trying to make 8 midi buttons go a long way

[alexwnbrg]

Hey all. I'm new here and was looking for some advice. I've been using Mainstage as a live setup for my keys as a while now. I'm using a Novation Impulse as a controller, and use the 8 drum pads to select patches. The problem is, I'm wanting to add more and more patches and don't have enough buttons to get me to them quickly. I have all the buttons set to Current Program Number and have numbered all the patches accordingly. I'm wondering if there's a way to get more out having 8 buttons. I can't figure it out, but I feel that there should be a way to have the top 4 buttons choose a set, and then the bottom 4 buttons choose whatever patches I have in the set that's selected. Does this make sense? In that case I could have 16 patches to choose from easily instead of 8. Does anybody know if this or something similar is possible? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[michaelhuisman]

have you considered using the buttons instead of the drum pads? The buttons can be "toggle" switches, with different values for let's call in "on" and "off".

I have Novation ZeRO SL MkII and a 61 SL MkII here, with Automap (latest version) running.

I don't do what you do though... I just recorder the patches within the set, reassign the patch numbers, and then have two buttons sets for next patch and previous patch... works for me and is really simple (which a lot of the time is all I can handle! )

[alexwnbrg]

Thanks for the input. It would take me way too long to cycle through the patches if that's what you're suggesting. I've tried it, but a lot of tunes call for patch changes within a second. Also I don't really want to have to look at my computer. I don't know if that's what you were going for or not.

[michaelhuisman]

I don't look at my computer during the set. I've arranged the patches in the right order ahead of time.

looks like you want is to have the 4 act as "bank", and then the other 4 act as patch...

based on what I see on pg 182 under the section "Table of Actions" I don't see how you could get this to happen.

on the impulse, you potentially have 18 values that you could generate to choose different patches - you'd have to program these in Automap to send a different value based on on or off (button 1 on chooses patch 1, off patch 2, button 2 on choose patch 3, off patch 4... so forth and so on). that would get you more than 8 at least...

sorry I couldn't give you a better hint...

[alexwnbrg]

Thanks for your response. I appreciate the feedback. I'm sort of new to a lot of these terms. What do you mean by having 4 buttons act as bank? I'm not quite sure what bank means. Is that a type of midi message?

[hashimoto]

...i'm not sure if it's possible the way you want it to function, but i have assigned the buttons on my keyboard to "next set", "previous set" (like you have) and then "next patch", "previous patch" to select the certain patch...

[michaelhuisman]

Hashimoto,

Noticed your signature. Can you share your experience using thunderbolt? Latency, driver support, anything that is different???

Regards,

Michael

[hashimoto]

michael,

all i can say concerning thunderbolt is: there is no difference!...ha...really...you don't even need special or new drivers...it's just like...plug and play!
you only have to make sure that your card is working with the adapter (i use the sonnet echo expresscard/34 - thunderbolt)...if the combination is working then everything is just like before...i reckon it's because thunderbolt is just like a "bridge" between the internal pciexpress slot and your device...it's not "faster", ist just "the same"...hope that makes sense...ha...
I'm working with an old rme multiface1 (connected via the expresscard/34) so i can confirm that this combination works and i heard that the rme madiface is also working with the adapter...you can check out several other solutions e.g. here:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/

hope that helps!
b

[michaelhuisman]

hashimoto...

okay, got it... you're just using the thunderbolt adapter to deal with not having an ExpressCard slot? (my 17" MPB has one, which I use for eSATA so that my samples come in off a different path than where the audio runs (FireWire).

So... good to know... through one of these adapters, I could still run my eSATA card for the samples libs hard disk, although... I'd likely switch that out for something USB3 based, and... get a card that exposes FireWire via ExpressCard, and hook the audio interface to that.

Thanks!

[hashimoto]

"you're just using the thunderbolt adapter to deal with not having an ExpressCard slot?"

...yep, right...

"through one of these adapters, I could still run my eSATA card for the samples libs hard disk, although... I'd likely switch that out for something USB3 based, and... get a card that exposes FireWire via ExpressCard, and hook the audio interface to that."

...yes...all possible with thunderbolt...check out this impressive setup...390 (194in/196out) channels with an imac:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_OD6cYQ ... ded#t=165s

(and no...i don't work for rme...ha...)

[simonearly]

This is really simple stuff but I cant make it work.

I want a set of 8 buttons in mainstage2
same as the synth keyboard.
heres what I want...

when i hit a button, it goes to a certain patch number (and lights up).
when I hit another of the buttons, it goes to another defined patch number.

simple.
Can I do it?
no
HELP!

[michaelhuisman]

Yes, you can do this, but ir requires some editing on both the novation as well as MainStage.