Ableton Forum

I know that when a device has this icon it can be manipulated by your midi controller, but how does this work exactly? Does it only work with natively supported midi controllers? I have a korg nanokontrol and I want it to manipulate the macro controls for selected devices. Is there a way to do this? Like if I edit the midi cc's, notes, etc. using the korg software for my nanokontroller?

That blue hand is for MIDI controllers that are recognized as control surfaces in Live's MIDI preferences.

One of the things that a control surface can do is dedicate 8 MIDI CC's to controlling the first eight parameters of the selected device. The blue hand shows which device that is. The advantage is that you can select another device, and now your controller is controlling that device instead.

I don't believe the nanokontrol has a control surface script that comes with Live, but you can make one. Google for User Remote Scripts (I don't have any links in front of me at the moment). I think some people have already made them for the nanokontrol as well. I personally have never tried one though.

In a pinch, if you know what CC's another controller uses, you can set the Nanokontrol to transmit on those CC's using the Korg editor, and then tell Live that you're using that other controller. Kind of a hack, but can work in theory. Again, never tried it.

Thanks for the reply Warrior Bob, that was very helpful! I do have another controller, an m-audio axiom 61 that is natively supported however it is essentially a piece of crap because the encoders don't behave properly. If I understand correctly, you are saying that if I map the midi CC's on my nanokontrol to the same midi CC's as the encoders on the axiom that it would share the function of the encoders?

Also, I did google this and found a great write up on the subject, particularly about the nanokontrol. http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/07/a ... s-control/.

I understand that you have not tried this "hack", but I am wondering if anybody has any experience with editing user remote scripts and can offer some tips or advice. Is there any possibility that if I fool around with this not really knowing what I'm doing that I could potentially cause live to crash or something?

check this thread:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=116078

there are other scripts as well, there are some midi scripts for the nanokontrol that can do a lot more.

Thanks for the link Pepe! This is awesome!

The Axiom 61 does work with the blue hand. It is just not well documented how to do this:

You have to go to Ableton Live's preferences, pick "Axiom 49 61 Classic" as first controller in your list, set the input and output to "1" and then click on "Send". Be careful, because this will erase the programs on the Axiom and set them up right for Ableton Live or something like this. I can't remember exactly what it does or why. But your user programs will be gone after this step in case you have stored some. Next go to "Program 20" on the Axiom and set the MIDI channel to "16". The blue hand should work now.

It took me a year to find out that it only works on program 20 channel 16. This seems not be documented anywhere and I thought my Axiom was broken. Pure coincidence that I discovered it after many hours of trying all possible combinations. I hope it works for you too.

Happy to help! Sorry I didn't know more off the top of my head One of these days I need to learn Python and make some custom mappings for the controllers I use, like the nanokontrol. Seems like there could be a lot of nice control to be had there.

florian_bl wrote:It took me a year to find out that it only works on program 20 channel 16. This seems not be documented anywhere and I thought my Axiom was broken. Pure coincidence that I discovered it after many hours of trying all possible combinations. I hope it works for you too.

This actually is documented somewhere since I remember reading it. I think it's in the Help View lesson about control surfaces, in the Axiom section. IIRC it's actually presets 18 through 20, with slightly different features (one transmits all on channel 1, one of them has the drums on 10, and one of them has the drumpads pre-aligned for Impulse).

This actually is documented somewhere since I remember reading it. I think it's in the Help View lesson about control surfaces, in the Axiom section. IIRC it's actually presets 18 through 20, with slightly different features (one transmits all on channel 1, one of them has the drums on 10, and one of them has the drumpads pre-aligned for Impulse).

I was typing up a really long reply to florian's post using a computer at my school's library when i turned around for like 2 seconds and the whole thing was deleted. you basically summed up what I was going to say though. It took me a while to figure out that you had to switch the midi channels that the axiom transmits on to use some of the features in ableton live, and in my opinion it's a little weird the way it's set up. I would like to add that the encoders just don't behave properly on the axiom....I have the 1st gen axiom 61 so I can't really speak for the 2nd gen. I found it to be impossible to get them to increase or decrease by one step(for lack of a better word) when you turn them; basically they jump values very drastically when you turn them. I know that you can use the enigma software to change like the sensitivity of the encoders but I have tried all of the settings with no luck. The only way I have gotten them to behave the way I want them to is by using the midi learn function in live, and that really kind of defeats the purpose because it overrides the blue hand controls and limits the number of functions the encoders control.

In defense of the keyboard, The rest of the features work fine. The actual keyboard, the faders, buttons, pads are satisfactory. I think my problem is mostly with M-Audio for selling a product with known defects and having lousy customer service. I had to send my axiom for "repair" after the usb port crapped out. They reluctantly agreed to pay for the fix after several calls to the service department, however after a short time it became clear that they didn't really fix the problem. Now I have to be VERY delicate with it and not even touch/breath/look at the usb port/cord. This keyboard has seen the outside of my studio maybe once or twice. I am pretty sure that this problem is why they discontinued the 1st gen axioms because I know there are many out there who have had the same problem. Ok, I'll end my rant now.

Once again, thank you for all of the info! I really appreciate it, and I find it to be very cool and inspiring that the users of the ableton forum are so willing to share with one another.

The info about presets 18-20 really is in the help view. But no word about the blue hand. All entries here in the forum and on the first 30 pages of Google say that it works well but the limitation to preset 20 channel 16 is not mentioned anywhere. This was the tricky part for me Or it is only my Axiom that is behaving like that and this thing is actually broken. Who knows... Anyhow, the blue hand is one of my favourite features since then.

I understand your frustration. My buddy had an axiom 61 and he sold it after a couple of rehearsals where we spend our time with the manual and frustrating attempts to use it at the theoretical potental (without success). So he sold it.

They knew why the called the editor-software "enigma".