Akai APC40 MKII DJ Template Free Download Now Available

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
19oclock
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:40 pm

Re: Akai APC40 MKII DJ Template Free Download Now Available

Post by 19oclock » Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:54 pm

irrelevance wrote: I don't understand the cue setting as when I stop playback in live the track will always jump back to the start (cue) point. Would be great if playback of track could be paused or at least stopped and started from a place other than the start which is the only time I would then understand the need to cue to the start again. Am I missing something here?
Do you mean the check box on the device iteself? If so, this is there to address users running main and cue audio out of the same audio outs. Live turns it from "cue" to "solo" when you are using the same set of outs for your cue and master audio. Track Selecting triggers the cue/solo on the selected track, which with no cue setup, will actually end up soloing a track. Not desirable to me in a live setting.

With regards to pausing tracks? I want this too. Live defaults to the start marker on launch of a clip. I suppose I could code in some listeners to manage this behavior and keep track of where a clip left off. I'm worried about this being a resource hog in large sets with no clearly defined ceiling for "number of managed clips". Perhaps I could introduce an arbitrary limit of 80 clips or something (would be more than enough for my sets) but I'm wondering if it's even a needed feature?

In short: I'll look into it. It may turn into one of the features like "clip view and cue on launch" that once I finally got finished, turned out being much too complicated to keep instated. Until a more elegant solution is discovered, of course.
irrelevance wrote: That LED feedback is not always updated to show the reset 0 value on button press but the actual value is reset.
Also pressing shift loses all of the LED feedback on device and seems theres no way to get it back unless relaunch set.
Yes! Something I've noticed more on the MKII than the MKI. I guess I just kept wishing this away from the beginning, but even I groan when I have to twitch the knobs one way or another to get the LEDs to register. Same deal with the Shift button behavior. It kills the LEDs, but the behavior remains the same. I actually have a stem of code in the template already that needs to be fleshed out to fix the Shift button behavior. I will have this fixed in the next release. For the time being, though, these feedback issues don't affect actual behavior of the template.
irrelevance wrote: Funny things going on with sends. Have Push encoders controlling the eightknobs device and find that sometimes if parameter is turned on before Deck Send pot is turned that sometimes the effect does not activate/become apparent. Inversely sometimes the effect does not go away when send pot is reduced to 0 value but will once pot is moved from 0 up and down to 0 again.
So...you are using multiple controllers? And is this an LED feedback issue? I almost want to see video of this error. I'm afraid I do not have a Push so I can't quite duplicate on my end. Perhaps these are conflicting MIDI mappings?
irrelevance wrote: No loop indication. In youtube vid you mention blue LEDs that indicate looping clip but I don't see these.
Going back to my points above of "Is it really worth the overhead?" In Live you can have looping already enabled on a saved clip at start, you can trigger it using your mouse/keyboard, too. To track looping beyond what happens on the MKII (the solo/cue, deck, record, and activate buttons at the bottom of each track), I am going to have to add some extra listeners. I've been thinking on it and it probably isn't that bad to institute and keep an eye on. I've also said that before and found things to be more work than they are worth. If I can get this working (effectively, that is) then I can probably bring back to life my wish for cueing-on-clip-launch.
irrelevance wrote: Would really like the cue to be cue and not tempo accidently knoked this a few times in a 170bpm d&b set and tempo skips to 160! lol wtf! Couldn't figure out why then realised after watching youtube vid why :oops:
I am going to stand my ground on this one. It is MIDI mapped so you can take that out of the template if you like, but for my purposes having the tempo right there is fantastic. I can manipulate effects, track faders, tempo, and looping with my hands all from one central point on the MKII. The tempo encoder on the MKII (with the annoying clicky feel to it) is a bit out of the way for me when making transitions.

I'm gonna keep it there for the standard release as I want it to mirror my standard template as much as possible. Like I said above, you can remove that aspect of the MIDI mapping by just deleting it's entry in Live and saving the template.
irrelevance wrote:
The filters have a bit of a jump/hump in the lower area not a smooth transition.
The HPF/LPF combo? I gotta hit the books on assembling a better combo in Live, then. No rest for the weary.

Thanks for the feedback! Things have slowed down massively for me now that the holidays are behind us. Fixing the LED behavior on Shifting is the first and easiest fix. I'll see about tracking all manner of loop starts which will (hopefully) give way to enhanced clip cueing, too.

That pesky bottom right clip launch button keeps going out when navigating a set, too. Again: doesn't affect functionality, but these lights are really pretty lookin' and I want them to all stay pretty lookin' during a set.

irrelevance
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 7:31 pm

Re: Akai APC40 MKII DJ Template Free Download Now Available

Post by irrelevance » Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:41 pm

19oclock wrote:
Do you mean the check box on the device iteself? If so, this is there to address users running main and cue audio out of the same audio outs. Live turns it from "cue" to "solo" when you are using the same set of outs for your cue and master audio. Track Selecting triggers the cue/solo on the selected track, which with no cue setup, will actually end up soloing a track. Not desirable to me in a live setting.

With regards to pausing tracks? I want this too. Live defaults to the start marker on launch of a clip. I suppose I could code in some listeners to manage this behavior and keep track of where a clip left off. I'm worried about this being a resource hog in large sets with no clearly defined ceiling for "number of managed clips". Perhaps I could introduce an arbitrary limit of 80 clips or something (would be more than enough for my sets) but I'm wondering if it's even a needed feature?

In short: I'll look into it. It may turn into one of the features like "clip view and cue on launch" that once I finally got finished, turned out being much too complicated to keep instated. Until a more elegant solution is discovered, of course.
Cool okay. Thought it meant cue as in 'cue up' not cue as in 'monitor' :lol: Being able to cue up to a certain place would be soooo nice but for now moving the start marker to where the track needs to start is what I'm used to doing.

19oclock wrote: So...you are using multiple controllers? And is this an LED feedback issue? I almost want to see video of this error. I'm afraid I do not have a Push so I can't quite duplicate on my end. Perhaps these are conflicting MIDI mappings?
This isn't a controller issue it happens just moving dials on screen and all controllers except apc40 mkII off. I Try turning REPEAT ME (could be any effect) up to full on A eightknobs now turn DECK 1 Send A to full (pressing track activator 7 or moving dial) and on some occasions no repeats (damn those intermittent faults eh!). Turn REPEAT ME down to 0 value then back up and repeats a plenty. in fact turning of Send A now and repeats will not stop until REPEAT ME is turned down again.
So it looks like the same 0 return thing that happens with LED feedback as mentioned previous but effecting send values.

The only other thing with sends as they are is that if Send is turned on without the effect the delayed signal through sends to master causes phasing, hence the reason for me turning the effect on prior to turning send knob. Magic Sends would clear up the phasing issue I think. Could these be implemented in this template?

19oclock
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:40 pm

Re: Akai APC40 MKII DJ Template Free Download Now Available

Post by 19oclock » Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:43 pm

irrelevance wrote: :lol: Being able to cue up to a certain place would be soooo nice but for now moving the start marker to where the track needs to start is what I'm used to doing.
I definitely want this, too. I have a couple ideas for implementing proper cue points within songs, but it hasn't been necessary for me yet. Obviously I'll keep everyone posted. Just need time....:-(.
irrelevance wrote: This isn't a controller issue it happens just moving dials on screen and all controllers except apc40 mkII off. I Try turning REPEAT ME (could be any effect) up to full on A eightknobs now turn DECK 1 Send A to full (pressing track activator 7 or moving dial) and on some occasions no repeats (damn those intermittent faults eh!). Turn REPEAT ME down to 0 value then back up and repeats a plenty. in fact turning of Send A now and repeats will not stop until REPEAT ME is turned down again.
So it looks like the same 0 return thing that happens with LED feedback as mentioned previous but effecting send values.
Huh, bizarre. I suppose I don't work with effects unless they are mapped to my control surface. I wonder if this is something as simple as the MIDI controller settings in Ableton preferences and how/what takes precedence over other things. Next time I sit down to work on it I'll see if I can't replicate and come up with better advice.

A caveat: The effects reset button is hardcoded to the idea of a combo HPF/LPF on the bottom row encoder knobs, so it resets those to a value of 63. It's buried in the code because it's such a ubiquitous part of how I play out.
irrelevance wrote: The only other thing with sends as they are is that if Send is turned on without the effect the delayed signal through sends to master causes phasing, hence the reason for me turning the effect on prior to turning send knob. Magic Sends would clear up the phasing issue I think. Could these be implemented in this template?
Yeah, this is the precise reason why I don't use sends anymore. My send toggles are an artifact of an earlier release candidate but I could never fix the phasing. I looked into it further and it seems to be an inherent issue in Live, so I'm gonna just stick to racked effects on audio channels until some magical fix appears. I haven't encountered any situations where I need a send yet, so I don't even use them. It actually cleans up the template more to not be using them.

khakzoy
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:44 am

Re: Akai APC40 MKII DJ Template Free Download Now Available

Post by khakzoy » Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:51 am

I am just about to give up on this device. I have for a couple of months now but I just cannot get it to work.

So this weekend I decided to give it another go. Installed all the prerequisites, connected the controller, loaded this template. Turned on the device in the channel, all leds flashed just like told in the manual. I load a few clips, the effects work, hey this could be something really cool.

And then. The leds do not light up anymore, when I load the template the device is alway on on. And it just does not work. I have not done a thing to the template. threw away all the files, copied them again but I just cannot get the leds or bars or whatever they are called to light up again and do the stuff they did the first 5 minutes. It is driving me crazy. What am I missing here? :cry:

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