midi controller fun...

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I just got a brand new Akai mpk88, which gave me a day from hell, but a blissful evening, after I finally got it to work. I had the most bizarre troubles, since my new graphics card takes up too much power and left not enough on the usb port to drive that keyboard. Sounds easy, when you know about it, but to figure this out hasn't been all that easy. Especially since windows 7 went: "Cannot install drivers", sending me on a hunt for drivers or info about problems and there was none to find. The last thing I thought was USB power to be an issue... ...but at least I thought about it eventually.
I had to switch systems and now run everything over my silly tablet (cintiq companion), pffff, but it works.

Soooo...now it's pretty impressive, though! With countless sliders and knobs as midi controllers, it's like a little studio with keys. Hooking them up to mulab is totally easy and wonderful. I LOVE the midi mapping, really, so pleasant. But, of course, there's trouble in paradise, if you want to hook it up to your racks. Unless there's a special trick, controllers only act on an active rack.
Today I might try to make a mixer mux, using meta-parameters for gain and panning and mapping those.

However, it feels beautiful and surreal to control those with hardware. It adds a whole new dimension to recording and provides a real sense of luxury. I do not know how to hook up the transport functions, though (play, record, steps back and forth....). Mulab may still need to get ready for this stuff and I can absolutely see how this is pro stuff it would need to get into the door of today's music production. Praise the day when Mulab shows up in a standard preset list of a midi controller, ha! I was kind of stunned that bitwig studio is in there already?! I think, only on the Fatar (studiologic) keyboards, though. Akai is all about Ableton, which is, of course, part of the same gang as bitwig as I was told recently.
Anyway, I'm totally looking forward to seeing MuLab in these ranks! :pray: :hyper:

Sorry, Jo, I'm afraid this will add to the FR list, but I oddly think that it's quite significant in the best of ways, supporting midi controllers like that. 8)

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Hi Taron

About the Transport Controls look here: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... t#p5949996
Sound C loud
Band C amp
Clicks and pops is all I get

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A shortcut editor...yay! ("RTFM", LOL...took me only a few seconds to get it :dog: :lol: )
Amazing, considering that in all graphic apps I'm almost exclusively on shortcuts, not to mention my own creations...funny.
THANKS!
Now I just have to find a good groove with the racks for some fun live mixing on several channels. But, I think, Jo was about to work on the rack system anyway.

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theres me thinking there was a other device

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Awww, sorry, just reporting new toy and new desires! :hyper:

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If its just to control gain and pan I thought that worked without the need for the rack to be active or is it for something deeper ?
EDIT
yep just checked, gain, pan, stereo width and mute all work even without rack being active.
Last edited by bibz1st on Sat May 16, 2015 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Beauty is only skin deep,
Ugliness, however, goes right the way through

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The shortcut management doesn't register the transport keys from the Akai mpk88. Some of the other buttons that send out midi control values work, but not the transport buttons. No idea what the deal is with that, yet, but I'm almost scared to do that research. Save to say: It's not plug'n'play!

So...even the flipping manual won't be too helpful there, at least not from mulab. But I'll risk some nerves by digging in the keyboards manual...see if there are clues. :shrug:

As for gain and panning, have you tried it with a midi controller on several racks at once?
I just went for mapping gain and pan via right click and that requires the rack to be active. If it's not, it won't respond to the controller.

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Yes, I can assign all my 9 rotary knobs to different gain sliders and they all work independantly, maybe try assigning them through the Project Menu> Edit Project Midi Input Controllers Map
Beauty is only skin deep,
Ugliness, however, goes right the way through

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Oh, yeah, I could've sworn I tried that, too, but I might've tumbled from one thing to the next, oddly skipping that one.
It works!
But more so, I found out how to deal with the transport buttons! On the keyboard you can switch between Midi, MMC/Midi and Ctrl. Once on Ctrl it can just be mapped normally and works fine! :hyper: ...so fancy!

So, yeah, once one knows, it's easy, as per usual!

Thanks, bibz! :tu:

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