Mapping u-he Diva controls "properly" into Logic Pro automations?

[rsilverst]

Hi there -- I tried to ask this as a more general workflow question in a different sub-forum, and got no responses, so I am going to try here with the very Diva-specific question that I actually need to answer.

If I use MIDI Learn in Diva, the parameter names do not show up correctly in Logic Pro. Any automations that are written to the track have whatever the generic mappings were between my keyboard (M-Audio Axiom 49) and Logic's MIDI Control settings. This isn't great, since it's not obvious which parameter is automated without looking up CC #s.

The alternative that Logic provides is their "Smart Controls" where I could map the Keyboard to Logic + then map the Synth parameters to a panel of up to 12 smart controls. That works, but it limits me to 12 (which I suppose is plenty?).

I don't want want to hard code Logic to Diva (which I imagine might be possible via CCs) because I would like to be able to use *any* synth and have its respective parameter names appear.

So the question is "Am I missing something in Diva? Is it possible to go directly from MIDI Learn and have the correct names appear in Logic without Smart Controls?" It looks like in Cubase this is straightforward (I see a video showing it), but I am not sure about Logic.

Thanks!

[rsilverst]

I answered my own question. The process is actually easier than I thought, and it relies on the fact that Logic's MIDI Controller Assignments don't need to be a 1:1 mapping. You can have every "Control" mapped to many things (and as long as you only have one track enabled in "Write/Latch/Touch" mode at a time, you won't get into any conflicts (although perhaps this could be useful if you wanted to sweep filter cutoffs on 2 different synths at the same time!).

Procedure:

1. In a synth track, e.g Diva, click A to enable the Automation details. Open Diva so you can see the UI.

2. There will be a dropdown next to the Latch/Touch/Read/Write control that probably defaults to Volume.

3. Wiggle any control in Diva, e.g. Filter Cutoff ("Frequency"). The dropdown will change to that parameter.

4. Click CMD-L, which will open the MIDI Control Assignments table.

5. You will see an entry in the table that has the name of the parameter and says "No message received"

6. Move the control on your MIDI external controller you'd like to assign (knob, fader, etcetera).

7. You will see "No message received" change into the Control ID of that parameter (e.g. F1, E1, etcetera)

8. Now, if you move the hardware control, it will control the automation and value of that synth parameter.

The part that threw me off was that I thought if, for example, E1 (a knob on my keyboard) were assigned to Diva's Cutoff Frequency, that it could *only* be assigned to that one thing -- so if I were to use a different synth plugin, I would have to overwrite the parameter. But this is NOT the case. You can have a control assigned to a parameter on every one of your synths. It's pretty awesome.

Happy to share screenshots if anyone else ever stumbles upon this and wants to know more detail.