X-Station With Live Thread

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 8:27 pm

I deem this thread the official thread of using the X-Station with Live.

May it prosper, take a wife (or domestic partner) thread, have many thread children.

Commence....

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 8:30 pm

Ok, so the X-Station is a very nice and unique device (how many USB powered hardware synths with FX & preamps/soundcard can you think of - besides Xio?), just as Ableton Live is a very nice and unique piece of software.

They coincidentally are also both very odd/disfuntional in some ways.....

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:20 pm

This is a helpful group for the X-Station, a few Novation employees even answer questions here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/x-station

(Be sure to check the Files area for some nice charts and synth patches, etc...)

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:43 pm

Some quick notes on the X-Station's audio interface:

- Make double sure that your X-Station has the latest firmware update and that oyur computer has the latest X-Station Audio & Midi drivers. There have been significant advances by Novation in the speed and reliablility of the driver.

- Make sure you select the X-Station as an ASIO device in Ableton under Windows and adjust the latencey (Hardware seetings) to the lowest level that does not cause clicks & pops on your computer. Also try setting the rate to 44.1 khz if you get clicks & pops and want to keep a lower latencey setting. There might also be an issue with having ASIO4ALL installed that lowers the performance of the X-Station driver, but I'm not totally sure about that.

- Since the X-Station streams the inputs and synth sounds via USB, and the synth is totally controlled via CC#'s, it integrates very smoothly with Live as a synth. (As a controller it get trickier)

- The X-Station is only a 2x2 audio interface (2in/2out), so unless you use a trick to make Live see it and your computer's built in audio as one device

(ASIO4ALL or Aggregate devices in OSX), you won't get Dj-Style prelistening via a seperate output.

- In synth mode, the synth is active and uses the left and right outputs, and input one is active and uses the left and right outputs.

- In control mode(hit the play button to toggle from synth to control), the synth is inactive and inputs 1 & 2 are active and use both L & R.

- If you want 1 discreet mono output for each part (Audio Input 1 being a part and Audio Input 2 being a part in control mode and Audio Input 1 being a part and the synth 2 being a part in synth mode), you can select each part and use the Balance knob to pan each part hard left or right (respectively). You will also have to obstain from using Delay/Reverb/Chorus/Phaser FX, as they are stereo, you will also have to take out any panning effects in the synth patch. (Compressor, Distortion & EQ can be mono) You should then be able to choose each input in a seperate track in Live to get discreet channels for Part 1 & Part 2.

psilopsyche · Post by **psilopsyche** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:26 pm

Thanks Kodama! I'll post some things on here as soon as I figure them out.

psilopsyche · Post by **psilopsyche** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:44 pm

Question: Saving MIDI Learn Settings (X-Station)

1) I'm n00b
2) I just bought Live 6 + X-Station
3) I've read topics pertaining to this question
4) I still don't know what to do

Last night I finally figured out how to use my X-Station to control what I want in Live. I set my X-Station template to the Ableton Live 2 template, and manually MIDI learned everything I wanted. I was bummed to find out that my settings were not retained even though I had saved the template changes on my X-Station.

What can I do to save my MIDI Learn settings that I've inputted in Live / X-Station? What do you guys do? I've read a bunch of stuff on Automapping, but I haven't dived into that yet as it's kind of overwhelming. Is Automapping what I need? Have you guys figured this out yet? What did you do / what were your settings? What's all this Mackie etc emulation stuff? Anywhere I could get a n00b step-by-step on setting up what i'm looking for, or at least a push in the general direction?

I'm still learning about MIDI... any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

John Sweet · Post by **John Sweet** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:46 pm

I have a soft spot for the X-Station. It was my breakthrough controller and I'm still using it, even though I've added 3 others to beef it up. It's my main mixer surface when DJing, & the irregular knobs/buttons tripped me up for a while.

Eventually I went with a fixed setup for all the controls except the top 8 knobs & used bank switching to have them control everything else.

I made every odd-numbered bank a preset and left the even banks muted to allow for resetting the knobs. The even banks also have the buttons programmed to do tricks like slamming the send up & dropping the track volume simultaneously. There's 40 banks in all.

I even made a custom overlay kinda like the one they ship with the Xone 3D.

The way the tracks break down goes like this:

1-------2--------3---------4---------5--------6--------7------------8
vox - A deck - A loops - B loops - B deck - Impulse - Keys - Dummy Return

If anybody knows where I could get a folder full of all this junk hosted, I'll post it up. Just let me know.

psilopsyche · Post by **psilopsyche** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:44 pm

See how this works:

http://www.filefactory.com/

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:38 pm

psilopsyche wrote: What can I do to save my MIDI Learn settings that I've inputted in Live / X-Station?

When you map controls via Midi Remote to a Live set, they are specific to that particular Live Set AND that particular Live device.

So, if you map your X-Station's controls to a Simpler, it will control THAT PARTICULAR Simpler in THAT PARTICULAR Live Set.

Meaning:

- If you delete the Simpler and make a new one in the same track, your mappings will be lost.

- If you make a new one in another track, your mappings will be lost.

Some 3rd Part VSTs support midi learn by default, that is actually way better than Live's method, because you can learn all the mappings for, Imposcar, for instance, and then they will work with every instance of Imposcar from then on....

pvh7 · Post by **pvh7** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:51 pm

Dear kodama, I see that you have x-station and indigo IO.
In your opinion the audio quality of the output is different (I want to buy an x-station to replace my indigo IO, and I hope that novation have the same quality)
Thanks!

smithiva · Post by **smithiva** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:00 pm

Hello Kodama and all -

I have been utilizing the low-budget pan L or R Y-split mono trick to DJ cue my audio from my laptop built-in 1/8" stereo output. I am interested in the X-station, but have not been able to ascertain searching the forum posts whether my signal will remain the same through the USB interface and then out of the X-station's 1/4" L + R just the same - where I can continue to preview one channel in this manner. I know I won't be able to utilize the X's on-board synth doing this - I just want to get a dj use-able, new audio interface on top of everything else the X offers! Thanks for your help!

Don

John Sweet · Post by **John Sweet** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 3:42 am

Using ASIOforall or Aggregate Devices you should be able to split cue from the headphone out & the X-Station's audio outs as though they were a 4-channel soundcard. That's the theory, but my G4 & Live 5 never could keep this working. Worth a shot though.

I think your other idea would work too, if I get you correctly.

chanweta · Post by **chanweta** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:19 am

reading the post i can say that im using the x-station and the built-in soundcard from my dell laptop. works like a charm, giving me 1 stereo output for the house mix and one for cue. also im using live 6 with 3 channels with effects and mixing some deep, minimal and progressive tracks.

gotta say im having a blast with it!

greatings

apv

smithiva · Post by **smithiva** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:06 pm

Hi apv,

are you using asio4all with your set up?

don

flipotto · Post by **flipotto** » Sun Jan 01, 2017 11:29 am

Dead thread...
I still have one of these, anyone else?

X-Station With Live Thread

X-Station With Live Thread

X-station and DJ mono out

it works

X-station Cue-ing

Re: X-Station With Live Thread