Abes/drumrack/mtpro questions

First I'd like to say thanks for MT providing a great solution.

Drum Rack in Ableton is where I do alot of work.
I've built a custom Drumrack where each slot can hold up to 127 samples.
Drop Sampler in one of Drumracks slots, drop up to 127 samples in Sampler, use Abe's "Pitch" to scroll through the samples.
I use an MPD16, I'd like to assign the MPD's slider to control the pitch knob up and down.
Keep in mind, I just want the slider to control the pitch knob in the selected slot, not all of them simultaneously.
Luckily Abes has an option to select the last pad pressed on your controller which is gonna make this alot less painless.
I've seen this feature on the NativeKontrol APCseries software just for different parameters within the slots, this software uses MT runtime.
I've managed to do this with pads, but cannot get the slider to dual function up and down.I've learned how to map out alot of other features but have just spent my whole weekend trying to figure this out.
I tried classic version first and and kept getting incoming message FE??? Trial pro has gotten me comfortable as far as simple stuff like ARM, mute, transport, etc. I'm lost when it comes to rules.

Any ideas on how to get my slider doing this? Sorry for the noobness, and thanks.

Hi PM1978,

Do you know what the 'pitch' message you need to send for each bank is? Or is it just the one message that depends on the 'last pressed' pad is?

If it is the latter, then you should just be able to change the message the MPD sends to what the software needs quite easily...

For example:
What is the exact input message from the slider?

Also, what do you mean, dual function up and down?

cheers,
Scott

It just depends on the last pad pressed.The slider sends cc21, but can be assigned any CC # internally from the MPD itself. Well dual function, I possibly couldve misinterpreted. I was assigning an up and down arrow keystroke to the slider. If I moved it down it went down, If I moved it up it would go down or not go any further.
I'm headed off to work now, I'll be back in a few hours to test drive those commands you entered. Thanks for the reply.

So you want this to work with keystrokes or MIDI? I'm still not sure what you are doing...

Sorry,

Scott

Attigo wrote:So you want this to work with keystrokes or MIDI? I'm still not sure what you are doing...

Sorry,

Scott

The MPD16 has a single slider. It sends any MIDI CC it is assigned, it can be changed internally. The MPD has no MIDI in.

My assumption was to assign arrow up and down keystroke to it, in order not to change ALL of the pitch knobs at once. Just the pitch knob of the selected pad in Drumrack(there are 127 pads in drumrack).

Even though this Ableton plugin has last pad select as an option, CC21 will still change all the pitches, thats why I was going the keystroke route. Is there is a better way to do it with Midi that can bypass the other 126 pads with a pitch knob in them? I'm lost with going outside the basics in MT.

I can only get the slider to move the virtual pitch knob up only or down only when I go the keystroke route.

I can use Abes MIDI learn and it moves the knob fine, this is good if your only controlling one knob or all simultaneously.

Maybe using keystrokes is the best answer. I am not familiar with this software so I can't think of how else to do it...

We can troubleshoot your keystroke issue though. Can you show me how you are doing the keystrokes? I think you will need to turn the slider data into a relative output to get good performance. You want the slider to send an 'up' keystroke when it is going up and a 'down' keystroke when it is going down, right?

Scott

Here it goes,thanks again.

Ok, I see your problem. There is no way of the Traslators 'knowing' which direction the slider is going, so theoretically, it will send both UP and DOWN Ketsrokes when there is any input from the slider.

The way you would do this is by setting a 'global variable' that will 'track' what the previous position value of the slider was. This will then allow the seperate Translators for 'UP' and 'DOWN' to decipher if the slider position 'value' has increased or decreased, either going up or going down...

Your Translators should look like this:
The last Translator needs to be last or this 'tracker' will not work. I've tried and tested this and it is working great for me.

I hope you understand and this helps!

cheers,
Scott

Thanks for everything so far. I'm almost there.
It's working but with one weird flaw, the speed at which my finger moves the fader affects the amount of increase or decrease in value. For me to go from 0-127 I have to move the fader very slow, like unusable slow. If I move it like a normal fader I might get an increase or decrease value of -/+ 20...
Is there a fix?

Attigo wrote:Maybe using keystrokes is the best answer. I am not familiar with this software so I can't think of how else to do it...

We can troubleshoot your keystroke issue though. Can you show me how you are doing the keystrokes? I think you will need to turn the slider data into a relative output to get good performance. You want the slider to send an 'up' keystroke when it is going up and a 'down' keystroke when it is going down, right?

Scott

What do you mean by relative output?
Do you mean outputting the incoming message but with rules?
The slider moves up and down, but the performance of it is bad, only moves a few steps.
To go from 0-127 it would take about 20 seconds of moving the fader very slow.

Sorry for the late reply...

I looked through your code, and I can see a couple of things that may be causing the bad performance...

On your 'Tracker' translator, your rules are:
if ga==pp then exit rules. skip Outgoing Action

This should just be:
ga==pp

This sets the variable 'ga' to the incoming value, what you have done is given it an if statement, so you have nothing setting the variable, therefore the tracker is not tracking.

Also, for your keystroke, you are using a 'Key Down' event for Down and a 'Key Up' event for Up, these events do not represent the keys Down and Up, they are for emulating the movement of a key, whether you are emulating a press of the 'g' key, or for releasing it, you would use 'up'. I selected 'Key Press or Sequence', and just pressed the correct keys for each translator. If you click in the text box in the keystroke section of the outgoing, you just press any key (or sequence) and it 'records' what you press, ie, 'down' when you press the down arrow on your keyboard.

There are 2 main types of control interaction, Absolute and Relative. 'Absolute' means an absolute position of say a slider or fader. If you had a fader or knob on your controller sitting in the middle, it would be represented in the software in the same position/value. 'Relative' is controlled by direction and velocity from the current position. This type of control is used on things like endless encoders, it just responds to which direction you are turning the knob and how fast. A good example of relative control is a trackpad on a laptop. What I meant by turning the fader input to a relative control, was just to write rules so that MT understands which direction the fader is moving, so we could send one message going one direction, and another, going the opposite...

I hope this makes sense and you get it working...

Scott.

Absolute value is exactly what this slider needs, what do I change in the rules to make it absolute value?
Thanks for all your help.

The output doesn't need to be Absolute. It is neither. You are using Keystrokes (which do not have a numerical value). One for every step/value moved on the fader. We are using it 'as if it was' Relative to decipher which direction the fader is going. We are translating the Absolute input to be as if it was a Relative input.

Did you implement those changes? Is it working?

The changes been there, I just copied the wrong text code, sorry for the mixup, that was code I saved when getting acquainted with MT.

When I use MIDI the slider is absolute. Maybe I'm going about it all wrong.

I use a 16 pad drum controller with one slider(Akai MPD-16).The slider is set to CC21.

The slider has to control the pitch of the sample of the last pad pressed ONLY, not the pitch of all pads at once. With Absolute value. I am controlling Abletons drum rack plugin.

You said you were wanting to use the slider to control the pitch for scrolling up and down banks?? You just want to control a pitch slider?? Why were you trying to use keystrokes, because that changes the pitch of only one pad??

Is this a preset in your MPD or did you assign it yourself?

Attigo wrote:You said you were wanting to use the slider to control the pitch for scrolling up and down banks?? You just want to control a pitch slider?? Why were you trying to use keystrokes, because that changes the pitch of only one pad??

You have lost me....

Thats why i was using keystrokes, yes.

I did say that I was using it to control banks also, but to keep it less complicated lets say I'm using pitch..technically I'm using a pitch midi vst to select the samples. Lemme know if you want the long technical explanation.

And did you map this yourself or is it a preset in the MPD?

oh and really Its controlling 127 pitch sliders, just individually not simultaneously...which slider depends on last pad pressed.

It is doing that? I thought that is what you wanted it to do?! Did you map it yourself? Or is it a Preset in the MPD/Ableton????

Its something i created in Ableton. It does do this with the code you provided for keystroke, however the output is not absolute value, so I think I have to go the MIDI.
I have to map each of those 127 pitch knobs to one slider, the slider sends cc21. The knobs have to be controlled individually, which knob gets selected is all dependent upon the last pad pressed. The pads send note data C,C#,D...etc...

So when you press a pad, then move the pitch slider (CC21), all 127 pitch knobs move? No matter which pad it is, all the knobs move? Do you have the 'last pad selected' option checked?

How is this set up, where about on Ableton can I assign pitch to a sample? Do you have 'Simpler' hooked up? Please give me more details. I would like to see your setup for myself...

Have you tried something as simple as assigning a different CC number to the fader?

I have Ableton 8 Suite and an MPD32 also, I can surely replicate what you are doing?

I appreciate all the help, heres a link of the drumrack file im working with with the included samples.
I limited it to 4 cells of the drumrack to keep it simple.
https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php? ... YThLSkE9PQ
drag and drop the .adg file in a blank live set, point it to the folders where the samples are if it ask for missing samples, but you knew that.
Thanks again.
PS keep in mind the akai mpd16 pad editor is useless in windows 7.

Attigo wrote:So when you press a pad, then move the pitch slider (CC21), all 127 pitch knobs move? No matter which pad it is, all the knobs move? Do you have the 'last pad selected' option checked?

Yes, all 127 Pitch knobs move, no matter which pad is pressed. "last pad selected option"? Is this an MPD32 feature, if so the MPD16 doesn't have it.

Attigo wrote:How is this set up, where about on Ableton can I assign pitch to a sample? Do you have 'Simpler' hooked up? Please give me more details. I would like to see your setup for myself...

'Sampler' is hooked up in a Drum Rack cell. If i drop a 'pitch' Midi effect alongside of the 'Sampler' and move the pitch knob I can scroll through the 128 samples I've dropped in that one instance of sampler.

Attigo wrote:Have you tried something as simple as assigning a different CC number to the fader?

Whats the magic cc#?

Attigo wrote:I have Ableton 8 Suite and an MPD32 also, I can surely replicate what you are doing?

Awesome, Download the .adg file in my last reply above this bump and drag it into a blank live set. I've simplified it to just a few cells. Thanks again for all of the help.

ANyone ???

bump