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Is this the right way to set up Zone/Modes in Controller Assignments?


simoncroft
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So I'm making some good progress actually. Some things are not quite as ideal as I'd like yet, but we'll see.

 

I currently have a row of 4 drum pads on my LX61+ assigned to 4 different modes. I was hoping that I could have only the active one light up, but that's proven not possible or not possible for me. I've emailed Nektar to see if they think it's possible and can help me set that up. Currently the LED lights under/around the pads light up a little randomly and it seems to affect the whole section, not just one pad at a time. So I can't just tell by which one is lit which mode I'm in. But I can always just hit the button of which mode I want to be in to make sure I'm in that mode I guess.

 

I also accidentally found a way to open and move up and down insert slots outside of the faux MCU. In the controller setup, I had my Nektar selected and was playing with the Insert Slot number setting by dragging it up and down, just seeing what it might do. When I was doing this, the plugin GUIs popped up and cycled through as I was dragging the value in the Insert Slot field of the Setup window. I thought that was interesting, but then also thought nothing more of it. Because as far as I could tell, that was just setting which Insert slot is the default slot or something.

 

Anyway, I went back to the assignments window and wanted to find out what MIDI code/value a particular button on my 61+ was sending. So I hit learn mode and then hit the said button, just to see in the Value field what the value of the button was - and - SURPRISE! Apparently Logic saw that the last touched parameter was the Insert Slot setting I was screwing with a moment ago. So it was learnable! I then just refined the settings I wanted on it and then made a duplicate, assigned that to a different button and set the multiply setting to -1 so it would go in the opposite direction. I now had up and down insert navigation. I have the mode setting in the Value section on Rotate by the way. So it'll cycle through if you keep hitting the down one or the up one. And this is in Nektar's Control Group which is lucky and important because it brings me to my biggest problem right now...

 

So I've been making some initial progress with stealing the correct MCU parameters too and using them for the purposes I want. However, I've paused it as I realised that on each restart of logic, those parameters 'lose' their inpiut setting. As in, in the controller assignment window, when I go and click on the assignment to figure out why it's not triggering now after opening Logic fresh, it's because the Input drop-down menu in the MIDI Input section is blank. It's reset for some reason. I've googled around a bit and seen some others mention this, but haven't found any fixes for it.

 

Des you've never mentioned this as far as I've seen. Did this happen to you and if so, did you find a way around it? This input resetting to blank on each Logic restart?

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A controller has a state (or more accurately, pressing buttons etc selects various modes in Logic which is it's "state". For instance, if you put the MCU into plugin edit mode, then the plugin parameters come up on the knobs, and turning the knobs affects those plugin parameters, instead of, say controlling the channel pans etc.

 

However, if Logic is not in that state, then different modes and assignments will be active. So if you want to put Logic into a known state - ie, your own Modes so that your own assignments are triggered, *you must put Logic in that mode*, you can't assume Logic is already in the Mode you want, ie, you need to have a button on your controller/etc to select that Mode.

 

Now, whatever mode Logic is in (as different things can change modes, and you can't gurantee Logic is going to be in the Mode you want), you simply press your button to put Logic into your desired mode, and your assignments will function as expected.

 

As far as the MIDI Input label not sticking, I guess it depends on what's happening with the MIDI configuration on your system, if you MIDI controller/driver is coming or going, or changing it's internal ID, it's possible that previously learnt assignments are being lost, or you might have corruption somewhere or hitting some random controller assignments bug (welcome!). Difficult for me to troubleshoot this as it's not my system and don't have your controllers. Can you find a reproducible case and document it?

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As far as the MIDI Input label not sticking, I guess it depends on what's happening with the MIDI configuration on your system, if you MIDI controller/driver is coming or going, or changing it's internal ID, it's possible that previously learnt assignments are being lost, or you might have corruption somewhere or hitting some random controller assignments bug (welcome!)

 

This. If the assigned input port is disconnected for some reason when Logic starts up, it will assign an available port (or none at all, possibly) and unfortunately this automated assignment sticks even if the originally used port becomes available later. Not sure if this is a consistent behaviour, but it happened to me...

 

Was pulling my hair out one evening working through tens of assignments one by one as it seems you can’t do it for several in one go (?). Then found out that it was because I had connected my BCR2000 after rather than before Logic startup.

 

Afaik, Logic saves the controller assignments upon quitting, so if you get this problem it might be worth doing a force quit (cmd-alt-esc) to avoid unwanted reassignment.

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So it was me being a little dumb, but I'm giving myself a break because I'm so new to this MIDI controller deep diving. In the setup window, I hadn't assigned an in and out there for the MCU because I knew I only wanted to steal its functions anyway, so I guess I skipped that part. The custom assignments seem to be holding in the assignments window now that I've assigned them an input/output there in the setup window.
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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...

Hi everyone, thanks for this incredible thread. It made me finally understand this Zone / Modes model.

 

But: Am I the only person that has problems with the Mode Names?

Whenever I create a new mode it is called "New Mode". I can rename it, of course by double clicking it, for example as "Volume". The name sticks but only as long as the mode is not selected. When I reselect the Mode the name turns back to "New Mode".

 

This wouldn't be such a big problem, but I believe that this is the reason, I cannot make a button assignment for the different modes work. They are all called "New Mode" and when I assign different buttons to the different "New Modes" in the Mode Change menu, they all seem to point to the last "new mode" created.

 

It is a mystery why this happens!

 

Can anyone help?

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I can't say I've ever had a problem renaming Modes.

 

However, Logic can get funky/buggy sometimes and I've had weird corruption issues where removing modes causes assignments and mode switching to break or behave unpredictably where they shouldn't, so sometimes I've ended up having to leave non-functional modes in place if something like this is going on - so perhaps the behaviour you see is related to that somehow?

 

As a test, you can try backing up and removing your controller surface prefs, and just starting from a new empty assignment window, and trying to see whether things behave as expected there. (You can easily restore your previous CS prefs after the test.)

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Thanks for the quick response! Will try as you say and report back.

 

BTW, I was able to copy over a properly named Mode from an existing zone and the name stuck. So I deleted all the assignments in that copied mode and was actually able to program the switch button afterward. But as you said: another bug cause the whole assignment to just disappear and I got frustrated.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Solution

Thanx to every contributors in this thread! Really enlightening!

Des, as usual, you are very thorough in your explanation, which makes this thread a real reference.

 

Shout-out at Simon Croft for your very useful cook book!

Any chance to see v2 coming sometimes soon? :D

 

Personally, I spent so much time and effort to understand and make it work a little, but to end up with inconsistent results…

 

I hope that one day Apple will devote the necessary resource to improve this part of Logic to render it more reliable and user-friendly.

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  • 2 months later...

Des99 directed me here, so I'll continue this thread. I don't imagine anyone can troubleshoot this much, as it may be device dependent. This is to chronicle my experience as much as anything.

 

First, I should say that I recently got an Icon Qcon G2 control surface. It's pretty amazing, beautiful build quality, and seems to work perfectly. However, I don't think I'm going to keep it because of the size. It did give me a chance to see how midi control assignments could work: click encoder to open Insert 1 plugin and all of that plugin's parameters are available and mapped, no matter what the plugin is - Waves, Softube, Arturia. Then click the next encoder for plugin on Insert 2, and so on.

 

I know I can't get anywhere near that integration with a simple midi cc device. I just got a Midi Fighter twister with 16 knobs, and the ability to switch banks, so 64 knobs total.

 

Goal: To map the Twister to various channel strip plugins. Should be easy enough: Create a Zone, then a Mode, then click each plugin knob and map to a Twister knob. What I experienced, however, is entirely unpredictable and inconsistent. Something would work as expected, but the exact same thing wouldn't work the next time. Here is my experience creating two Zones for Banks 1 and 2 on the Twister. I had to create two modes for each plugin because there are only 16 knobs on the Twister.

 

Zone: Twister Bank 1

Modes: API Comp and Drive, SSL EV2 Comp and Drive, Logic Comp

 

Zone: Twister Bank 2

Modes: API EQ, SSL EV2 EQ

 

Nice! Now all I have to do is choose a zone and a mode, and create the assignments. That worked sometimes, the rest was chaos.

 

Logic switches zones and modes at random when I am assigning. I’ll assign something in a zone/mode, but it will move it to a different zone/mode when I make the assignment. For instance, make an assignment in Zone: Twister Bank 1, Mode: Logic Comp. When I click to accept the assignment, it will appear in a completely different zone/mode, like API Comp and Drive. It took me a while to figure out, until I would try again and it would tell me the assignment already exists, with Replace or Keep Both. So every time I would create an assignment I would have to search for it. This didn't happen initially, but it got worse and worse.

 

It seems completely random when something will work, and when the exact same thing won’t work. For instance, sometimes I can make multiple assignments with Learn Mode engaged. Other times that doesn’t work work at all, and I have to create assignment, accept, then create next assignment, accept, and so on. I could not discern any pattern or conditions for which each method would work.

 

Sometimes, when it gets really bad (when I finally gave up), every assignment I make overwrites the previous assignment, even when I disable Learn Mode between each assignment.

 

If I click a rotary encoder switch, it switches the midi device to the Launchkey 61

 

It would interpret some of the knob values as "jog wheel" in the value fields at the bottom, and the plugin knobs would go haywire when I turned the Twister knobs. The twister knobs are all configured exactly the same. I realized that I could go in and change the values of the assignments that said "Jog Wheel" instead of "Learned" in the assignment table, and they would work fine.

 

As I mentioned, maybe the Midi Fighter is sending something that isn't apparent. I have a Faderfox pot controller on order. That has 24 knobs, which should handle most channel strip plugin knobs. So I'll start over with that and see if it makes any difference.

 

Question if anyone knows: I can't imagine that when companies like Icon, Behringer, or Arturia create controllers, they would use the Logic assignment controller, right? Lower level I presume.

 

I'll come back after giving it a shot with other controllers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Des99 directed me here, so I'll continue this thread. 

 

Note: If you have a specific thing you are working through, please start a new thread dedicated to that issue. I pointed you here as a guide to understand how this stuff works, but if you want help with a specific configuration, it's best to start a new self-contained thread just for that.

 

Logic switches zones and modes at random when I am assigning. I’ll assign something in a zone/mode, but it will move it to a different zone/mode when I make the assignment. For instance, make an assignment in Zone: Twister Bank 1, Mode: Logic Comp. When I click to accept the assignment, it will appear in a completely different zone/mode, like API Comp and Drive.

 

Not really at random, but it would seem like that if you don't know what's going on. Just move assignments to where *you* know you want them, not where Logic decides to put them. You need to be dilligent and consistent in developing your controller assignment system.

 

Sometimes, when it gets really bad (when I finally gave up), every assignment I make overwrites the previous assignment, even when I disable Learn Mode between each assignment.

 

It sounds like you're making a lot of assignments and have them going everywhere without understanding what's really going on, and creating a bit of a mess in the process.

 

I would advise to slow down, take your time and be careful, make sure every assignment you make is correct and in the right place, and be more systematic working through each assignment, at least at first while you're figuring out how to do stuff...

 

Question if anyone knows: I can't imagine that when companies like Icon, Behringer, or Arturia create controllers, they would use the Logic assignment controller, right? Lower level I presume.

 

It's a crapshoot, really. Some controllers just sending customisable MIDI and it's up to your what you do with it. Some controllers specifically implement standard protocols, like HUI and MCU, which are very different from a dumb MIDI controller's handling. Some do combinations of both. It's really company and controller dependent, based on what they want that product to be.

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Thanks for the reply. I was being as careful, slow, and methodical as I could be, doing each step as I did the one before, which worked. The more it failed, the more I would slow down and look for inconsistencies in my approach. It actually seems quite simple to me, unless I utterly don't understand hierarchy or taxonomy, or the logic interface uses them differently.

 

Zone > Mode > Assignments (click plugin knob, rotate controller pot)

 

Right? Did the zones and modes I included in my post make sense, were they the way to set it up? Maybe I wasn't clear in my post, but shouldn't the way I went about it is the way it work? I would literally watch an assignment disappear from the window that I used to create the exact same type of assignment just before it. Why would it work for threshold, ratio, and mix, but the fourth assignment, attack would disappear from the Assignments window and end up somewhere else.

 

What about sometimes being able to make multiple assignment in Learn mode, and other times it would stop learning after the first assignment.

 

If none of these things happen for you, and all the others in my post, then maybe the controller is the issue. I'm pretty methodical, have a PhD and all (not in engineering), and I can assure you that I wasn't just flailing around.

 

Thanks for the reply though

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I don't have enough information to give you anything meaningful about your experience. I was not suggesting you were doing anything wrong, I just said from your description that's what it sounds like is happening, to me. Without watching what you are doing, or knowing anything about the environment you're operating in (what other control surfaces and controller assignments you may have set up, what start Logic is in etc), I can't make any judgements other than from what I'm reading - no offence is intended.

 

In the meantime, while learning how the controller assignments work (as I've said many times, it *is* quirky at time, which is one of the reasons why being methodical is important), I suggest working in a new project, with an empty initialised set of controller assignments so other control surfaces aren't changing the state of Logic while you are assigning stuff, and following some of the other suggestions I made above.

 

Again, this is diverging from the subject of this particular thread, so if you want to follow up on your issues, please start a new thread and we can continue there...

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Thanx to every contributors in this thread! Really enlightening!

Des, as usual, you are very thorough in your explanation, which makes this thread a real reference.

 

Shout-out at Simon Croft for your very useful cook book!

Any chance to see v2 coming sometimes soon? :D

 

Personally, I spent so much time and effort to understand and make it work a little, but to end up with inconsistent results…

 

I hope that one day Apple will devote the necessary resource to improve this part of Logic to render it more reliable and user-friendly.

 

Thanks. The deeper I've got into Controller Assignments, the more I realised I didn't know, so had I had no right to share my limited experience with others when I barely knew what I was doing. I must credit Des with pointing me in the right direction many times.

 

There will be a V2 document in the next few months, but the scope of it will be much greater than I originally intended. I'm currently creating CAs for an Akai APC40. Although the unit was designed for Ableton, I've used the central 40 buttons to access 40 different plug-ins, and each will soon have their own CAs for the rotaries and buttons on the right. Also, I've used Mode changes to switch the first 8 faders between 1-8, 9-16, 17-24 channels etc.

 

There will also be YT videos. Although I don't know anything like as much about this as I would like to, I've transferred so many functions from on-screen to a dedicated controller, I feel I'm about ready to share.

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Hey Simon, I clicked to grab your PDF but the site is offline. Is there another location? (I clicked the link from TDPR via search).

 

Sorry, mate. We lost our just-play domain name when the company we trusted for 20 years to renew decided it wasn't in that business anymore, but forgot to mention it. Thank you so much GIACOM! One day, my wife and I discovered we couldn't get our email, and GIACOM couldn't even be bothered to unlock the domain, so no-one else could renew it.

 

You should be able to download the PFD here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fr6y5ob82vqkns5/ControllerAssignmentsBookV1.pdf?dl=0

 

Although I hope it helps you to get started, it's not 100% accurate, as des99 very kindly documented for me. Also, there is a lot more CAs will do. Presenting the greater scope of it in a way most LPX users can understand is quite a daunting task!

 

When you get it to work, it's really exciting, and makes for a better working environment. So I'm determined that V2 of my PDF will help most users do most of the things they want to get out of a MIDI controller and Logic.

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Sounds great, Simon! Look forward to it...

 

Thank you. If it wasn't for your continued support, I'd have probably have given up long ago. As it is, It's become something of an obsession to see just how far I can push CAs, and to share what I've discovered with other LPX users. I'm hoping to take this to a new level.

 

Just to whet your appetite, there's a cross-platform multimedia presentation program that was developed for Houses of Worship. https://renewedvision.com/propresenter/ ProPresenter has a free version, and it allows you to create what are essentially PowerPoint-style slide-shows containing any media you want: still images; words to a hymn; video etc. Best of all though, you can get it to respond to MIDI messages!

 

What I'm hoping to do is run ProPresenter on my little MacMini, and set it up so that every time I select a new plug-in on the APC40, which is connected to my Mac Pro, it shows what the rotaries are assigned to. While I believe I can get this to work, this is only a concept at this stage.

 

FWIW, I've also created a set of CAs for live use, where I can access multiple songs in any order, at the push of a button. The same controller gives me a Front of House and Monitor mix. The really cool thing is I have inputs for guitar, MIDI guitar and vocal (X2). Thanks to Logic’s automation, I can add effects to the live performance in exact sync with the pre-made backing track. Not bad using software I already own and a Korg nanoKontrol worth all of £90!

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Logic switches zones and modes at random when I am assigning. I’ll assign something in a zone/mode, but it will move it to a different zone/mode when I make the assignment. For instance, make an assignment in Zone: Twister Bank 1, Mode: Logic Comp. When I click to accept the assignment, it will appear in a completely different zone/mode, like API Comp and Drive. It took me a while to figure out, until I would try again and it would tell me the assignment already exists, with Replace or Keep Both. So every time I would create an assignment I would have to search for it. This didn't happen initially, but it got worse and worse.

 

It seems completely random when something will work, and when the exact same thing won’t work. For instance, sometimes I can make multiple assignments with Learn Mode engaged. Other times that doesn’t work work at all, and I have to create assignment, accept, then create next assignment, accept, and so on. I could not discern any pattern or conditions for which each method would work.

 

Sometimes, when it gets really bad (when I finally gave up), every assignment I make overwrites the previous assignment, even when I disable Learn Mode between each assignment.

 

I used to get these problems all the time. Now I get them very rarely. These are some of the lessons I've learned the hard way.

 

1. Deleting all the Controller Assignments from the CA dialogue window is not at all the same thing as removing the 'com.apple.logic.pro.cs' from Preferences. They look the same, but what you can see via the GUI is not the whole story. I noticed this years ago with Quark Xpress. You could delete all the Styles etc that made up a design but when you saved your 'blank' file, it was usually at least four times bigger than if you started with a new file! o a similar comparison with a few 'com.apple.logic.pro.cs' files, and you'll soon start to appreciate why errors start to creep in, along with the 'file bloat'.

 

2. If CAs end up in the wrong Mode, move them immediately to their correct location. After about the 3rd time you do that Logic usually starts putting them in the right place.

 

3. Start with a plan of what your CAs are going to do and which physical controls are going to achieve this. Draw this up in a spreadsheet and update it as you go, so you don't get confused as to what your plan was, and how much of it you've implemented so far. Otherwise, the more things that go wrong, the more confused you will get, until you may end up throwing the whole damned com.apple.logic.pro.cs away!

 

4. Only work on your CAs when you have a clear head and are fully alert. What seems unsurmountable at three in the morning is often easily fixed just after breakfast.

 

5. Worn rotary encoders, or fumbling fingers, can give you some random assignments, often involving controls you've already assigned correctly. Go through all the ones that work until you'e identified the rogue one and... you guessed, delete it before it cases and further mischief.

 

I was pretty clueless when I started this CA business, but it's turned into a real game changer. Scroll down a few menus inside the CA dialogue window and you'll soon see that any parameter that can be addressed by a mouse can be assigned to a MIDI control, and then some. It's mind-blowing!

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  • 1 year later...
On 1/1/2021 at 6:09 PM, simoncroft said:

The V1 draft of the first five chapters of my developing book can be found here: http://www.just-play.com/ControllerAssignmentsBookV1.pdf

 

Before I expand the book, and place it in the public domain along with a demonstration video or two, I'd be very grateful for your feedback. I am especially keen not to mislead anyone, so where I don't really understand how I've managed to get something to work, I've said so!

 

As the book is already 5MB (and that's with smudgy image quality) I'll probably put a future edition onto Issuu, so that people can browse it without downloading if they prefer.

Thanks for this great helping topic! I‘m going to get a PreSonus Faderport 8 and want to setup it for using in Logic and  in RMEs TotalMix Software at the same time.

@simoncroft is it possible to get your PDF? Your link is not available anymore.

 

Edited by andy
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Glad to hear you've been getting the answers you need. Sadly, we lost the use of the server the booklet used to be hosted on, but I've put it on DropBox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fr6y5ob82vqkns5/ControllerAssignmentsBookV1.pdf?dl=0

There is a much bigger book in the pipeline. Vast amounts of it are written, and a fair bit of it is already designed and ready to go. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of other demands on my time, so progress is sometimes slow.

When it's finished, I'll post a link here, because I'll be putting it out as a free resource. I'd much rather help everyone who needs it than go through the hassle of selling it through Apple. It's never going to be a best seller!

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On 2/10/2023 at 12:31 AM, andy said:

Thanks for this great helping topic! I‘m going to get a PreSonus Faderport 8 and want to setup it for using in Logic and  in RMEs TotalMix Software at the same time.

@simoncroft is it possible to get your PDF? Your link is not available anymore.

 

I think what I'll probably do is split what was originally going to be "the book" into two or three volumes. That will get the most important information delivered sooner, and also make for smaller downloads. I'm laying out pages every day at the moment, so the next release shouldn't be too long coming. 

Edited by simoncroft
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  • 4 weeks later...
7 hours ago, vladistone said:

@саймонкрофт You make a hit by publishing this book!

But could you improve the image quality?

Otherwise, all the information described there simply becomes unreadable as illustrative examples.

Yes, of course. The new book – or books – will be full resolution. It will also have a lot more detain and many more examples.

Edited by simoncroft
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3 hours ago, des99 said:

Конечно, когда вы отправляете MIDI-сообщение, это происходит за счет включения в окно CA.

извините, я имею в виду - как найти и отфильтровать как текущие, так и предыдущие назначения, на которые ссылается предупреждение с выбором действия («игнорировать» или «сохранить оба» или «перезаписать»), если выбрано «сохранить оба» in different modes.

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