Remote Script for Behringer X-Touch

[Kik07L]

hey ! i am a bit late checking the forum lol but i did update the github proj, if you create a github account ( an if u want ) RobrechtV i can add you to the proj so you can edit it

[Kik07L]

hello everyone ! RobrechtV do you know if there is a possibility to add like a button that replace the "current playing time" in the 7 segment display by the actual hour, i use my Xtouch for live events so i dont really need the curent playing time displaying all the time and i can be usefull to have an hour toggle for it
have a good day !

[RobrechtV]

Hi Kik07L, good idea! You can now switch to displaying the current time by holding SHIFT when you press the display toggle button. Both LEDs will light up to show that you're not in beats or playing time mode.



It just uses Python's localtime function, so I think it will follow whatever your local setting is for the time format -- mine is 24h.

Oh and if the seconds ticking away distracts you (maybe if you're playing something at 121 BPM ), OPTION + display toggle button switches to only HH:MM.

Only these files have changed:

Code: Select all

XTouch/MackieControl.py
XTouch/TimeDisplay.py

For now, could you download them (via the link in my signature) and update them again on Github?

My name on Github is rbrcht. If you add me, I'll try and learn to do it myself next time.

[Kik07L]

that's perfect ! ty ! i gaved u the perms on the github proj so now u can with github desktop upload the realease and even edit directly the project and upload every update u do to it automatically on github

[RobrechtV]

OK, excellent, thanks! I've cloned the repository to my desktop and I'll work from those files from now on, so everything will stay in sync!

(By the way, thank you for the fantastic work you've been doing maintaining the project and the Readme! I've added a few details just now. Please tell me if I do anything incorrectly!)

[Kik07L]

yep ! i just saw the edits u made and that's all good ! ill keep checking and ill do the release posting and packing for every major update
have a good day !

[Kik07L]

hello RobrechtV ! recently i updated the plugin with the latest update ( the one that adds the clock ) for a live concert and i had some really bad issues ( maybe that was just a bug but i had to downgrade to an older version to get rid of it,
what happend : i had my live set with 11 tracks on it, i muted the 8 first using the Xtouch and they switched to the next fader bank to mute the others, but ! what happened is that for some reason the mute leds where turned on on empty tracks and some other where linked like if i try to mute one track it "mutes" an other one ( it not realy mutes it but the mut led for an other track lights up too ), also the faders where not really at the exact good ( like a bit lower that the volume of the track ) and when i tried creating new audio tracks faders are going crazy like mooving everywhere for a second.

ive never had this issue before on my main pc so idk what happened

[RobrechtV]

Oof, not good! I'll see if I can reproduce it. So after you downgraded, it worked again?

From memory, I don't know how the clock code could have any influence on banking or the mutes, but I'll check in the next few days. For now, if you're sure the clock version introduced the bug, maybe you can make the Release link on Github point to an earlier version?

(I just committed an update that adds a Global SOLO feature (SOLO button toggles multiple soloed tracks on and off) but I'll make sure any bugs will be solved!)

[j-cuc]

@RobrechtV your work on this script remains fantastic. You should set up a Ko-Fi or similar.

Say, I have a question. I find myself constantly in need to control just one parameter per track that is essential to the track. However, it seems not possible to use the encoders on the x-touch/-extender for that. If I assign the parameter via regular MIDI control… all encoders of the same relative track on each of my x-touch will control that parameter. I would love for a solution/page/setting that allows the assignment of the encoder to an arbitrary parameter (of that track).

Is this something you think is possible within your script?

[RobrechtV]

Kik07L – I just tried to reproduce your situation (using my latest version of the scripts, which inherited the code from the clock version) but I couldn't.

• I turned on only my main X-Touch
• Opened Live to a new set and added tracks until I had 11
• Muted all first eight tracks then switched to the next bank (right FADER BANK button)
• Muted the rest of the tracks, all without a problem.

Is there anything else I could try to replicate what you were seeing?

Edit: Did more testing, including with the version that added the clock, still nothing. I wonder if maybe your installation of the script was incomplete on your live computer? Or some other issue? Let me know if you run into it again.

j-cuc – That's a good idea! Unfortunately I don't entirely understand the relationship between interactions handled by the script and "regular" MIDI mapping yet. There's the FUNCTION keys (F1-8) that don't do anything on their own and can be freely mapped, but other than those, I'm not sure how I could adapt the script to use any of the other controls in that way. I will keep an eye out though, because that would be a handy feature to have.

Edit: j-cuc – I've been testing a little more. MIDI mapping of parameters is enabled by the Remote checkbox in the MIDI settings (for both Input and Output). You don't need any of those checkboxes for the functionality provided by the Control Surface script, they're only for MIDI mapping. So what you could do is enable Remote (in and out) for just one of your X-Touch/X-Touch XT devices, and leave it unchecked for the others. That way, you can use any spare controls (faders, encoders) on that one device for mapping to a specific parameter. The other X-Touches won't get involved as long as Remote isn't enabled for them.

Note that the Master fader on your main X-Touch won't have this problem anyway because it doesn't exist on the XTs. If you don't need to control the Master channel volume (I just use the hardware volume knob on my audio interface) that fader makes a handy controller for any specific parameter in your set.

[RobrechtV]

If anyone is feeling (slightly) adventurous: the latest version has a couple of neat features and it would be great to have some testers.

- Clock mode: Shift + SMPTE/Beats replaces the song time/beats on the 7-segment Time Display with the current time.
- Global solo: if you have one or more tracks soloed, the global SOLO button (next to CLICK) suspends/reactivates all solo states simultaneously. While suspended, blinking track SOLO buttons indicate which tracks will be re-soloed by the global SOLO button. Shift + SOLO resets.
- The SOLO button's previous function, swapping between clip and device view, has been moved to the AUX button (next to the AUDIO INST button, which shows/hides the bottom pane).
- I've fixed the GROUP button so its LED updates correctly.

I haven't been able to reproduce the issue Kik07L reported above, so I'd love to get some more people messing around with the script to find out what could have gone wrong there (best not during a live performance, perhaps, although the script has been entirely bug-free on my end).

You can find the project here. For the latest beta version (not the Release), go to Code > Download ZIP.
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Some general project status thoughts: I'm a little frustrated by the number of Live features not yet accessible through the Python API. I'd love to create dedicated buttons for showing/hiding automation, take lanes or the Info View, optimizing arrangement width/height, waveform vertical zoom, the "Enable only while recording" setting for the metronome, even saving the project...

Some of these features have a keyboard shortcut, but as far as I can tell, none are represented in the LOM/Python API. Some can be MIDI mapped manually, but that involves an extra step, and the X-Touch has a problem where its LED buttons don't reflect the on/off state of manually mapped parameters.*

I've looked into simulating keypresses to leverage the existing keyboard shortcuts, but that seems impossible to do (especially cross-platform) without a full Python install or even additional modules.

That means the possibilities for adding button functions are somewhat limited: I can only work with what the API offers (although it's possible to get creative with that – the global solo function is entirely programmed within the script, since Live has no such a thing). So if anyone has any idea to circumvent those limitations, let me know!
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* Manual MIDI mapping is entirely separate from the Remote Control script. The script constantly monitors Live and talks to the X-Touch hardware to update all button LEDs and faders, acting as a go-between, but for manually MIDI mapped parameters, Live tries to talk to the hardware directly. Unfortunately, they don't speak the same language when it comes to the button LEDs: Live sends a Note Off message to indicate that a mapped parameter has been turned off, whereas the X-Touch expects a Note On message with velocity=0 to turn off the corresponding button's LED. It is possible to get proper LED feedback for manually mapped parameters by inserting a virtual MIDI port between Ableton Live and the X-Touch, and using MIDI-OX to translate Note Off to Note On with velocity=0 on the fly, but there's no user-friendly way to fix it from the Remote Control script, as the MIDI mapping messages never pass through there.

[ProfessorX81]

Thanks for the great work on this! Just a note for Mac users:

In order to get the scripts to show up in Ableton's preferences pane, I had to install the scripts in a slightly different location than indicated in installation notes. On Mac, go to your Applications folder and control-click or right-click your instance of Live, and select "show package contents." From there, you'll navigate to "/Contents/App-Resources/MIDI Remote Scripts" copy the XTouch and XTouchXT folders into the MIDI Remote Scripts folder and you're all set. In my case, the full path is "Applications/Ableton Live 12 Suite.app/Contents/App-Resources/MIDI Remote Scripts"

I'm fairly new to the Mac ecosystem, so this took some working out. I hope this saves someone else some time!

[RobrechtV]

Thanks ProfessorX81! I'm a Windows user, and so is Kik07L, who manages the project on Github, I believe. Hence, the installation notes at the bottom of the Readme are for Windows, and Mac is a bit of a blind spot for me.

According to Ableton's own help page, the folder for user scripts on Mac is Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Music/Ableton/User Library, but I don't know if that information is up to date. Or it could be that you found the location of the built-in scripts, which would work too!