Ableton Forum

If a clip is selected and I press the Enter key, it launches the clip.

I see how to midi-map launching the entire current scene, or the clip in a particular track in the current scene, but what about the current clip, whatever it might be?

Download a program to convert midi signals into keystrokes. MIDISTROKE, for example, on OSX.

Impossible, or use max [aka.keyboard] external on mac, or bomes (?).

It would be nice to see that function in Live 9, or maybe in an upcoming update (yeah right)..
So far all you can do is use the ENTER key, which is nice if you also map out the arrow keys, using a translator.

ark wrote:If a clip is selected and I press the Enter key, it launches the clip.

I see how to midi-map launching the entire current scene, or the clip in a particular track in the current scene, but what about the current clip, whatever it might be?

When you go into "MIDI Learn" Mode, you'll notice little play buttons appear above the mixer on all tracks. You can assign MIDI to that and trigger the currently selected clip.
Incidentally, you'll notice some arrows appear on the Master track in this mode. These arrows can be controlled with MIDI to select scenes. You can also map MIDI to a track title to select tracks.

hoffman2k wrote:When you go into "MIDI Learn" Mode, you'll notice little play buttons appear above the mixer on all tracks. You can assign MIDI to that and trigger the currently selected clip.

Unfortunately, that's not what those play buttons do when mapped. Each button triggers the clip in its track in the current scene.

So, for example, if I map the play button in track 1, and then start recording a clip in track 2, and send the MIDI signal I mapped, the effect is to select track 1 and launch the clip in the current scene in track 1.

Not only that, but it is possible to be recording into a clip that is not part of the current scene. If I do that and send the MIDI signal I mapped, the effect is to launch the clip that's in the current scene, not the one that I am recording.

ark wrote:

hoffman2k wrote:When you go into "MIDI Learn" Mode, you'll notice little play buttons appear above the mixer on all tracks. You can assign MIDI to that and trigger the currently selected clip.

Unfortunately, that's not what those play buttons do when mapped. Each button triggers the clip in its track in the current scene.

So, for example, if I map the play button in track 1, and then start recording a clip in track 2, and send the MIDI signal I mapped, the effect is to select track 1 and launch the clip in the current scene in track 1.

Not only that, but it is possible to be recording into a clip that is not part of the current scene. If I do that and send the MIDI signal I mapped, the effect is to launch the clip that's in the current scene, not the one that I am recording.

Ah my bad. Read that wrong. You'll indeed need one of those tricky keymapping workarounds. Enter from Mackie Mode doesn't seem to do the same thing.
Its a quick fix in M4L, so maybe it will not be that hard for Ableton to add to Live.

Read up on Mackie emulation mode - it's been discussed to death here on the forum - it will do exactly what you want it to do,
but; on my BCR2000, I've got one rotary mapped to scroll tracks vertically and another to scroll horizontally, plus a button
to launch the current clip.

sporkles wrote:Read up on Mackie emulation mode.

If I want to plug a foot pedal into my APC40 and midi-map that, I don't think Mackie emulation mode is going to help me.

ark wrote:

sporkles wrote:Read up on Mackie emulation mode.

If I want to plug a foot pedal into my APC40 and midi-map that, I don't think Mackie emulation mode is going to help me.

Well, you didn't mention any foot pedal until now. If the pedal sends a fixed CC or note, or/and if Live detects it as an
"extension" of the APC, I guess you might be out of luck (if the APC is anything like the Launchpad, you don't get to
specify the MIDI messages sent). If you have an alternative way of hooking up the foot pedal, you should be able to convert
its fixed MIDI message to the correct one for Mackie emulation with a MIDI translator.

sporkles wrote:Well, you didn't mention any foot pedal until now. If the pedal sends a fixed CC or note, or/and if Live detects it as an
"extension" of the APC, I guess you might be out of luck...

It was an arbitrary example. Another example might be a MIDI keyboard that accepts more than one pedal. So I might want to use one for sustain and the other to launch the current clip.

What I don't want to do is install a whole emulation mode just for this specific purpose.

What's there to install? If you can get the pedal to send the correct MIDI message, all you need to do is tell Live it's
a Mackie, and you're set. But pardon me for trying to offer a suggestion. Won't happen again.

sporkles wrote:What's there to install? If you can get the pedal to send the correct MIDI message, all you need to do is tell Live it's
a Mackie, and you're set. But pardon me for trying to offer a suggestion. Won't happen again.

Drop the sarcasm, please. If you're right, the sarcasm doesn't make you any righter, and if you're wrong, it just makes you look silly.

I am talking here about a pedal that does nothing more than send an on-off signal to some other MIDI device, such as a keyboard. WIth such a pedal, I cannot "tell live it's a Mackie," because doing so implicitly tells Live that my entire keyboard (or whatever device) is a Mackie. In that case, in order to use the other controls on my keyboard, I have to cause them to behave like Mackie controls.

Sheesh. No, you don't. All you need to do is make sure that whatever the hell it is you're plugging the pedal into is sending
on a MIDI channel that is not in use by the Mackie protocol. You can easily tell Live that your device is in fact two
controllers. You select the Mackie control classic in the MIDI prefs, choose your device's ports as the "Mackie control's" ins
and outs, and then also activate your actual device in addition to that. Two controllers in one - that's how I've set up my
BCR: one section is for Live's instant mappings, one section is for Mackie controls, and the rest is freely assignable.

If neither your pedal OR whatever MIDI device you want to plug it into is programmable, at least one of them is
complete rubbish in my book.

I know I said I wouldn't, but I guess I went ahead and did it after all.

Aha! I asked the same question to the Ableton support folks, and they told me that one of the foot switches in the APC40 already does this by default. I couldn't find that in the documentation anywhere, and after learning about it I still couldn't -- but I checked and they're right. It appears that by default, FS1 launches the currently selected scene and FS2 launches the currently selected clip.

That's fantastic news!