LEDs in my hardware, so perhaps Akai just needs to consider sourcing different components in the future.

I'm assuming that everyone has the same problem telling the difference between green/orange. Are you guys having trouble with red/green as well?

[Richard Ellis]

Rich,

I have some info on the MidiPipe workaround up at idisk.mac.com/dstroud-Public/LiveAPC40 but I don't think that Kai got this working. If you care to test this out, let us know if you have any luck. Also, I had the same thought about the LEDs, but they use tiny SMDs and I believe they only have 2 colors (red/green) that blend to make the orange. I don't have trouble with any other LEDs in my hardware, so perhaps Akai just needs to consider sourcing different components in the future.

I'm assuming that everyone has the same problem telling the difference between green/orange. Are you guys having trouble with red/green as well?

Hi Bro,

No joy for me with your MIDI Pipe.

Couldn't get it to work - However, I only tested it with the BETA, not 8.0.4

I can't tell the difference between ANY of the lights (mind you I mostly work in daylight)

I wish they used a blue (like the ACTIVATOR button below)

[dstroud]

Rich,

Yeah it most def will not work in 8.0.5 beta, only in 8.0.4. Also, my workaround won't work 100% if you can't tell the difference between any of the colors. There may be a couple of options if the Ableton guys don't cripple the functionality we have in 8.0.4.

1. Since LED feedback while recording isn't as important as when playing live, you could have the active playing clip blink and have the inactive clips be light solid. Recording scenes would look identical to playing scenes on the APC, but this really would be rare in most circumstances.

2. With Max, we could create a patch to manually blink the currently playing pads at a different rate than the standard slow blink. I don't have Max currently and my chops are probably rusty since it's been a couple of years, but I don't think it would be too hard to do this. This would involve a lot of extra MIDI data being sent to the APC40 since it would be a continuous stream of on/off messages for each of the 8 clip launch columns, but I don't think it would cause problems. The optimal solution would be for Akai to release a firmware update with extra LED modes, but this would be a longshot.

[kaioconnell]

I was thinking that maybe assaulting akai's support channels might put a bit more pressure on them both to pay attention to our problem, squeaky wheel and all that.

[willrjmarshall]

I think that, considering the number of users that this will inconvenience (in my case, make the APC40 virtually useless), it's not worth whatever convenience there is to those users who have trouble selecting the correct ports (which should be auto-selected, I believe). The irony with this is that I am experiencing this on Mac OS X which does not have the issue of ambiguous port naming that is described in the update notes.

Agreed! This would be a bit unfair.

[dstroud]

OK guys, good news. While I've been busy stirring up the hornet's nest, it turns out that this might not be a problem after all. I don't know why this was not working for me before, but I just tested again and it looks like we're not getting blocked- at least in version 8.0.5b8.

Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

As a peace-offering, I've made a little Mac app in Max that some of you colorblind folks may find useful. This is just a quick and dirty implementation of the aforementioned MidiPipe, but perhaps it will work better. The app and the patch are available for download at:

idisk.mac.com/dstroud-Public/LiveAPC40

I think that PC Max users can probably take the patch and modify as needed. Note that this is only my personal implementation and it may not work if all the 3 colors look the same to you. I have some ideas to work around this down the road, but this will have to wait until I return from vacation in a week.

If anyone tries this out, let me know if it works for you or not.

dstroud

[spockk]

@dstroud

thanks that you made an application for this problem. Like you describe your app this would be exactly the solution for my problem.

I downloaded it but it does not work for me. I don´t have Max , so I opened the APC buddy app (this runs), but I it does not appear in the dropdown menu of the output of the selected control surface (APC40) like shown in your instructions. I use live 8.04.

Another point: If I have to unselect remote by using this app , that means that I can not use remapping during the use of this app ?

[dstroud]

@dstroud

thanks that you made an application for this problem. Like you describe your app this would be exactly the solution for my problem.

I downloaded it but it does not work for me. I don´t have Max , so I opened the APC buddy app (this runs), but I it does not appear in the dropdown menu of the output of the selected control surface (APC40) like shown in your instructions. I use live 8.04.

Another point: If I have to unselect remote by using this app , that means that I can not use remapping during the use of this app ?

Whoops, apparently renaming the app after it's created will break it. Download the new version which also lets you set your own mapping colors if you want to mess with this. For you guys that can't distinguish any colors, you might want to have the active playing clip flash for instance. You may not be able to tell when you're recording, but this may not be as common while performing. I only had a few minutes to get this up and running this morning, so I hope it works.

Also, you CAN select remote, I just hadn't tested.

[spockk]

hi dstroud,

whooooooow, I just downloaded it......tested it, now everything works fine, finer, finest.......now its perfect for
a colourblind person like me..thanks, thanks, thanks.....!!!!

so now the facts: now I can choose under the dropdown menue between apc buddy v2.1, v2.2 and simply apc buddy. If I choose apc buddy everything works right, the other versions doesn´t have any effect. I also tested the remote and everything works right, so it´s also possible to run the application and make personal remapping!!! So in the summary : with this application we have a solution that makes it possible to play live with fun....for colourblind people or for not colourblind people that work in daylight (some not colourblind friends of mine told me about the problems with the colours in daylight or bad colour situations in clubs during their liveacts)..

in one personal sentence: only with this app the apc gets it real worth and I´m looking happy forward to my next livegig with the apc.

Thank you dstroud.
I hope that you will do updates with the following live updates, if not I have to work with live 8.04 until my live ends....

[kaioconnell]

Thanks for the awesome work dstroud, APC buddy gets the job done!

[Richard Ellis]

APC Buddy works a treat bro.

Thanks for taking the time to build it!

I (We) are most grateful

[dstroud]

Hey guys,

A new version of APC Buddy is up idisk.mac.com/dstroud-Public/LiveAPC40

It's mostly just cleaned up, but you can now save your settings. Let me know if it works for you.

[Richard Ellis]

Hey guys,

A new version of APC Buddy is up idisk.mac.com/dstroud-Public/LiveAPC40

It's mostly just cleaned up, but you can now save your settings. Let me know if it works for you.

Fecking awesome work man.

Do you know how or if this could work with S4racen's Bomes Live Set / Preset?

[dstroud]

I put up a new version that will let you select which MIDI stream to use so that you can daisy-chain this with any other tools like Bome's or other Max patches as long as they use virtual ports. The idea is that other apps will create a virtual port that will feed into APC Buddy. APC buddy will then make the color changes and pass this on to the APC.

Your Live prefs would look something like:
Input: Bome's virtual port (or whatever)
Output: APC Buddy

I don't really have anything to test this with, so let me know if anyone gets this to work.