Controlling DAW track using rytm mk2: mute buttons work only once

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

I’m using Overbridge to control my rytm mk 2 through USB from Ableton midi tracks on macOS. But I’d like to use the rytm hardware buttons for some performance on top of the midi from Ableton, and I’m not able to set up the mute buttons the way I want.

I’m able to midi map a given mute button’s CC message to the corresponding track activator in Ableton, but it works the first time only – when pressing the mute button once the track mutes or unmutes (depending on the min/max settings inn Ableton’s midi mapping) and then does nothing. Using an app called Midi monitor I see that the mute button alternates between 1 and 0 but this does not work to toggle the daw track Activator.

The only idea I’ve had so far is to map the midi CC message to a midi note message, but I haven’t been able to make this work. I’ve tried both external software (mfxConvert) and max 4 live devices in ableton. Not sure why this doesn’t work, could it be something like the MIDI goes through USB+Overbridge and therefore doesn’t get picked up by these tools? But then I wonder why it works in MIDI monitor…

Any ideas?

#2

This alternative method might help Ableton drum rack controlling AR with mute - how to - #8 by dokev

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#3

I think he wants to do the opposite.

Control, sequence and mute ablations drum rack with the Rytm.

OP, try to map to a utility device instead. Having the pad turn off a device that’s muting.

#4

@jullerull try setting the mapping range to 1-2 instead of 0-1

amazing album name!

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#5

I think you can do both ways round by lightly modifying my method from that post (the important part is probably the min max values for the MIDI map), though I read

using Overbridge to control my rytm mk 2 through USB from Ableton midi tracks

as sequencing Rytm from Ableton, but wanting to mute voices via the mute pads, which is what my method does. Been out of the Ableton game for a while, but I think switching off a Utility device would still let the audio pass through; you’d have to switch the state of the Utility device with the MIDI CC to reduce the gain to silence instead (edit: misread, you’re suggesting turn on the silencing Utility device with a mute, that def works). That said, I think you get cleaner results if you prevent the notes reaching the device with the mute rather than close off the audio after the notes have already reached the device. This is the same behaviour the mute pads have on the Rytm’s (and all Elektron devices’) sequencer.

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#6

It sure did, thanks a lot! All I needed was to set min=max=1 in Ableton’s midi map and it works.

The only confusing thing is (as I think you mention somewhere in the quoted post) the mapping is opposite on/off. I tried experimenting with the min/max values but that doesn’t quite do it; maybe that’s the point of the scale devices?

EDIT: I guess it was! Following your entire setup with the scale devices and so one works perfectly. One quirk was that I had to set the AR midi mute dest to EXT while using midi learn and then back to “INT+EXT” afterwards or it wouldn’t work. Thanks again!

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#7

Excellent, glad you got it working. Yeah I experienced a lot of jank when setting up the MIDI mapping the first time: iirc Ableton simply crashed if I tried to do it when the Overbridge plugin was present. Now that you mention INT + EXT, I wonder if it had something to do with having INT + EXT, Rytm as a MIDI device talking to Ableton, and the Overbridge plugin all at once? Maybe some weird MIDI feedback loop occurred, dunno. But after setup it worked really well for the period I was using Ableton + Rytm that way. Have fun!

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#8

Thanks! Yeah makes sense with some kind if MIDI feedback loop.

In the end I also had to do three more things in order to make it work for all 12 tracks, probably just because I didn’t follow the instructions correctly:

  1. Follow this piece of advice:

  1. Instead of chaining a Pitch midi effect and a Scale midi effect on each chain, I instead used only a Scale effect with the range as described for the Pitch in the original instructions

  2. Use the midi effect rack’s key zone editor to limit each chain to the same ranges (single midi notes from C-2 and upwards)