Making MIDI more customizable

[djlegere]

It would be amazing if you could edit MIDI parameters. For instance:

Make a button Trigger or Toggle or Slider Relative or Absolute. This is so easy to implement and would allow the people performing live so much more control.

All I want to be able to do is set a trigger button for my FX on/off. So when I press it down and hold the effect is on and when I lift my finger the effect turns off.

Thank you.

Traktor has awesome abilities to customize MIDI too bad I love ableton and hate Traktor...haha.

[Debrecini]

A good MIDI controller should have a software editor that allows you to switch a button to either a toggle button or a gate. Which will have the hold and let go, on / off functionality your after. I have a Native Instruments Maschine and the editor lets you do this. Try reading the manual for the MIDI controller you have. Or use the software editor for it, if it indeed has one.

I have many FX set up just like that right now. Its great for those Pioneer DJM-600 style DJ effects. I also have a toggle for beat repeat FX on my Drum Bus and on my main instruments Bus. I have different buttons set for timings for the beat repeat so I can do glitch FX. That way I can seamlessly switch to different timings to stutter the beat or main instruments / bass. Another example is I can also hold a button to turn on a jet plane flange effect and let go to turn it off. The list goes on for whats possible.

What MIDI controller do you have?

[djlegere]

I have the APC-40 and it has no editor yet...hopefully in the future. Still...ableton should have these kind of features built in...

[Debrecini]

Yeah I've read about the way the APC40 works (no editor is bad). In fact I have one on pre-order and should get it next week.

I've heard that as soon as you map a control it switches from its normal functionality to whatever you've mapped to.

However with no editor and no way of having different banks its limited. They should have made it so you can switch it to a seperate MIDI mode. This would be a blank slate so in this mode it no longer functions as normal but all controls are blank ready to be mapped to things. They could also have had a bank left and right button and an editor to change what types of CC or note messages each control sends out.

Hopefully we can see this in the future??? Please answer this Ableton.

For now it looks like your going to have to weigh up the choice of buying a separate MIDI controller or not.
It all depends on how badly you want this kind of thing.

Personally I'd say if you can afford it its worth it, as this kind of on the fly, hands on control is so nice to work with.

[Fizmarble]

I want this functionality. Live has so many innovations, it's strange to not have something as simple and yet powerful as this.

[Korhan]

It's always better to have this functionality on the software side than the hardware side, because that way you can leave your controller settings as they are. You don't have to program a preset for each Live set you have, with controller knobs and buttons behaving differently.

Audiomulch (http://www.audiomulch.com) is a prime example of flexible MIDI programming and it has been offering this for so many years. Now it's also available for Mac OSX. Mulch allows you to do for each parameter (local contraption or VST):

1 - set max/min ranges (available in Live)
2 - enter MIDI cc assignments manually (allows easy assignment of controllers like Wiimotes, Kaosspads)
3 - draw a mapping curve
4 - set a smoothing time (gets rid of the 0-127 quantization of parameters and also allows very creative effects, such as lagging, even very basic physical modeling)

So with a single MIDI controller knob that sends 0-127 controller messages you can do this:

- filter cutoff goes from min to max between 0-64 and then goes back to min between 64-127
- filter resonance stays zero between 0-32, slowly increases to 20 between 33-64, sharply rises to 80 between 65-100 and then falls back to zero 100-127
- pitchshift changes from +2 to -2 every 16 cc values with a smoothing time of 0.50 secs between each parameter change.

you can assign an unlimited number of parameters to a MIDI controller and define all these for each parameter.

It would be so nice to have at least some of these features in Live. At the minimum, I'd like to see 2 implemented (I had asked for this many years ago - it didn't happen, so I guess it never will). I guess Max for Live will allow us to implement these ourselves but not everyone will buy it. I wonder if it will be possible to use MfL setups (but not create or edit them) without buying MfL.

[Abbey]

I am in the need of a good program that will allow me to record midi,compose midi and export it to midi. I have used midi maker, but i cant buy the full version now so I am limited. I have used Anvil, and it is okay but i would like something a little more advances and customizable if you will.

[Korhan]

And Abbey, you think your need of a MIDI program is relevant to this thread? I disagree.