Ableton Live Automap (Mackie Emulation)
From Livid Wiki
Contents |
Introduction
This uses a combination of the Mackie Emulation and Live's undocumented "User Remote Scripts" to automap the Ohm64 to a lot of playback and interface functions in Ableton Live. This mapping is geared towards studio use, and is modeled on Digital Audio Workstation controller surface workflows. Using this setup enables "pages" of faders, navigation of the clip slots in Track View, easy control of devices in Tracks, and a set of drumpads for overdubbing and creating rhythms. Although it is ideal for the studio, with a bit of practice and well thought-out arrangements of Instruments and effects in your Live Tracks, it would be very useful for live performance, too. A video tutorial can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/10364683
Requirements
Ableton Live 6 or above, an Ohm64, and proper installation of the provided User Remote Script. The Ohm64 will also need to have its MIDI settings reprogrammed using the provided .lmd file, which is loaded onto the Ohm64 using the Ohm64 Editor version 1.05 or higher.
Files to Download
User Remote Scripts
DAW Settings Dump.lmd
Installation
The contents of the folder User Remote Scripts goes into:
/Users/<your user name>/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 8.1.1/User Remote Scripts/ (Macintosh)
C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\Ableton\Live <version #>\Preferences\User Remote Scripts\UserConfiguration.txt (Windows)
(in other words, just drop the folder "LividOhm64" into the User Remote Scripts folder)
Open up the Ohm64 Editor, go to the File menu, and select "Open." Navigate to the file "DAW Settings Dump.lmd" and open it. This will set up the Ohm64 with the needed MIDI Settings, overwriting your existing setup. It should also light up the top left 4x4 of the grid, as well as buttons 7,14,16,and 23 for the arrow keys.
If your setup is important, you can either save it to a preset or to a .lmd file.
If you want this DAW setup to store to the Ohm64's memory, be sure to press the "Save to Ohm64" button in the Editor.
Ableton Live Settings
In Ableton Live, open the Preferences/MIDI panel. Change your MIDI preferences so they match this picture:
You can use the "DAW Test Project" for ableton live if you desire to try this out. Beware of the stupid music that will come out of your speakers if you do use this!
Functions Assigned to the Ohm64
This image shows the functions assigned to all the buttons, knobs, and sliders. Click for a larger version
Overlay
You can print an overlay using this PDF file. Make sure that there is no Print Scaling on in the print dialog box, otherwise it won't fit. (I think the Macintosh's Preview app might do this by default, so pay attention!) Here is a picture of my Ohm64 with the overlay:
as an example. It would probably work pretty decently and look ok if it was laser cut and done on a stiffer paper (or laminated plastic), rather than cheap typing paper and an xacto.
Imperfections
There's a few odd things about this. We have been working with Ableton to provide a proper Control Surface Preset in a future update of Ableton Live, but until that happens, this method works quite well.
- The eight Send rotaries only work on tracks 1-8 - they do not chase the Bank +8/-8 actions in the same way the other things do.
- There are two ways to get the "Device" Knobs to be mapped to a track's device. You can click on it with mouse, or arm (then unarm, if you desire) the track for recording (buttons 57-64) - you'll see the blue hand appear in the device's title bar indicating it's under remote control.
- If you have a track with a drum rack on it and you want to use the pads, you'll need to arm the track for recording. For playing live (as in, in front of an audience), you could set up a track with just the drum racks and no clips, Bank+8 over to that track, arm recording, and then start playing the drums.
- I set the LED control note to "127" on the "arrow" and a couple of the drum pads because Live kept sending notes out that turn those off. (Seems worth a reminder here that the way to get that lighting pattern in the first place is to open the Ohm64 Editor and turn those lights on).
- DrumPad1 doesn't work, I presume this is because the Mackie script in Live has reserved it for a function that the Mackie would use. (DrumPads work using the separate User Remote Script that I created, not using the Mackie Emulator.)
- The "swap slider" (button 38) function will assign the sliders to pans (press button 39) or to sends on the active track (button 40). I don't know why "send" doesn't work the same as "pan."
