Ableton Forum

Can I program a button on my midi controller to open a VST softsynth from a miditrack in Ableton?

If so, how do I do it?

dennisjr wrote:Can I program a button on my midi controller to open a VST softsynth from a miditrack in Ableton?

If so, how do I do it?

yes you can if the controller supports keystoke assignments:

-m-audio axiom pro 49(which i have)
-novation remote sl's

or use something like Bomes or equivalent to translate the keystroke to midi(though i'm not entirely sure if it can,only read about it,never used it myself.)

hope that helps!

Just tried it with my Maschine controller from Native Instruments. In the controller editor for Maschine,
I changed the button that said 'off' to a 'program change' button, channel 8 as the others, and 'gate' mode.

I changed the input for Maschine in the Ableton preferences to 'on'.
Then assigning buttons worked, but not the button that opens the VST (plug-in edit button).

In the midi mappings overview in Ableton it says that the button is assign to 'select device'.
This only takes me to the specific instruments box of the track, but is not opening the gui of the synth.

the n.i. controller editor doesn't support keystroke assignments.

i've spoken to Ableton support about a related issue - the behaviour of the 'plug-in edit' button on devices. when clicked, it launches/hides the GUI for a plug-in, but if you use the keystroke, it just shows/hides whatever plug-in GUI windows were already open. this means you can't assign a keystroke to a controller to show/hide plug-in GUIs properly.

they said it is on their wish list of fixes:

"thank you for your input regarding the hide/show plugin shortcut issue.

It is on our internal wishlist already and we are working on it.
I can't tell you when or how we will change it exactly, though..."

ps: send a support request about this. *might* help to bump it on their list of things to do...