Possible to make a function button to affect a second button?

Question

MIDI Target Manufacturer(s): Novation

I want to emulate a Novation LaunchControl XL’s Mure/Solo/Record button.

I press the Mute button which does nothing by itself  Holding Mute down i then press one of the eight Channel buttons and then that channel gets muted. Same with Solo and Record. Same with selecting either User or Factory presets too.

So instead of needing eight Mute buttons, eight Solo buttons and eight more buttons for Record there would only be eight generic ‘Channel’ buttons and one each Mute, Solo, Record.

Possible?

Answer 1

There are two general functionalities that let you do this in MDP2, Channel Changers and Pedal Boards. You can google both of those (include “midi designer” in your search terms) and also check the manual at midiDesigner.com/manual. The first thing you should try to achieve is a channel changer knob that controls which channel your buttons are on. Then you can add buttons to move that knob around, probably with another knob as a supercontrol to turn those channel (function, in your case) changing buttons into a button group.

This stuff is pretty interesting to get your head around and see if it even applies to your case. How I work, and recommend you work, is to set up some sloppy buttons (just one or two channels) and get the concepts working. Then you can build from there to your final goal (8 buttons, several functions, stuff looking nice, well-labeled, etc.). I don’t recommend getting everything looking nice and then trying to get the “engineering” to work. There’s also a chance that I’ve misunderstood the question, or that your MIDI target (Ableton? Logic?) doesn’t respond as you expect. So... experiment a bunch before building anything serious.

Good luck!

Comments

manual is at http://midiDesigner.com/manual... is that cliccable?

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Oh yeah, forgot to say: I’m guessing Channel Changers and not Pedalboards are the real money here.

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Thanks for the quick reply and I must say that I truly think MDP2 is so amazing!

For my Function situation I tried using a Channel Changer but that is not quite what I'm after. It literally changes the MIDI Channel to something else but I want everything to stay on one MIDI Channel.

Here is a deeper explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish.

I have a Novation LaunchControl XL that I want to reprogram using MDP2. The initialized/standard hardware lets you control 16 MIDI channels (8 user templates and 8 factory templates). You can adjust the User templates through computer software but the Factory templates are static. i want everything to be able to be reprogrammed through MDP2 which is not a problem for single function controls such as basic knobs, sliders and buttons, and I want to do it solely though ios and not have to resort to plugging into a computer.

The problem is the two-button combinations such as Mute and Track button. Track is definitely a more appropriate word than Channel. I tried working though the Channel Changer option but that changes the MIDI channels of the buttons. I simply want to send selective MIDI CC based on which function is selected.

For example-
No Function button is pressed so eight Track buttons send MIDI CC 1-8
Mute button plus one of the eight Track buttons sends MIDI CC 9-16
Solo button plus one of the eight Track buttons sends MIDI 17-24
Record button plus one of the eight Track buttons sends MIDI 25-32
The actual numbers are not so important but they need to be distinct.

It all needs to happen on the same MIDI Channel. So some kind of offset is what I'm after. I see in the manual there is an Extra CC and Hold section. Sorry, I don't quite get it (the video link is broken) but maybe this is the route I'm after?

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Transpose would do that, but the problem is that it won't remember the last state (as Channel Changers do)... so that's an issue. The other way to do it is with Pedalboards, but would require a new page per you, um, non-channel. Another way to go would be with Stream Byter Plugin for MD.

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What SB could do for you is take everything not on channel 1 and transpose it up, so you could make channel changers do something else, essentially.

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I believe Pedalboards are the key! ...I think. Will explore this weekend.

Thanks again for the help.

Answer 2

There are two general functionalities that let you do this in MDP2, Channel Changers and Pedal Boards. You can google both of those (include “midi designer” in your search terms) and also check the manual at midiDesigner.com/manual. The first thing you should try to achieve is a channel changer knob that controls which channel your buttons are on. Then you can add buttons to move that knob around, probably with another knob as a supercontrol to turn those channel (function, in your case) changing buttons into a button group.

This stuff is pretty interesting to get your head around and see if it even applies to your case. How I work, and recommend you work, is to set up some sloppy buttons (just one or two channels) and get the concepts working. Then you can build from there to your final goal (8 buttons, several functions, stuff looking nice, well-labeled, etc.). I don’t recommend getting everything looking nice and then trying to get the “engineering” to work. There’s also a chance that I’ve misunderstood the question, or that your MIDI target (Ableton? Logic?) doesn’t respond as you expect. So... experiment a bunch before building anything serious.

Good luck!