Lesson 6, section “Assigning Pads to Live Loops” - what MIDI data does a MIDI Controller pad transmit?

[JohnnyHands]

 

I just want to make sure I’ve got the MIDI pad behavior part of Lesson 6 working. 

My Roland A88 MIDI controller doesn’t have any pads, but it does have a couple of buttons, S1 and S2, that (I think) I’ve got configured to emulate a MIDI controller pad:

Roland calls the following “Momentary operation” for button S1 (and S2. )  I’m arbitrarily using using Control Change # 55 on MIDI channel 1.

MIDI channel / Control Change # /  data value:

1  55   127        (depressing S1 button)

1  55   0            (releasing S1 button)

 

THE ABOVE SEEMS LIKE IT’S “PAD-LIKE” AND WOULD WORK FOR LESSON 6, Live Loop pad triggering. Am I right?

 

If not, Roland calls the following,  “Latched Operation.”  Again, I’m arbitrarily using using Control Change # 55 on MIDI channel 1.

MIDI channel / Control Change # /  data value :

1  55   127     (1st press/ release of S1)

1  55   0        (2nd press/ release of S1)

1  55   127     (3rd press/ release of S1)

1  55   0         (4th press/ release of S1)

etc… (alternating between 127 and 0)

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by JohnnyHands

[David Nahmani]

3 hours ago, JohnnyHands said:

I’m arbitrarily using using Control Change # 55 on MIDI channel 1.

The ideal is if you can have the buttons send a Note On when pressed, Note Off (or Note On with a velocity = 0) when released?

[JohnnyHands]

Oh, OK.  I can't do that with these A-88 S1/S2 buttons.

But instead of the buttons, I assigned the lowest four keyboard notes as "pads", A-1, A#-1, B-1, and C0. It seems to work - the first time you press/release one of those keys, starts the loop, and the next time it ends it.

Then I tried creating a software instrument track to jam along. To not overlap "pad key" assignments, I set the instrument's Inspector key limit to C#0 G8, to skip those four lowest keys.  Seems to work. I guess would need to set that same C#0 G8 key limit for any other software instruments I were to create as well in this scenario.

Maybe it doesn't work: with the Software instrument in track three and selected, it seems the A-1 and A#-1 keys trigger the two loops the second track instead of the first one. And the B-1 and C0 keys trigger the software instrument on Track.  

So I guess this keys depend on which track is selected?  I'm confused now.

Edited April 17, 2023 by JohnnyHands

[David Nahmani]

Great! Thanks for letting us know how you worked around it. 🙂 

[JohnnyHands]

2 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

Great! Thanks for letting us know how you worked around it. 🙂 

Actually, I've updated my post with newly discovered problems.  It's not working that well.

[David Nahmani]

9 minutes ago, JohnnyHands said:

it seems the A-1 and A#-1 keys trigger the two loops the second track instead of the first one.

Can you show a screenshot of your A-1 assignment? 

[JohnnyHands]

1 minute ago, David Nahmani said:

Can you show a screenshot of your A-1 assignment? 

Here it is with Track 3 deleted, it works OK:

After I add the software instrument, A-1 and A#-1 controls the track 2 loops instead of the track 1 loops.  Here's that same A-1 assignment after adding that software instrument on track 3:

 

[David Nahmani]

Ok so that looks correct. I'll have to try to see if I can reproduce that issue here.