Program Change recognition - WHY NOT?

crumhorn · Post by **crumhorn** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:14 pm

LoopStationZebra wrote:
tracy wrote:I just bought a Roland Foot Controller RC-200. Its a great pedal board, but due to the lack of Prog Change detection in Live it is almost worthless. I just discovered this tonight, and am very, very disappointed.

Sure the pedal can send notes, but only one per pedal. If you want more, get this. Roland recommends attaching an external pedal to switch to a new scale!?! While it has 12 banks of Program Changes that are easily switched with the up and down pedals.

Argh!
What program change are you trying to initiate? A soft synth or hard synth? Ableton can send them if your device can receive. If you map your RC to dummy clips in a MIDI track, have the dummy clips send the program changes for you. It's a detour, but one that should work just as smoothly. I just set this up tonight in a free bank that I had on my FCB1010. I'm able to fire up a dummy clip and BAM my hardware synth does a patch change.

And Machinesworking is right, the FCB is the best $100 I ever spent.

It's more a problem when yo want to use the pedals for launching clips or scenes, etc. Some pedal boards will only send program change messages and Live doesn't react to program change messages in midi map mode.

I'm quite fancying one of these myself

http://www.dv247.com/invt/25837/
Bit more than $100 though

LoopStationZebra · Post by **LoopStationZebra** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:23 pm

So the RC-200 ONLY sends program change messages??

crumhorn · Post by **crumhorn** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:40 pm

it can send notes. but only one bank it seems? but the problem the OP was talking about related to another pedal which I've never heard of - so can't comment.

crumhorn · Post by **crumhorn** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:45 pm

And while on the subject of un-mappable events I'd like to add Pitch Bend and After Touch to the list.

rjbourc · Post by **rjbourc** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:53 pm

landrvr1 wrote:I've missed this place.

Welcome back!

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:41 pm

Machinesworking wrote:Not that everybody wants to spend what ever amount it's going to cost just for this, but Max for Live should take care of this, at least for those that buy it.

Often hating on Behringer, but the FCB1010 is still kicking, and the tech support person I talked to decided to donate the rubber feet they had lying around to me as three of mine are missing! Decent device for this, and dirt cheap.

man, m4l is not even out yet and its well on the way of replacing any kind of support discussion with the simple "max for live can do it".

might aswell delete the feature requests forum soon aswell.
no matter if max for live can do it or not: the fact that you have to sit down and do a workaround for it is just plain retarded.

ofcourse live should have pc support. program change messages are as important as any other message. also most hardware boxes sends alot of program messages all over the place, render those useless.

i bet its intentional, saving that for live 9 heh.
ohwell, live still excels, even though it has some pretty nasty kinks.

tracy · Post by **tracy** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:21 am

I got fed up with the Roland RC-200.

So I bought a Behringer FCB1010 for half the price. I used a Mac software editor called iFCB and had it programmed and working in about 10 minutes.

The Roland is going back to eBay.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:26 am

friend_kami wrote: ofcourse live should have pc support. program change messages are as important as any other message. also most hardware boxes sends alot of program messages all over the place, render those useless.

Live has Program change support, you just can't use them to fire scenes etc. they change programs on my hardware and software synths just fine though.
I think it's a pretty valid request, but it's definitely mainly due to the fact that people want to use stomp boxes for things they're not made to do. this is fine, but in no way does the lack of ability to do so make Live broken, that's all.

For this purpose, get a pedal board that can send CC's or notes, it's that simple, or buy Max For Live, and use whatever you want to.

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:44 am

Machinesworking wrote:
friend_kami wrote: ofcourse live should have pc support. program change messages are as important as any other message. also most hardware boxes sends alot of program messages all over the place, render those useless.
Live has Program change support, you just can't use them to fire scenes etc. they change programs on my hardware and software synths just fine though.
I think it's a pretty valid request, but it's definitely mainly due to the fact that people want to use stomp boxes for things they're not made to do. this is fine, but in no way does the lack of ability to do so make Live broken, that's all.

For this purpose, get a pedal board that can send CC's or notes, it's that simple, or buy Max For Live, and use whatever you want to.

ooerr, me gots an fcb1010 like we all do

what you said about using program change messages as to fire scenes etc is what i was going for, yes.

can you change patches in an instrument device (native live instrument then) using pc messages? im aware that it can send to thirdparty plugins, but im trying hard to stay with native devices as much as possible, so what do i use my pc messages for then?

perhaps i should read the manual again :p

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:12 am

friend_kami wrote: ooerr, me gots an fcb1010 like we all do
what you said about using program change messages as to fire scenes etc is what i was going for, yes.

can you change patches in an instrument device (native live instrument then) using pc messages? im aware that it can send to thirdparty plugins, but im trying hard to stay with native devices as much as possible, so what do i use my pc messages for then?

perhaps i should read the manual again :p

Most NI stuff responds to PC messages, but the main one that is certain is Reactor. The others have been messing it up because of NI's new bowser. Honestly I haven't read enough through Absynth 4's manual to know whether it can respond anymore to PC messages, I just know that it's not at all the same as 2 and 3, where that was a menu choice.

PPG Wave responds, Zebra 2 can respond to 128 PC messages, but doesn't do bank changes. Automat and a few others do not. You can set up Kore to arm/disarm, and change levels with "Performance Presets" This is at once really useful, and also potentially crazy huge racks for numerous changes. When a device is disarmed in Kore it doesn't use CPU, and Performance Presets don't change "presets" per say, so you would load two instances of Absynth, and disarm one, save as PP, then reverse for the next preset.

LoopStationZebra · Post by **LoopStationZebra** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:40 am

tracy wrote:I got fed up with the Roland RC-200.

So I bought a Behringer FCB1010 for half the price. I used a Mac software editor called iFCB and had it programmed and working in about 10 minutes.

The Roland is going back to eBay.

Hey, excellent news. Welcome to the club, heh. How's it going with those dummy clips and such - the Pod integration?

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 10:23 am

Machinesworking wrote:
friend_kami wrote: ooerr, me gots an fcb1010 like we all do
what you said about using program change messages as to fire scenes etc is what i was going for, yes.

can you change patches in an instrument device (native live instrument then) using pc messages? im aware that it can send to thirdparty plugins, but im trying hard to stay with native devices as much as possible, so what do i use my pc messages for then?

perhaps i should read the manual again :p
Most NI stuff responds to PC messages, but the main one that is certain is Reactor. The others have been messing it up because of NI's new bowser. Honestly I haven't read enough through Absynth 4's manual to know whether it can respond anymore to PC messages, I just know that it's not at all the same as 2 and 3, where that was a menu choice.

PPG Wave responds, Zebra 2 can respond to 128 PC messages, but doesn't do bank changes. Automat and a few others do not. You can set up Kore to arm/disarm, and change levels with "Performance Presets" This is at once really useful, and also potentially crazy huge racks for numerous changes. When a device is disarmed in Kore it doesn't use CPU, and Performance Presets don't change "presets" per say, so you would load two instances of Absynth, and disarm one, save as PP, then reverse for the next preset.

yeah but im trying hard to stay with native live devices and use as little vst plugins as possible. for numerous reasons, one of them beeing the benefit of workflow: i find it much faster to work in one seamless interface. another beeing cpu and stability.

with that said: how would my pc messages fit a native live only setup then?

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:56 am

friend_kami wrote: yeah but im trying hard to stay with native live devices and use as little vst plugins as possible. for numerous reasons, one of them beeing the benefit of workflow: i find it much faster to work in one seamless interface. another beeing cpu and stability.

with that said: how would my pc messages fit a native live only setup then?

This is the cost of going with a single manufacturer, you but up against their concepts of what interface etc is all about. Sorry, someone mentioned Reactor somewhere in this thread I though, and it responds easily to program changes. No native Ableton stuff does at all! from what I know.

The only advantages of all native are file management, and stability. CPU wise Ableton has never gone for lean, and IMO sound wise, Zebra, Reactor and Absynth rule. Couldn't go all native unless they somehow highjack Urs and force all Uh-He products as embedded Live instruments.

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:52 am

Machinesworking wrote:
friend_kami wrote: yeah but im trying hard to stay with native live devices and use as little vst plugins as possible. for numerous reasons, one of them beeing the benefit of workflow: i find it much faster to work in one seamless interface. another beeing cpu and stability.

with that said: how would my pc messages fit a native live only setup then?
This is the cost of going with a single manufacturer, you but up against their concepts of what interface etc is all about. Sorry, someone mentioned Reactor somewhere in this thread I though, and it responds easily to program changes. No native Ableton stuff does at all! from what I know.

The only advantages of all native are file management, and stability. CPU wise Ableton has never gone for lean, and IMO sound wise, Zebra, Reactor and Absynth rule. Couldn't go all native unless they somehow highjack Urs and force all Uh-He products as embedded Live instruments.

i agree, however it depends on what kind of music you do. as for me, now with my new band, using alot of external instruments, guitars, drums and whatnots, its better to go as much native as possible, since we dont require that much.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:32 pm

friend_kami wrote:
Machinesworking wrote:
friend_kami wrote: yeah but im trying hard to stay with native live devices and use as little vst plugins as possible. for numerous reasons, one of them beeing the benefit of workflow: i find it much faster to work in one seamless interface. another beeing cpu and stability.

with that said: how would my pc messages fit a native live only setup then?
This is the cost of going with a single manufacturer, you but up against their concepts of what interface etc is all about. Sorry, someone mentioned Reactor somewhere in this thread I though, and it responds easily to program changes. No native Ableton stuff does at all! from what I know.

The only advantages of all native are file management, and stability. CPU wise Ableton has never gone for lean, and IMO sound wise, Zebra, Reactor and Absynth rule. Couldn't go all native unless they somehow highjack Urs and force all Uh-He products as embedded Live instruments.
i agree, however it depends on what kind of music you do. as for me, now with my new band, using alot of external instruments, guitars, drums and whatnots, its better to go as much native as possible, since we dont require that much.

I've thought about that myself, considering I mainly use hardware synths for all the beef of a song. Thing is software is so nice these days, program changes, huge sound etc. I'm a maximalist at heart.