Pad controllers within Mulab

[humanboeing]

Hi, does anyone use midi pad controllers with Mulab? Especially with the new clip launcher - I'm thinking about buying one (akai apc mini to be specific), but I'm not sure if it will work well and I don't want to throw away money. Share your experience if you have any!

[philippas]

I have been asking myself the same question, because to me it seems a clip matrix really shines with a grid controller and I also thought about getting one.

To be really useful I think there would need to be some (little?) changes. I think there should be some kind of visual feedback on the controller to show if a "cell" is active, inactive or cued to be played next. That means when I stop a scene (by pad or mouse) the pads for the corresponding clips should also turn off.

As far as I can tell, the clip-matrix currently does not send any midi information depending on the state of a scene/clip.

There is a Programmer's Reference Guide to the Launchpad MK3 that explains their implementation. For example concerning the LEDs

Lighting LEDs via MIDI
In Session Mode, Launchpad Pro [MK3] accepts colours through the DAW interface.
In Custom Modes and Programmer Mode Launchpad Pro [MK3] accepts colours through the MIDI
interface.

Channels are used as follows:

Channel Behaviour Notes CCs
1 Static Colour Hex: 90h
Decimal: 144
Hex: B0h
Decimal: 176
2 Flashing Colour Hex: 91h
Decimal: 145
Hex: B1h
Decimal: 177
3 Pulsing Colour Hex: 92h
Decimal: 146
Hex: B2h
Decimal: 178

I could not find anything on the apc mini, but there is a "Communications Protocol Document" for the APC40 mk2 that explains their implementation.

So I can imagine, if the clip-matrix would send some type of information for these states it could be possible to translate it to the controller with mulabs midi tools.

[humanboeing]

Thanks for the doc. I hope one day controller manufacturers stop favouring Ableton and make their products DAW agnostic.