Ableton Forum

I was originally planning on asking a question in this forum about the Korg padkontrol, but then realized I had so many questions that it wasn't really fair to narrow it down to one, and I figured if I knew as little about how to use this thing as I do. I'm sure there are other people out there who are as confused as I am too, so we might as well learn a little.

Here are a couple questions(all of which pertain to Live):

-How do you assign different controls to the X and Y of the XY pad individually? (i.e. x to one effect/slider, y to a different one)

-My Knob 2 is not responding to midi mapping, or anything from what I can see. Is it 'turned off' or something?

-Can you use Scenes to have your knobs map to different things, or if you assign a knob to something is that all it can control?

-When I try to assign my knob 1 to the crossfader in Live, it either functions as an absolute left/absolute right switch or it doesn't work at all. Is there some way to get this to work?


Thanks a ton. I haven't been able to find a lot about the pK on the internet, and what I can find seems to always be audiophile jargon that I can't understand. I'm obviously new to live and the pK, but I'm hoping to get it all working smoothly soon enough.

Post here for anything else pK related. Sorry if this is noob-ish.

I'm no expert on the padkontrol but hopefully I can help..

If you want to assign different functions to the X-Y Pad you can either use the Korg Librarian software to map the device to send out different cc/pitchbend/aftertouch signals on each axis or if you want to map in Live then make sure when you enter Midi Map Mode you only touch a single axis. This is easiest if you keep your finger to the bottom edge moving side to side for the X axis and to the left hand edge moving directly up and down for the Y, that way Live will pick up the different directions instead of detecting both.

If your Knob 2 doesn't work then check in the Korg Librarian software to make sure that it is assigned to either a cc/pitchbend/aftertouch setting then re-transmit to the pad.

You can use different scenes to change the notes the pads trigger or the cc being sent out. If you assign a different note/cc to the same pad in a different scene it will let you bind that note/cc to a new function using Live's midi mapping (as long as there are no conflicts).

If the crossfader is absolute left/right then I would assume that is due to the setting in Live not your pad, right click on the crossfader and choose a setting such as Transition or Slow Fade instead of the default Constant Power.

Alternatively for advanced use of scenes you can trick Live into thinking you have a different controller plugged in as covered in these threads by Machinate and bandbajao

If you are interested in the MackieKontrol idea I have a few custom scenes I put together that I can post.

-J