padKontrol Low-Brow Visual Feedback Tip

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 4:46 am

Here's a little tip to make your Korg padKontrol more functional as a clip triggering device with visual feedback.

The padKontrol's pads blink once when they receive a note, this coupled with Live's midi note feedback on clip launches gives us some possibilities.

1. Set your midi prefs so that the padKONTROL's input (Port A) = track and remote, the padKONTROL's midi out = track (no remote), the other padKONTROL out (control) is set to nothing, and one virtual port (midi yoke or IAC) is set to remote.

2. Make a new Live Set.

3. Make 4 audio tracks.

4. Drop audio clips in the first four slots of each track.

5. Map your padKontrol pads to each audio clip.

6. Create a new midi clip, set your virtual port to the input, monitoring on, and the padKontrol midi out to the output.

7. To keep the pads blinking, drop an arp in the midi track set to chord trigger, 1/32 or 1/16, 1% gate.

8. Trigger some clips from the padKontrol, the pads should start blinking and shut off as you trigger new clips.

Possibilities:

1. Might be possible to use this trick to make a step sequencer of sorts?

2. Also usable for enabling/disabling fx, etc...

3. You could always make other scenes in the padKontrol to transpose up & down to trigger more stuff or just play impulse, etc.. then switch back quickly to trigger different clips, then switch scenes again to play another instrument, etc.......

4. You could assign the pedal input to stop all clips, etc...

Caveats:

1. This is a low-brow hack, someone with PD and sysex skills should be able to make a solution that whomps this...

2. It's possible to sometimes get stuck arp notes so that you get too many pads lit up, especially if you trigger any clips via mouse.

3. Pads are still a little blinky...

Enjoy!

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:38 pm

Hrmm no replys, maybe I should just title it "Richie Hawtin's Sascha Secret To Why The USA Rules And Macs Suck and Live Renders To Sh*T".

Not sure if this might work with the Kontrol keyboard pads also?

As far as the step sequencer, it's doable but probably silly and should be done in another environment (PD/Bidule/Synthedit) so that you don't have 5000 tracks in Live (until ableton makes a way to organize large numbers of tracks at least).

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 5:13 pm

O ya the KPK won't respond to midi if it's in the fancy animation mode, btw....

intellijel · Post by **intellijel** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:06 pm

HI Kodama,

I like the idea but you have left out some key details about the port i/o.
Is the virtual midi port sets as a remote input or output? Why is it only connected on one side?

Is this right?

Live MIDI Inputs: Track Sync Remote

IAC/Midi Yoke off off on
PadKontrol USB (A) on off on

Live MIDI Outputs:
PadKontrol MIDI out on off off
PadKontrol CTRL off off off

I would really like to get this to work with impulse. It would be amazing if I could see wat drum parts are playing via visual feedback.

intellijel · Post by **intellijel** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:03 pm

Ok so I was able to get two things working with impulse for visual feedback:

1. Make two midi tracks and set to record enable.

track 1: input PadKontrol A output (Impulse or battery)
track 2: input PadKontrol A output PadKOntrol Midi Out

Whatever you record drumwise gets recorded to two tracks, one plays the sounds, the other sends the visual feedback (notes) to the PadKontrol.

simple, but makes me really wish ABleton Would allow VSTi's to output MIDI!

2. Use a Midiyoke port (e.g. NT4) set in MIDI prefferences as:
input: track, OutputL:track

Then you need three MIDI tracks:
Track 1: input PadKOntrol A output: MidiYoke Port NT4 ch 1
Track 2: input Midi Yoke NT4 output: impulse or vsti is on the track
Track 3: input Mid YOke NT4 output: PadKOntrol Midi Out

Playing a beat on your padkontrol will send notes to track 1 (this is where you should record the clips). These notes or clips will play out via Midi YOke and go to Track 2 where your drum VSTi is and to track 3 where the output back to the PadKOntrol is (So that the lights light up).

The problem with this method is that I notice a delay when I hit a note (latency).

Neither of these two solutions I described is particularly elegant. I am not a max/msp programmer but I think it is time to learn! I need a layer to sit between my midi devices and live so that I can route midi and controllers in the way that I would like.

JensRobot · Post by **JensRobot** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:12 am

This all sounds very promising... but i am not able to get any of it to work. Does the midi yoke need any special configuration... i have installed it, and done nothing further with it. It shows up nicely in live. I have all the midi i/o there is explained here, and i follow the guide with no problems.
I am competely sure my PK works with live.

Kodama wrote:O ya the KPK won't respond to midi if it's in the fancy animation mode, btw....

whats that?

it is like my PK does not get the signal from live???

hope you guys can help me

thanx in advance

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:58 pm

To dig up the past......

Is anyone using this low brow trick with success? I was trying it last night, but I cannot understand what the link is between the triggered clips, and the feedback to the PK.

I have it nearly working, but for some reason, if i say have the left half of the pads setup to trigger clips, and the right unassigned, then i can use the right hand pads to trigger the arp that then produces light feedback of the pad pressed. However the pads on the left are non functional light feedback wise, but will trigger the clips ok.

Is this something to do with the face that once Ive assigned those left pads as a midi trigger, then those notes are unavailable to trigger midi devices, in this case the arp with the dummy clip?

Secondly, Im using a bank of 4 FX for each side of a X fader channel. I want to have light feedback of which fx is currently on.

I can easily get this working by mapping a midi clip with a 1/4 note pulse where the note corresponds to the same note that is triggering the FX, and having the same trigger note trigger both the FX and the midi clip which sends the feedback. The main drawback to this is that I have to have 8 channels in session view, each with one midi clip so that I can have independent control of each FX.

If they are just stacked in one channel, then they behave as you would expect, each light will only blink on its own, as two clips cannot play at the same time in the same channel in session view.

This is only really a problem as you cannot hide channels, so I end up with more channels of controls for light feedback than I do for clips!

Any other PK Warriors still fighting the good fight on workarounds while we dream of our coding gifted brethren delivering a working Native mode hack?

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:00 pm

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:00 pm

and another bump for luck!

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:52 pm

Anyone using their PK as a ghetto monome with any tips to spare?

I now have setup two 4x4 scenes for loops with full light feedback, and one for 8 fx toggles. this means i now have 16 channels of midi dummy clips though.

Please let me hide channels Abes!

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:30 pm

bump...