Ableton Forum

Come one, mapping things to MIDI in Live is so limited. Nothing has changed for years.

Type in the control
quick map is great, but :
- if you are traveling and you don't have your controllers, you can't work on assignments.
- if one of your controller is old and has a rotten knob that spits out uncontrollable messages, it's a nightmare.
- if you try to map a joystick axis, that's hard to not pollute with the other axis' message.
- if midi is coming from another software, let's say maxMSP standalone, you have to manually generate it.

more than one control for one parameter
- complex mapping
- several musicians
- there is no real reason for this limitation, apart from possible confusion. A warning message would be enough.

ignore some cc range
- let's say you map one knob to 2 parameters. You want to trigger parameter 2 in the end of the knob only. Impossible.

response curves
- That's it. Why linear only ?

port-specific assignments
- We can select channels, ok. Why not the MIDI port ?

Probably for the sake of ease of use. As someone who's used Live for a little over a year, when I saw your thread title I thought "what's wrong with it? It's so easy"

Then I read your post and realized there's a lot of things I've never even thought about.

chapelier fou wrote:Come one, mapping things to MIDI in Live is so limited. Nothing has changed for years.
ignore some cc range
- let's say you map one knob to 2 parameters. You want to trigger parameter 2 in the end of the knob only. Impossible.

I've put many hours and found a handful of workarounds for this (max, lemur, touchosc, hacky custom remote script, etc) but they all have limitations. If this were native to Live it would seriously open up some really neat possibilities. You could set up "zones" on a control to change multiple things sequentially. Single knob LPF/HPF for example, or maybe a LPF/reverb/distortion for vocals. It would be very cool.

I would also like more native MIDI mapping functionality very much. Taking m4l devices for a simple curve or mapping cc data make things complicate.

Yeah. Something like a drop down for each mapping (the way they have it for sync in midi prefs) with advanced mapping parameters. Then it'd stay simple, but you can dive deeper for more customization.

Yes, enhancing functionality doesn't mean that it must get complicated. That's what I love in live. Have a good overview, keep it simple, and being able to dive as deep as I want and need.

Since 2002 I have been asking for a special Midi Map mode so that certain assignments only happen when that particular track is ARMED. That way you can use the same faders and knobs for multiple VSTi's and adjusting a knob on one instrument will not send the message to another one. So damn simple. I just don't understand why it's 2015 and there aren't thousands of other users asking for it.

solovox wrote:Since 2002 I have been asking for a special Midi Map mode so that certain assignments only happen when that particular track is ARMED. That way you can use the same faders and knobs for multiple VSTi's and adjusting a knob on one instrument will not send the message to another one. So damn simple. I just don't understand why it's 2015 and there aren't thousands of other users asking for it.

I would love that, too!

At the moment you have only this fixed mapping in Ableton. You can change mapping with different banks from your controller, but it would be really nice to have more flexibility from Ableton.

When using Automap on 8 macros of a rack, I can only choose to have it connected permanently or I have to take care that the right device is selected and stays selected for the control. Changing the permanent connection via presets would be nice. Or having one setting for each track, which gets activated when the track is armed.

And what should live do if you arm multiple tracks? There are a lot of details which can make it complicated.

To the OP:

Do any other DAWs have the mapping features you want?

I've seen some of them on hardware and software instruments, but none of the few DAWs I've used over the years (I'm no power user though).

At least FL does this for years. Read the Global permanent links here. It's like Automap built in natively.
https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHe ... inking.htm

Global generic links are window/plugin-specific, this means the same knobs/sliders/jogs on your controller can be used to control any number of user interface targets throughout FL Studio and plugins.

I thought Live would copy this feature. Or they are trying not to steal Novation customers...

Hi!

Have you guys have found any good work arounds for these?

I need multiple performers to be able to control sends, "tap tempo" and scene launch Up / Down arrows of a set.
Is this possible from different controllers on different midi channels?


Cheeeeeeeeers!

Yes

In Windows at least you can use Bome MIDI Translator to workaround limitations in Live including merging multiple MIDI input signals to output signals (merged or otherwise). Lots of possibilities there.

Bomes Midi Translator overcomes most midi limitations in Live.

to OP:
Thanks for poking this sleeping giant...
Agreed on all points and more (more native 'midi' devices, task specific).

Live needs to update its Midi mapping.

JuanSOLO wrote:Bomes Midi Translator overcomes most midi limitations in Live.

Maybe, but i don't think it allows different configurations to be loaded with a liveset.