Ableton Forum

SubQ wrote:Worked! a breeze...

thnks rozling.

today ill post some pictures of my DIY footcontroller, im using it as a 4 channel loop machine and navigator when in shift mode. Now im a band alone:)

ill post some vid soon, when i get time

best
coelho

Excellent! Look forward to seeing the vid/pics! Are you using an FCB or is it totally DIY?

matsimpson wrote:using AHK, could i plug a USB keyboard into my pc (the current one uses the old style of keyboard port) and use that along side my current keyboard to control Live?

Yes, but I'm not sure whether AHK would recognise each keyboard separately, which I assume is what you're looking for. Why do you need two? For more controls? Bear in mind the script here allows you to Pause hotkeys if you need to type or anything like that.

matsimpson wrote:
And also, is there anyway to map controls in Live so that rearrangement of the tracks doesn't screw it up? For example im using the 1 key to trigger the Track 1 stop button. If i were to add a track and then switch the order my mapping wouldnt be right anymore; track 1 becomes track 2, so pressing the 1 key would stop track 2. Is there a way to make it so that 1 would press the stop button on track 1, no matter how the tracks were rearranged?

If you press F1 on Live, track 1 is deactivated/activated even if you rearrange, so is it possible to do this using key mapping and AHK?

The only way that I know of doing this is by using a Mackie Control Emulator, or possibly Automap scripts. AFAIK these both need to receive their info from MIDI, so maybe you could look for a keyboard -> MIDI emulator and have both AHK and your key->MIDI emulator working side-by-side.

totally DIY
the FCB was too big for what I wanted. It doesnt send midi , just letters. Fine for me, since all midi is taken by my foxes and BCR.

Pieces
Ipac VE
12 NO Pushbuttons and 1 NC footswitch (for shift mode)
1 lead (for lights when shift is pressed)
Mogami cables
Ahkey
I made a metal case, 35x10cm
some holes

and voilá

spent about US150. parts and labor

peace
coelho

here it is





ugly as hell, but light, sturdy and functional

In white the navigation arrows; In black, 4 loop channels play-stop or navigation trough browser-device-session, clip view, undo and quantization when shift (the only button with a led) is pressed.


all the best, some vids soon.

coelho

Thanks rozlig!

@ matsimpson
I think Bome's Mouse Keyboard does keyboard to midi

@SubQ
That is lovely work! And its not ugly imo

If i were to use 2 keyboards, i could set one on caps lock and use AHK..would give loads more clip launching/effect on and off options...which would be really powerful along side a midi controller

@Rozling,
I understand the first line, but where do the other two Afx codes come from?

Hi Leofola,

You can get Afx code of any window by using the Window Spy. You can get into the Window Spy by right-clicking the Autohotkey icon when a script is running - it'll be an option on the resulting menu. This is how you get all the info about the window/program you're scripting for e.g. XY co-ordinates, what colour is under the mouse cursor etc. Apologies if you already know all this but I figure no harm for others!

As far as I remember the other codes resulted from times where the script wasn't working and I realised Live's window code had changed for some reason - it could've been from different versions of Live being released, but I figured no harm in adding them in anyway. Does that answer your question?

Perfect, thanks Rozling.

rozling wrote:... It does require a freeware prog called "KeyKit" though so not ideal - most people will probably be using Bome anyway...

... which is a big mistake from musicians and programmers point of view! Any music software which would add "external .exe running support", e.g. to send internal midi data to this external keykit.exe can only win in the long term. To find out why you have to look to KeyKit or better lowkey.exe in more detail.

The available method *now* is

1. to export from any application some midi phrase/file/piece/events
2. then process them with lowkey.exe
3. reimport the output of lowkey back into the original (music) application into the same position (which is often not so easy to accomplish)
4. automate the whole process via AutoHotkey

Better would be if the original software could internally output into some temp directory some subdata of it's internal data representation, then link some external .exe to work on this data, resaving it with the same name, replace the original data with this "external processed data".

This would also have the nice sideeffect that 100s or 1000s of users would develop their own "open source" midi processing tools/algorithms/ideas which are nowhere available so far in this way.

Such processing tools would even support any host which support this processing chain! (e.g. Live, Logic, Cubase, ...) But this is too easy to implement, so let's forget this idea again.

I love the link but the browser load thing (press l to arm the slot) just doesnt work for me.. any ideas why? i have turned off the keyboard as a midi keyboard function within live but it doesnt work - hitting l doesnt focus on the browser either :S

Hmm, are you using Live 7? As far as I remember the script is based on the Metal Skin, for some reason is gone in L7. Also are you running Live in 1024x768 resolution? The script was only designed to run in this resolution. Is the cursor moving over to the browser at all?

Having done it in Metal it works, thanks!

np