If we’re talking about something like the LCXL or any midi controller sending absolute or relative CC values, it relies on the receiving device’s ability to work with the data?
So for example, sending absolute values, the midi controller knob assigned to CC77 is resting at a value of 50 (of 0-127) and the receiving device’s last state for CC77 was 0. You turn the midi controller knob up to a value of 100, and the receiving device jumps from 0 to 50 then increases through the range of motion to a value of 100?
But if relative values are being received correctly, then with the same starting values in the previous example, then the receiving device would go from 0 to 50 (with no initial jump)?
midi data sent between two devices is always absolute for standard midi, you have to feedback midi into the controller to insure that both the controller and the device are always in sync regardless if you change a preset or tweak a parameter on the device or the controller. and of course it works only smoothly with hardware that has endless encoders or motorized faders.
I’m keen to pick one of these up I think. Might be a bit large of a footprint for my workspace but I’m thinking one of the custom MIDI maps would be a good setup to control Battalion on my iPad.
When people mention inc / dec MIDI, it usually means that encoders send value 63 when turned left and value 65 when turned right. It sends one message (one “pulse”) for each encoder indent (if we take acceleration out of the equation). It’s then up to the software of the target device to do the addition and subtraction of these pulses on the actual device controllers. This is called relative mode. Novation SL can do this, I expect XL to be able to do it sooner then later if not already.
Sounds agreeable. Might need to upgrade from my MKII in that case. Full size DIN MIDI FTW
There was a great point made by this one DNII video where they had mapped the modwheels to the faders of this box. The same should work with Syntakt, and Rytm obviously
Only pickle right now is the lack of table space at my home rig… Need to shuffle some pieces around, or get a second tier somehow
Sineway posted a really cool performance video with Launch Control XL mk3 and Digitone 2. Good idea to use the sliders with the macros. Seems like a powerful combo.
My intel says I can expect the LCXL to land in my mailbox in 1-2 weeks.
I might be more intuitive to use the faders for track volume and the knobs for track macros (CC#1/ CC#2), that gives you more control, . A pity the LCXL can’t to aftertouch, that would give you a third macro per track. But you can cheat and mapthe third knob to LFO3 depth.
Got this setup as a loopy pro mixer controller, works very well with multiple pages of sends and effects all with midi feedback across the encoders while the faders and mutes stay fixed. Only issue so far is a pronounced delay / ramped curve to the faders. Don’t expect to quickly slam the fader up and see the values change instantly, it lags quite a bit. Tried the same setup with my faderfox to compare and it is razor sharp instant.
This is a shame but it explains why I could never get either of the Relative modes of the Faderfox UC4 to work with the Digitone 2. It feels like they really need that ability to respond to relative changes, especially when so many performance features on the devices themselves can cause parameters to jump around (eg ctrl+all, pattern switches).
Novation replied about relative mode:
Launch Control XL 3s encoder positions can be updated through messages received on its USB MIDI port, so if you move the parameter on your synthesiser and this passes a message to the Launch Control XL 3 matching one of its encoders this will be updated. When you next turn this encoder it will move from the updated position rather than the value last sent from the controller.
Absolute is used to describe a control that moves sequentially through its control range, rather than relative where messages are sent to indicate an increment or decrement rather than a specific value. The encoders do offer a relative mode when working in DAW mode.
So it seems like it should probably work mapped to OB? i.e., it would also reset on pattern reload and reflect HW values on the screen.
Understand, that they’re is no way for the receiver device to know if it is receiving absolute or relative messages. It’s the same message, it’s just the absolute come in with values between 0 and 127 while relative only send values 63 and 65. Therefore there MUST be a setting in the receiver device / software to switch the CC mappings into relative mode. If it is not there, the controllers would just jump between the 63 and 65 values.
This doesn’t require the feedback loop to stay in sync like the absolute mode, because there is nothing to keep in sync, the encoder device doesn’t have a clue what the values on the controlled device are.
Yes I see it now. But in this case if you change/track the parameters via OB it does not matter as they are always in sync (with software acting as a mediator).
Novation confirmed this works by setting the LC’s usb output remote ON from the Live’s midi settings, and it reads the values from the OB plugin as they change. IMO this is really cool, you can see the hardware values on the screen as well (or quite - OB reports them from 0.0 to 1.0) and get to use reload pattern for drops if you wish. It also allows you to start and stop Ableton playback, which you can’t do from the OB’d Elektron devices that are slaved to Ableton, so you can use drum rack etc. to jam with easier.
It seems to be able to store 15 custom controller templates. They can be accessed directly or via shift where you can just press the template and turn some encoders and let go so you get back to your original template. Plus DAW control for unlimited(or at least 8 tracks per page) amount of track volume faders and 3 sends per track.
Very powerful! Bought one. Time to dub the heck out of DN.
Lil word of warning for anyone interested in purchasing this and hasn’t upgraded to Live 12 yet - there isn’t a control script (yet?) for Live 11, so DAW control doesn’t work and you’d have to manually map controls. From the manual it looks like you can only map the faders and encoders.
Probably because the python version that they’re using in 12 changed a lot of stuff that the control scripts depend on, I would imagine that all the legacy hardware scripts have to be recompiled to work in 12, I mean it’s a bummer for people still using older versions of live but I get it from a performance perspective, maybe if live 11 users make enough noise something will get done about it…
Yeah, track volume is probably the most natural use for the sliders. I got the LCXL to have better control over the volumes on my Octatrack performances, but I can totally see why it could be interesting for control for example textural intensities or other details with the sliders. With the knobs it’s harder to keep a visual track on where each macro is set, while with the sliders you have constant view of where each macro is at any moment. Think of Octatrack with multiple crossfaders.
I honestly don’t understand the idea of mapping volume to faders. It’s super destructive. I had selected lots of tracks to arm them and then accidentally bumped a fader and didn’t discover until much later on that all tracks had been reset to 0.1 dB after careful mixing.
Had to undo about 50 steps to note down the correct values before redoing 50 steps and reapplying the mix levels again. I’d much rather have these faders custom mapped to whatever I choose, e.g. maybe the lead synth’s filter cutoff or whatever.
Is there a way to override this default DAW mode behavior?
