Ableton Forum

Hi there,

I'm totally new to live and got it with my new Axiom 61.

really fell in love with it imidiatly...

However, I don't manage to assign the channel-aftertouch (that has controller number 131) to any midi controlled parameter in live.

Take the Operator for example. How can I assign the aftertouch to, say, the cutoff? So when i play a note, i have control over the cutoff through the pressure i am applying to the key.

How would I do that?

Thank you )

Some ideas (I'm at work, no Live here)
Hold a note down at the edge of aftertouch.
Hit MIDI learn
Push on the key to send the cc# (but not note on or off)
Turn off learn, try it.

Or assign some knob or something the cc value you want and use that to map into Live.

Should work, cool idea, I hate reading cool ideas at work, it's like showing a man an icy glass of water in the desert but not letting him drink.

Hi there, thanks for the reply.

unfortunatly, I tried this allready...

The keyboard sends out the CC Messages, and even the midi-activity light in the top right corner of live flashes, but it does not assign anything to the selected parameter :/

I believe Aftertouch is no "standard" CC message, and maybe has a little different structure? byte/bit-wise, I mean. Uhm, dont know. Would be great if live could manage

for some reason live can't map aftertouch.

i used to use a vst midi effect that i found on the web that could map aftertouch to cc messages, but i can't remember what it was called. try searching the web for aftertouch vst or something. i have a feeling it was created by someone on this forum.

these days i use a home brewed PD patch for controller mapping tasks .

my all time favorite use of after touch is on rock organ sounds - weigh down on the keys to speed up the rotating speaker effect, very expressive.

I ran into the same issue that you describe, I found a workaround that seemed to do the trick although it takes some extra steps. The trick is to utilize another controller, say one of the faders on the axiom, assign it to a controller that in the end you will want to use for aftertouch. I'm not sure if ableton just won't respond to channel 131 (default aftertouch) or if it's confused by the fact that the note was held down. But there isn't anything really magic about channel 131, it's just the default for aftertouch.

At any rate, using the midi map mode in Live, assign a Live parameter to the controller used for the fader by moving the fader. Then exit the midi map mode, and change the controller number for the aftertouch to the same controller used by the fader. If you want the fader to be independent again you would then need to change the fader controller to an unused value. At this point when you use the keyboard aftertouch Live will respond correctly.

To change the controller value for the after touch, press a key hard so it goes into aftertouch. This will set the "last used" controller to the aftertouch controller, then press the Ctrl Assign button and enter in the desired number.

Hope that makes sense, I'm not in front of the keyboard so apologies if I got buttons or numbers wrong...

Now thats a great idea and really freaky but makes a lot of sense!

I'll try that when i'm home. thanks!!!

now thats quit funny...

i've assigned an other controller number to the aftertouch on my keyboard and now ableton recognizes it normally.

When I assign a normal fader controller to c# 131 it doesnt. Seems like theres something wired going on with 131 ^^ or everything greater than 127

Ah, that makes a little more sense now. Everything up above 127 is extended midi and not part of the general midi spec so the support up there must be nonexistent or at least not fully implemented.

kahliburke wrote:Ah, that makes a little more sense now. Everything up above 127 is extended midi and not part of the general midi spec so the support up there must be nonexistent or at least not fully implemented.

At least Live records aftertouch when playing... and all my synths (besides Operator) have their own midi learn so I had not even found this limitation...

correct me if i'm wrong - it's a while since i studied it - but aftertouch is not a controller message in the normal sense. the midi spec defines 8 basic message types

note on, note off, control change, channel aftertouch, polyphonic aftertouch, pitch bend, system realtime and active sensing. each has a different status byte. if your controller lets you map key pressure to a standard controller then go with that (wish mine did). but basically the standard midi aftertouch message is not technically a controller message at all.

hate to bump old topics, but this seemed like the most informative one

at least for me, aftertouch worked great, once i re assigned it to a different CC than 131, now i can hold the note down and trigger the aftertouch to assign this just like any other midi learn parameter

on my axiom i just used the enigma editor and made everything happy again

Unfortuneately, most people don't have this option, Ableton needs to get this implemented!

If you have Max for Live, you can use the Press Modulator. This one lets you assign the aftertouch to any cc parameter.

http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... -modulator

Have fun!

Chris

If you have Max 4 Live, use the Expression Control MIDI effect to map aftertouch. My first impulse was to try to MIDI Map it, and I'm still not aware of any way to do that, but putting Expression Control in front of any instrument allows you to map aftertouch and other useful stuff.

My application was to map mod wheel and aftertouch to some Easy Edit parameters in NI FM8. Putting Expression Control in front of FM8 is a lot easier than trying to do it somewhere in the FM8 UI.

And the nice thing about using Expression Control is that you can save the mapping with the instrument in an Instrument Rack, instead of having it tied to the MIDI Map in the Live Set.

I've been a user since Live 10 Suite, now on Live 11 Suite, so I don't know if this is available in earlier versions.

Actually Expression Control is part of Standard edition of Live 11. So everyone who has updated can use it.
This works really well for assigning the aftertouch.