Controller Assignments: faders and zones

Hello,

I just got an AKAI MPK249 and I'm having a bit of trouble manually mapping stuff.

My first question:

Is it possible to map my 8 faders to the volume of the current selection of the channel strips I am on? For instance, if I am on channel strip 1, each of the faders controls the volume of each respective channel strip (Fader 1 = Channel Strip 1, Fader 2 = Channel Strip 2 and all the way up to 8). But if I have track 14 selected, then the faders would start with channel strip 14 and control the channel strips 8 down from there.

I used to have an Axiom Pro 61 and at one time, in LP9, there was an automap feature that did this for you. I even seem to remember a little highlighted region on the left hand side of the channel strip header that indicated which 8 channel strips were currently being affected by the respective faders.

2nd question:

Is it possible to make multiple groupings and switch between assigned knob and fader functions? For instance: I Would like to assign my 8 knobs to parameters in my favorite soft synth but also be able to pull up my favorite reverb and have knobs automatically assign to parameters within that plug-in as well. Is there a way that logic can auto detect when certain plug-ins are pulled up? Is there a way to switch banks of assigned parameters? Is this what the zone function is in logic? If so, is there an easy way to switch zones or a way on my keyboard to make this happen?

Thanks in advance!

Is it possible to map my 8 faders to the volume of the current selection of the channel strips I am on? For instance, if I am on channel strip 1, each of the faders controls the volume of each respective channel strip (Fader 1 = Channel Strip 1, Fader 2 = Channel Strip 2 and all the way up to 8). But if I have track 14 selected, then the faders would start with channel strip 14 and control the channel strips 8 down from there.

Control surfaces have a concept of "Fader Bank" which is the bank of 8 faders that is currently active. You can also define parameters for the Currently Selected channel, or directly index off of the various object types (audio, audio instrument etc).

Generally, you want to assign your faders to Fader Bank (1-8) and then have another control that changes the current fader bank.

Is it possible to make multiple groupings and switch between assigned knob and fader functions? For instance: I Would like to assign my 8 knobs to parameters in my favorite soft synth but also be able to pull up my favorite reverb and have knobs automatically assign to parameters within that plug-in as well. Is there a way that logic can auto detect when certain plug-ins are pulled up? Is there a way to switch banks of assigned parameters? Is this what the zone function is in logic? If so, is there an easy way to switch zones or a way on my keyboard to make this happen?

More than one question there!

In short, this is more or less how the MCU is implemented, and is also how I've implemented my own control scheme for my other controller.

Yes, you can define Zones of mappings, and have different Zones active in different modes, and switch between modes etc. A Zone is a physical grouping of controllers, so for instance, your 8 faders. You could have a Mode that makes these control volume, and another Mode that makes these instead control FX sends, or whatever.

Instruments are fairly easy to handle, as there will only eve be one on the currently selected track, so you can learn all the mappings to all your instruments, and only the ones mapped to the currently loaded plugin will work (it took since Logic 7 to get this working reliably!)

For choosing which FX plugin to control, I can't remember offhand how the controller assignments work to select which is which - certainly you can do it on the MCU. I think there is an "Insert Slot" parameter in the class Control Surface Group, which can be incremented/decremented to identify which slot you want to bring up the parameters for. A good way to check the behaviour is to install an MCU and inspect all the mappings Logic puts into the controller assignments window, and how they work.

Hey Des,

Thanks for the reply! Do you have any resources/videos or tutorials that can help with this kind of stuff? A lot of what you are saying is going over my head.