Hey, still exploring my MC8 Pro config for various DAW control.
Now say I have a bank page where each switch is configured to do pretty much the same thing, namely arm a given track for recording (so 8 tracks all in all): each preset on the page uses 2 positions and when toggled, the color shifts to what was configured.
So far so good. When the toggle (via a press) shifts to position 2, it sens a CC message to arm the track it is targeting in the DAW for recording. When the switch is pressed again, the DAW disarms the track.
Now, if I configure a double tap in one of the preset to disarm all the armed tracks, it works but it also arms those that were not already armed for recording. That’s because I can’t find a way to store which ones where armed and only trigger those to disarm from the double tap. So is there a way to remember which presets were toggled within a page and only select those to untoggle them ? Some sort of dynamic list that keeps track of things and can be recalled when e.g. selecting “set toggle” or “trigger message” as an action ?
Can’t you just untoggle them all? Then you don’t have to “remember” anything. Under the “Set Toggle” message type, there’s an option to “dis-engage toggle.” Any switches checked will turn off.
Yes, you can achieve this. I assume you are already using value 127 to arm a track and 0 to disarm it, is that correct?
What I hear is that you want to double tap on a switch to disarm all other tracks EXCEPT its own track. Here are the steps to make this happen as efficiently as possible.
With an unused switch preset, create a Disarm All preset. This sends value 0 for all CC numbers that are controlling your track arms. Setting below (I only set up 3 tracks).
Hey guys, thanks for the feedback, really appreciate!
@jason.nguyen Not really, this would only change the display on the MC8 pro. What I want is: all toggled presets that shifted to position 2 (red on the display, tracks armed in the DAW) reset to position 1 and the armed tracks disarmed in the DAW, which means that CC messages for these tracks should also be sent. If I just untoggle everything, the armed tracks are still armed and the MC8 pro display is at odds with the DAW state.
@benjamin This is almost what I would like except that the double tap should disarm ALL armed tracks / untoggle all presets, i.e. no need to rearm the track managed by the preset. I also need to make sure that sending a CC of value 0 does what I think it does (disabling the armed state of a tract, as opposed to just toggling from one state to the other * ). I’ll see if I can get some inspiration from what you described.
*) What I mean by that is that if I use the mouse and click on the track’s arming button while the MC8 switch has not been pressed, the preset state and track state will be opposite. If I press on the switch, a CC value of 127 will be sent but I am unsure whether it will keep the track armed or actually just toggle from armed to disarmed (for reference I am using Bitwig Studio and have configured the MC8 pro to talk to Bitwig via a drivenbymoss script called “General Flexi” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfaEY-AMaNk which is quite convenient for adding Bitwig support to many MIDI controllers). Ideally, I should get feedback from the DAW and get that converted to a MIDI message making sure to have the preset state synchronized. I know that this is happening with other drivenbymoss script like for the Akai APC40. If after fiddling around with the MC8 config, the behaviour is not as I want it to be, I will redirect the discussion to his forum.
You mentioned want to disarm all armed tracks. It seems to me that disarming all armed tracks is the same as disarming all tracks. The final result is the same. All tracks are disarmed, no? If that is the case, simply remove the message 5 from the CC1, CC2 and CC3 screenshots I posted above. That way you can disarm all tracks with a double tap.
An interesting finding I made while experimenting for a solution for you scenario. If you use Note On messages instead of CC messages, and map them to your track arm buttons. You will always trigger the opposite arm state of the track. So when you use your mouse to arm/disarm a track, you can still use the MC8 PRO switch to toggle to the opposite state.
However, this would mean you can no longer use a CC message with value 0 to disarm all tracks. There are some solutions for how to disarm all tracks on Ableton without using CC messages with value 0, which you will be able to find on Ableton/music forums.
My initial try was to trigger messages from all track presets that send CC value 0 to their respective track and disengage toggle the preset state. That’s when I realized that sending CC value 0 did not do what I was expecting. It looks like the Bitwig extension script that I use (from drivenbymoss) is simply triggering the arm toggle in Bitwig and if the state was disarmed, the toggling will arm it, regardless of the CC value. That’s kind of sucky. So I will redirect the discussion to his github space.
By the way, the extension script can also send MIDI CC messages back to the controller. So if I press the track’s arm toggle, I can configure the script to send the same CC message to the MC8 pro. Then I saw that there is a strict CC message mapping for the MC8 pro. I used the MIDI message converter to experiment and I saw the switch preset turn on and off correctly from my mouse action in Bitwig. That’s cool but since there are only 16 MIDI message conversions allowed by the morningstar editor, I would quickly run out of possible messages I can make Bitwig send to the controller. For this I will talk to mossgraber and hopefully he will add the possibility to send any CC message back instead of the one the MC8 pro preset is sending to Bitwig.
Ah yeah, that’s right, it’s because I mentioned it in another topic. No prob, I will continue exploring how I can control Bitwig for live playing. So far I got a nice basic setup which allows me to finally play bass / guitar or keyboard while engaging my Bitwig loops from the MC8 pro. Really neat. But I can squeeze out more from this beast, planning to add a couple of expression pedals, trigger my Boss GX-100 presets in sync with my loops, sequences from my minifreak synths, etc. Great times ahead
Unfortunately, Mossgraber refused to accept my request It’s a bit odd as it did not sound like such a complicated thing to do, i.e make the Bitwig extension script send a CC message of your choice triggered by a Bitwig event …
This makes me think: if I make the controlled device or DAW send one of the CC messages that e.g. toggles or clears the toggle of a particular preset, say preset A, will that affect every preset A in every bank or just the one that the controller is displaying when this happens ?
Also, according to the MIDI message chart in the doc, the preset toggle / clear toggle MIDI messages only go to preset L, what about the presets M to X ? It seems like the doc refers to the MC6 (pro?) with 2 pages of 6 presets ?
It’s a bit odd as it did not sound like such a complicated thing to do, i.e make the Bitwig extension script send a CC message of your choice triggered by a Bitwig event …