As with on other machines, on the DT2 you have the option of allowing track mutes to send MIDI messages to external devices.
I’m trying to use them to mute/unmute tracks in Ableton Live, but this is proving difficult — the track mutes send a MIDI CC value of 0 when the track is muted and 1 when the track us unmuted. This seems to make it impossible to control the mute buttons in Live no matter what I set incoming CC min/max values to when MIDI mapping. When I mute a track on the DT, the track in Live goes mute but it does not become unmuted when I unmute on the DT.
Does anyone know how I can accomplish this? I’m on Mac so don’t really have the option of using Bome.
I’ve tried converting the MIDI CC messages to specific MIDI notes using a Max for Live device from Abletondrummer, but then from what I understand there’s no way to route those notes to toggle Live’s track mute buttons, since I can’t map MIDI notes from a MIDI track to control parameters in the Live UI.
Kind of surprised at how difficult it is to accomplish this, seems quite simple and obvious to want to use this track mute MIDI data to mute/unmute tracks in my DAW, and there are far more usable MIDI messages that they could’ve had the mutes send, or at least it would make a lot more sense as a feature if you could determine the values yourself.
Elektron CC behavior may be to blame but I don’t know. As far as I’m aware you can only send one similar midi control message at a time, meaning you can’t send the same one twice as consecutive commands. I think there’s a few workarounds but try doing something that causes a different cc message to be sent in between mute and unmute. If that works then you know it’s part of that “expected behavior” and maybe we can find a workaround, and if not, then you can continue troubleshooting.
I don’t know if it works, but you could try using a device from max4live called map8. Assign the Live mute buttons to the map8 knobs, and then try to map these knobs via midi to the digitakt buttons. On Live map8 can be opened in audio or midi tracks.
I tried this as well and the result was a bit peculiar.
The Map8 knob I mapped to the track mute in Live would only go up by .79% when receiving the “1” value from the DT track mute (does this mean the DT track mute isn’t even sending a full “1” value? I determined the 1 and 0 values with MIDI Monitor), so I can never get the Map8 knob to toggle between 99.21% and 100%, since I can’t set the knob minimum to non-whole number percentages.
I assume I could modify the device in Max to scale the knobs but I’m unfamiliar with Max so I’ll have to noodle around and see what I can figure out.
Even weirder, though, is that despite the Map8 knob not going high enough to toggle the respective track mute in Live, the track mute button does change color when receiving the change as though it’s being unmuted, but it doesn’t actually unmute the track and allow the audio/MIDI through.
another little attempt could be this: put map8 inside an audio effect rack, map the map8 knobs to those of the audio rack, and then map via midi the digitakt buttons to the knobs of the audio rack, in this way you would have integer values that go from 0 to 127
Damn it looks like the macro knobs of effect racks adopt the values of the destination parameter, so the macro knob behaves identically to the Map8 knob (0% to 100%) rather than translating to 0-127 integers.
Figured out a kind of solution (not very elegant) using two Abletondrummer devices, one that allows me to translate both the 0 and 1 CC messages to the same MIDI note, and another that maps that note to a button which is in turn mapped to the track mute (the latter device allows me to map without using Live’s native mapping system). I’ll have to always make sure the state of the mute in Live is synced to the state of the mute on the DT.
Honestly it would be far more logical and usable if the DT’s track mutes sent 0 and 127 values, I think I’ll submit that either as a ticket or a feature request.
If any other ideas come to mind feel free to let me know though.
EDIT: I take that back, it turns out that all of the track mutes on the DT2 send the exact same CC values on the same channel (and again, as far as I know are not configurable). They’re all Channel 1, MIDI CC #94, “track on” sends value 0 and “track off” sends value 1.
lol none of that makes any sense or is usable in any scenario I can think of. I’ll reach out and see if they’re able to turn this into a real feature.
This was my point. As a test, hit mute, then send like cc 95 for track level and change the value by 1 then send the mute (cc94) again. If it unmutes the track, then it’s the expected behavior of not being able to send consecutive like numbered CC’s.
Or, I honestly don’t know how to do it, but I saw @sezare56 mention that you can use a square LFO in half mode to modulate the parameter and reset as a workaround.
It’s possible I’m not understanding your problem but that’s what it sounds like (to me) is the aforementioned midi cc control behavior. All mutes are definitely sending cc 94, just on their individual midi channels.
Did you check tracks channels in midi config ? Are they set to 1 ? Another possibility is that buttons are set to send CCs with Auto Channel. Possible to set it to track channel.
You can send the same CC message, but not the same value. So apparently the DT alternate CC94 with values 0 and 1, so it should work.
You can change the mapping mode from ‘Absolute’ to ‘Relative (lin. Signed Bit)’ and this will now work as an on/off - but it’ll be reversed (on in Live, but off on DT)
Yeah all my tracks are set to their own MIDI channels (1-16 respectively) and auto channel is off. The mutes really do all send from channel 1 without the option to change that, which is a strange choice (if it was a choice).
I’m curious if there’s other data coming through via Sysex with these mutes. I think the design for Mute Dest -> Ext is meant for other Elektron devices (like sequencing Digitone from Digitakt, which I hear works well). If it’s possible to sniff out the data that accompanies it, there might be hope if it’s Sysex-based and there’s a suitable M4L device.
It’s true the Digitakt can be many things, but I think DAW Controller was likely not forefront on the development whiteboard…
Ah good point, yeah this does work but like you said, the states are inverted to one another which isn’t ideal (in addition to all the mutes sending from the same MIDI channel which means I can’t control more than one mute in Live).
Interesting, would this also explain why all the track mutes use channel 1? I assume that would be because there’s some Sysex data that sends the mute to the correct corresponding track on the other Elektron device?
Indeed, though it begs the question of why they took the time to make it possible to send track mutes to external destinations at all, which potentially the Sysex thing could explain.
Yeah, that’s my guess, though I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to go from sniffing extra data with the CC message to coding something, possibly @sezare56 would know.
Live’s MIDI Monitor device can monitor Sysex messages but the corresponding button for that isn’t activating when I click it (Live’s documentation doesn’t seem to have any information on this device) and I’m not sure how to route Sysex messages from the DT into Live, or if that’s possible.
Since the DT/DT2’s manuals don’t mention Sysex other than for data management for updates/backups etc, I’d be surprised if it played a role in interfacing with other Elektron devices via the mutes. The manuals also don’t mention configuring the device to receive track mutes externally.
