Ableton Live 9 MIDI mapping

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Netgod2002

New member
I need to find a solution to this before my girlfriend leaves me for another man for spending so much time away from her trying to solve it.

I have a drum rack set up with a bunch of kicks on it. Then another drum rack with open hats and then another with closed. I want to be able to use my 4x knobs on my keyboard to control ADSR for my kick when selected, closed hat when selected or open hat when selected.

At the moment, if I adjust a parameter like the attack for say, my kick drum - it adjusts parameters for all three.

How can I isolate so it only adjusts parameters when selected??
 
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You can't really do it the way you want to. The only way to do it is to set up several drum racks with the ADSR linked to the macros and set up a remote control script for your controller (if it doesn't auto assignment those first parameters in any advice you select already) and have it control the macros when you select the drum rack.
 
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Wallengard said:
You can't really do it the way you want to. The only way to do it is to set up several drum racks with the ADSR linked to the macros and set up a remote control script for your controller (if it doesn't auto assignment those first parameters in any advice you select already) and have it control the macros when you select the drum rack.
Click to expand...

At the moment, I have 3x drum racks grouped in an instrument rack. Snare, open hat and closed hat all in their own drum racks.
Where do I go from here??
I have adsr all mapped to macros, problem is they all move at tye same time instead of when I select the rack...

How do I tell ableton, "only adjust the attack for the snare drum when the snare drum rack is selected"
and visa versa for the other two racks...
 
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You're going to want to have each individual drum rack in its own instrument rack.

Google around for Ableton remote control scripts to figure out how to make your controller automatically assign certain knobs to those macros. Ableton has a few pre-defined slots for those kind of things. Usually, you've got 8 knobs that all automatically assign to the 8 macros whenever that rack is selected.

In other cases, you're going to have to make the script yourself, which is a lot easier than it sounds. I just don't have time at the moment to so the research for you so Google for it and good luck with it for now.

:-) How
 
Well I found the solution after extensive trial and error. Just in case somebody has a similar issue down the track and finds this thread, the solution was to change channels on my midi keyboard when changing from one drum rack to another.

So the way it's set-up is:

INSTRUMENT RACK > DRUM RACK (CLOSED HATS)
> DRUM RACK (OPEN HATS)
> SNARES

All racks are mapped to their relative macros. The macros are then midi mapped to my keyboard (Closed hat rack channel 2, Open-Hat rack channel 3, Snare rack channel 4)

This means that I simply have to hit "next preset" on my keyboard to select the next midi channel on it, and then I am able to adjust the parameters I've set to it in Ableton.

Essentially, I now have access to thousands of samples loaded in their corresponding drum racks and can easily scroll through them all one-by-one, while being able to adjust the ADSR parameters.

Thanks!
 
The only downside with the way you found as opposed to the one I suggested is that you'll have to set it up every time you open a new project unless you make a template. (as well as having to keep track of which preset on your keyboard goes to which rack, and which preset you're currently on)

It also means that you can't use those knobs to control anything else, which you could if you would investigate the remote control scripts for Live.
 
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Wallengard said:
The only downside with the way you found as opposed to the one I suggested is that you'll have to set it up every time you open a new project unless you make a template. (as well as having to keep track of which preset on your keyboard goes to which rack, and which preset you're currently on)

It also means that you can't use those knobs to control anything else, which you could if you would investigate the remote control scripts for Live.
Click to expand...

I've saved the Instrument rack as a pre-set and backed it up, but you're right. The MIDI mapping doesn't save. So the only way around this is saving as a template. Which isn't too much of a concern as I'm not tied down with any pre-existing templates at the moment.

I did take your advice and search for user scripts, but honestly - this is my first MIDI keyboard and it's less than a week old. Scripting is completely over my head. I don't even know where to start! I looked at the user config file and just scratched my head.
This way is a work-around at least, until I'm more confident to start tweaking .txt files.
 
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Netgod2002 said:
I've saved the Instrument rack as a pre-set and backed it up, but you're right. The MIDI mapping doesn't save. So the only way around this is saving as a template. Which isn't too much of a concern as I'm not tied down with any pre-existing templates at the moment.

I did take your advice and search for user scripts, but honestly - this is my first MIDI keyboard and it's less than a week old. Scripting is completely over my head. I don't even know where to start! I looked at the user config file and just scratched my head.
This way is a work-around at least, until I'm more confident to start tweaking .txt files.
Click to expand...

Essentially, all you need to do is figure out which midi cc tour knobs are sending (can easily be done in Live by just midi mapping something random and move the knob to see which number it is) then go to that text file and write the name of your controller, and change the corresponding text line with those numbers.

It's a 10 minute job and like I said, it's a lot easier than it seems.

I would definitely look more closely into it I were you. Because what this let's you do is instantly map those knobs to those macros, however many new drum racks and configurations you wish to have and you'd never have to map them yourself again.

It also maps instantly to any parameter you wish to configure in Live (when you hit the device panel and hit configure to get that parameter in there ready for automation). This same script would automatically assign those knobs to those things whenever selected as well, and you'd never have to change preset on the keyboard.
 
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