Ableton Forum

Hello,

I had a quick question to see if this was possible.
I should firstly note that the midi controller I use for Ableton is not one of the pre-mapped
and configured midi controllers.

I use an older Edirol PCR series keyboard.

Let's say, I want to map some of the buttons, knobs, faders, etc of my midi controller to some scenes
or whatever in session view. This is easily done, but what if, because of the limited physical controllers
on my midi controller, I'd like to scroll through into a new midi map preset, so that I can use the same buttons
on the controller to launch different scenes depending on where I am in the set.

Is this possible? If so, how can I do it? I do have multiple control maps in the midi controller itself,
but am not sure how to get them to function in the way that I would like with Live.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks!!!

Well, I have a few tips I can give you.

1. Midi Channel. With a midi channel change of your entire controller, you essentially get a whole new layout of mappable controls. But this can be tricky. It relies on whether or not your controls are mapped to a Specific channel already or if they are mapped to a Global channel. In the case of Global, it usually means that when you change the controller channel, that control will carry along with it. If not, it'll stay stuck at its channel. So if you can keep track of which channel is which song, there is a maximum of 16 midi channels (the keyboard will also switch to a new channel).

2. You can get into different kinds of Control Surface scripts. Either some have been made, a User one can be made, some universal types are out there, or I'm not sure. The most commonly sought feature of these is the instant mapping of devices. Any device you select, you get instant control over it. This can be set up on most standard midi controllers, it just takes a little investigation.

3. You can do a combination of both methods.

4. Not sure what max4live and ClyphX might offer. I think there is a max device that maps to 16 parameters. Theoretically if you have multiple instances of that, you might be able to turn off the ones not in use, and have one turned on.

yur2die4 wrote:Well, I have a few tips I can give you.

1. Midi Channel. With a midi channel change of your entire controller, you essentially get a whole new layout of mappable controls. But this can be tricky. It relies on whether or not your controls are mapped to a Specific channel already or if they are mapped to a Global channel. In the case of Global, it usually means that when you change the controller channel, that control will carry along with it. If not, it'll stay stuck at its channel. So if you can keep track of which channel is which song, there is a maximum of 16 midi channels (the keyboard will also switch to a new channel).

2. You can get into different kinds of Control Surface scripts. Either some have been made, a User one can be made, some universal types are out there, or I'm not sure. The most commonly sought feature of these is the instant mapping of devices. Any device you select, you get instant control over it. This can be set up on most standard midi controllers, it just takes a little investigation.

3. You can do a combination of both methods.

4. Not sure what max4live and ClyphX might offer. I think there is a max device that maps to 16 parameters. Theoretically if you have multiple instances of that, you might be able to turn off the ones not in use, and have one turned on.

Thank you for your fast reply.

I'm trying to figure out how to do the midi channel changes as I think it would be the quickest and most efficient way for me to accomplish what I want to do. I've noticed that by default when I map my controller to ableton using the midi map function that the channel of midi messages being sent to ableton varies from 1 - 4, possibly even higher than that. I'm not exactly sure why. The Note/Control CC #s seem to be doubled, as in CC80 = faders, CC80 on midi channel 1 = 1st fader, CC80 on midi channel 2 = 2nd fader, etc...

is this normal? I can change all of these parameters with the software for the controller, but will that mean that when I turn the knob "Midi Channel" on the controller, that the buttons will now send out completely new CC messages through a different channel?

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand the "global" / "specific" channel thing you mentioned.

Thank you for your help.

That actually is normal.

Controllers like that usually have different preset layouts. If you can find the dovumentation it might explain the purpose of each one.

It sounds like that preset is meant for mixer control of multiple channels in a DAW software.

If you can figure out how to switch presets you might find a more ideal layout.

I think I have it figured out now. Turns out that if I go and change all of the midi channels on the keyboard to "1" then save it in bank "1" of my control maps, then do the same for midi channel 2 and control map 2, I can have 16 times the original amount of midi controls I started with. The only downside is that it's taking forever to go through every single button and manually select which midi channel, control change # etc it is set to. This could take a while. I've been working on it for a while now and am barely on midi channel 3.

Thanks for your help!!!