Ableton Forum

I really like creating and tweaking synth patches. Live makes mapping plug-in parameters to hardware controllers easy. The problem I'm having is that it's impossible to organize these parameters in any way other than just one ordered contiguous list. It would be extremely helpful for this type of workflow if users could organize them together a bit better to be able to streamline patch editing workflows where pages of like functions can be grouped together.



Spaces / Blanks
Above I have Here I have 25 parameters mapped across 4 banks -- 8 each in the first three, and one remaining. I would love it if I could have nothing in the top two (horiz.) slots of bank 2 leaving only the two envelope settings. if the user could insert "blank/empty" parameters in this list. This would arrange things in the banks, so they make sense for editing. For example, all OSC1 settings together, all Filter options together. The blank would just show up as disabled / empty on the controller UI - much like the way that these params are disabled in the controller view when they are also mapped to a macro and you have the device (not the whole rack) selected.

Bank Names
On controllers like the Push and the Novation SL MKIII each group of 8 parameters appears as a bank which allow the user to page through to navigate to settings beyond the initial 8. These banks just show up as "bank 1", "bank 2". There is no way to change that. Users should have the ability to name banks. Example: If you are editing a patch in Ableton's Analog synth, the bank names appear with specific page names vs generic "bank 1" etc.

Adding these two things in the plug-in parameter configuration would make it a lot easier for users who want to use their hardware controllers to deeply edit plug-in settings.

I am aware of PrEditor 2. The developer is a genius and its incredible. It does all of this, and apparently much more. However, I don't think it currently supports a Novation SL III. And while PrEditor is great, this just seems like something that should be implemented universally at a lower level without an add-on so that it would work with any controller with Ableton support using unmodified user scripts.

Definitely. PrEditor is great (if a bit buggy) but the implementation should be native so as not to be dependent on 3rd party developers.
Case in point: PrEditor doesn't currently work on Live 11, and I need to for the comping facilities.
Might have to look in to what PrEditor is actually doing and see if I can hack a solution together

I'm setting up a Novation SL MkIII with Ableton 11 and found this thread while looking for custom bank names. Suffice it to say, +1 from me on this feature request.

Just let us rename them and set their colour like macros.

+1

Having moved from Bitwig Studio to Ableton this is one of the biggest drawbacks for me.

• Renaming banks to something useful like: "VCA1", "VCF", "Envelope", "LFOs" would make navigating around banks so much easier.
• Empty spaces are essential too. What if you have only 6 or 7 parameters for your group. You dont want filter controls in your amp page
• specifying names of the parameters and units (dB, Hz, % etc). Often the default names are not intuitive or very long so they are hard to read on controller screen

Currently, for big synthesizer VSTs with many pages I use NI's Komplete Kontrol instance and a dedicated controller KK s25. The plugin mapping is a joy there. And it is NKS standard so you can also browse presets and categories. For example you can filter for bass, pad, strings sounds, etc.

Bonus list (not so essential but would be really cool):

• add colours to pages
• allow for custom graphics like in Ableton devices - they look so nice on Push 2 screen
• if the VST parameter is an ON/OFF or multi-state button, allow to tap on Push encoder to toggle state. They are touch sensitive so it would be easy to work with switches on the VSTs. This can be for example a double-tap or long tap so the state is not changed accidentally

Yeah bitwig blows Ableton out of the water when it comes to organising banks and parameters. Push 2 works great with it in conjunction with the DrivenbyMoss script.

Ive also tried Ubermap, but it doesnt work properly for me on MacOS 11.6 and Ableton 11.1 M1. It might work for other and worth checking out.

Another is VST Wrapper in the Max4Live device site. Again this didn't work for me as I kept getting crashes, but might work for others. Although Ubermap may be a better option if it works for you.