Ableton Forum

Hi there,

I want to change the MIDI channel for Instant Mappings in Live but it doesn't work.

I have an M-Audio Keystation Pro 88 keyboard/MIDI controller and Live 6.0.9, running on a MacBook. Note on/off signals should be sent on channel 1 and CC signals on channel 2.

A MIDI monitoring program as well as Live itself are showing me that both signals make their way into Live on the appropriate channels. But for some reason I can only play notes, the remote commands don't do anything. As I said Live displays MIDI activity for the remote controls in the track and also on the LED but the parameters are not modified at all.

In my UserConfiguration file I changed the channels for each individual control and I even tried to change the global channel but to no avail.

Does anyone have a clue what the problem might be?

Jost

(edited) ups, didn't get your question, sorry. Err, don't have so much experience with the user config file for automap.

jost, I was stuck with this the other day. The only way I found to do it was to have have a separate midi track and use the "send midi to on channel x" capability. Its a pain that you can't just do it on a single track. I don't know if there is some improvement on V7? Maybe Instrument Racks?

Thanks, penningt, for your reply. I think I did what you suggest, but let me explain it in case there is a misunderstanding.

Having set the keys' MIDI channel to 1 and all the CCs sending on channel 2 on the controller I set up a MIDI track in Live containing an instance of Simpler. At first "MIDI from" is set to "Keystation Pro 88" and "Channel 1". The track being armed, playing keys gives me sound as expected, MIDI input being reflected in the channel indicator.

Then I switch to channel 2 and focus Simpler in the track view (or even lock it to the Keystation). When I turn knob or move sliders then I can see MIDI coming in at the channel's MIDI input indicator but none of the controls of Simpler changes.

What am I missing or is it maybe a bug?

Jost- in midi prefs have you turned on both 'track' and 'remote' inputs for your control surface?

If you use a single track, Live will process all Midi on Channel 1 (even if it is received on Channel 2).

If you want to send Midi on Channel 2 to your device (Simpler) you need a second Midi track. On you second track, use the "send Midi to Track x on channel 2".

As far as I can see you need more than 1 Midi track which is annoying.

We're talking instant mapping right?

Confused with all this routing talk in that case.

Anyway - one tip is that the channel numbers in the userconfiguration.txt file are 0 based - i.e. channel 1 = 0 , channel 16 = 15 etc.


that has messed me up before


And as noted above, even if you have something chosen as instant mapping controller in the upper menus, you still have to enable it as a remote on the lower MIDI port list

(pretty sure about that for instant mapping, although this is NOT true for Mackie emulation... weird)

Chrysalis, yes, I have enabled both.

penningt wrote:If you use a single track, Live will process all Midi on Channel 1 (even if it is received on Channel 2).

If you want to send Midi on Channel 2 to your device (Simpler) you need a second Midi track. On you second track, use the "send Midi to Track x on channel 2".

As far as I can see you need more than 1 Midi track which is annoying.

I see what you mean now! That doesn't make any sense but I'll definitely try that as soon as I'm at home. If it turns out to solve my problem then it's worth contacting the support, I'd say.

Thanks anyway, I'll let you know how I'm getting on.

[EDIT]
Yes, longjohns, that's the topic here =). Concerning the channel numbering that wasn't my problem since my MIDI controller uses the same numbering so I simply sticked to it.
[/EDIT]

Okay, I tried it again, set up several MIDI tracks but in neither of them could I use any remote controls.

So I'll send an e-mail to the support now and ask for help =)

I've just tried it and I see the problem. The problem is with Simpler - as it only appears to operate on 1 channel.

In your second Midi track you have a couple of "MIDI To" drop downs. The first one is where you select your Simpler track and the second is where you select the channel you want to use. When you go to the second drop down (channel selection) it does not give the option of selecting channel 2 (it only gives you the option of selecting channel 1). This is the problem. If you had a VST Instrument plugin instead of Simpler the channel select drop down would have 16 channels to select from.

I would be interested in what support have to say so please let me know.

I still think you guys are miscommunicating,

because I can't see how any routing between tracks has anything to do with Instant Mapping.

Instant mapping is not about routing. It's about a controller protocol in which all you need to do is click on a device header.

Well I think we were not miscommunicating. My problem was (and to say that in advance, it is solved) that I wanted to send all note on/off events occurring from my MIDI keyboard/controller on MIDI channel 1 and all CC events (the remote controllers) on channel 2.

In Live I wanted to receive them both separately so if I set MIDI input to channel 1 I would only receive the note on/offs and on channel 2 only the controller events. But I couldn't receive the controller events and that was the problem.

The solution is that I was mapping the channels from my keyboard and the ones in the UserConfiguration file incorrectly. In the file MIDI channels go from 0 to 15 which I noticed right away. But for my MIDI controller the channels actually go from 1 to 16 and I only realised that after I received an answer from the Ableton support.

Another important aspect was pointed out in the reply stating that Instant Mappings are not specific to a MIDI channel, it will work regardless of the channel selected in MIDI input of a track.

I hope we are all happy now! I know I am =)

Cheers
Jost

cool man

yeah, i thought you had said your controller went 0-15 also

RE: MIDI channel routing boxes - that was what I was trying to say - instant mapping has nothing to do with the routing on tracks. It is a totally separate issue.

I'm happy

longjohns you are right, my apologies to jost. I misinterpreted the post and probably confused the issue.