I’ll be at Cycling ’74′s Expo ’74 this weekend, and part of what I’m showing at the “science fair” is how I integrate hardware into the upcoming release of Cell and CellDNA. I’ve done a ton of work to make MIDI much more flexible and useful in Cell and CellDNA, even allowing for user-editable templates for popular controllers. So far, I have all of our controllers (Ohm, block, OhmRGB, and Code) and the popular APC20 and APC40 integrated, complete with multi-color LED feedback. Because almost every function in Cell and CellDNA can be controlled with MIDI now, you could even build a custom DIY controller that works exactly the way you want

The best way to show a program, however, is to share the code. (Besides, registration for Expo ’74 is closed, and it’s not a public event!) So here’s a stripped down version of the Max 5 patching and javascript that I use to create MIDI learn and MIDI templates in CellDNA.

You can use these files to integrate MIDI into patches and interfaces in Max, and free yourself of a lot of messy patching and conversions. The javascript also saves and reads JSON files that store your MIDI settings for your patch. It’s pretty simple, yet provides a lot of advanced capability to your programs in Max/MSP. The zip file contains 3 files: a Max patch that demonstrates how to use it, a javascript that handles MIDI and conversion of MIDI into messages for your patch, and a JSON_parse.js that is used by the patch to read and write JSON files. This goes into Max’s “jsextensions” folder (Max5/Cycling ’74/jsextensions).

(Oh, and if you are wondering about the image above, it’s the logo for the original Expo ’74 that occurred in Spokane Washington in 1974, at a time when “Max” was a smart guy at Bell Labs doing early computer music experiments. No disrespect to Cycling ’74, but that logo is way cooler!)

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 We get a lot of questions about how to use our controllers that go to our support system, rather than the forum. This works great, but sometimes, a question really should be asked publicly, because it’s probably an answer a lot of people would want to know. This particular question struck me as one of those, so I’m going to post it here on the blog.

I’m trying to figure out how I can trigger samples with my livid block using Live. Specifically, I want to trigger piano notes (each note a sample) across a row of buttons on the block. I tried using Impulse, but I cant assign a midi note to the play button in the sample block/space. I would definitely appreciate a solution if you have any. thank you!

There’s a few ways of doing this. If you drop an Impulse instrument into a track, it will listen to MIDI notes to trigger the various sounds. I’m pretty sure the default map is to trigger the sounds starting at C3, and continue using the notes of a major scale. In numbers, this would be:
60 62 64 65 67 69 71 72
If you want notes from the block passed to the track’s Impulse instrument, the block needs to be selected in the Live MIDI Prefs and turned on for “Track”, and the “MIDI From” menu in the track needs to have block selected (or “All Ins”). The track will need to be armed for recording, too.

1. Method One: Reprogram the block
You could create a preset in the blockEditor that would map those notes to a row, then save the values to the block. This might be the easiest way, but it’s the least instructive!

2. Method Two: Scales in Live
You could use one of Live’s Note Matrix midi effects (under Live Devices/MIDI Effects/Scale in the Live browser) to transpose the notes. This would be a nice result, and with different presets, you could have lots of different maps at hand, but would no doubt be challenging, as you’d have to do all sorts of fussing with the note matrix, the transpose, the lowest key, etc, and make many mistakes along the way! It’s not really designed for a subset of notes – it’s more for transposing an entire keyboard – thought I think it could be exploited that way.

3. Method Three: The Drum Rack
Another solution is to use Ableton Live’s killer app: the Drum Rack. I’ve made a video that shows how I build a drum rack from a simple piano instrument (this will work regardless of the type – you’ll see in the video), then transpose samples to create a scale on the first row of my Ohm64 (the note values and process are the same for the block).

The basic idea is to first add an instrument (doesn’t matter which one, really), group it to a Drum Rack (right click on the instrument title bar to get that menu), delete the instrument from its default placement, thus making a blank rack, then start dragging instruments to the Drum Pads that correspond with the notes coming from the first row of the block’s button grid, which happen to be:
0 8 16 24 32 40 48 56
You can see in the video that I used MIDI Monitor (http://www.snoize.com) to get the note names from the buttons. However, during the movie, I got smarter and realized that the appropriate Pad would flash in the Rack when I pressed a button on the Ohm64, rendering my cleverness obsolete.

I hope this helps!

Peter Nyboer.
piano image under creative commons attribution license from Piano image from flickr user pj_vanf http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanf/5321214369/sizes/l/in/photostream/

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I recently went through the documentation for the Korg iMS20 iPad app to find out how to control it with the Code. While Korg’s MIDI implementation is not totally comprehensive, it’s still pretty useful. I created a map you can use for the Code to control the main Synth screen. The zip also includes a graphic that most of the possible controls if you want to try controlling other parts of the app (like the mixer and effects) with your Code (or other MIDI controller). This video scratches the surface of possibility with this type of combination, and I look forward to exploiting this even more!

I have an octave of a C-major scale on the bottom, with the Code’s knobs closely approximating the screen layout. One exception is that the Modulation generator is moved to the top left of the Code. If you want to use the map, then download the zip, unzip it, attach your code to your computer, open the Code Editor, and select “Open” from the file menu, then find the “Korg-iMS20_layout.lmd” file from the zip. Press “send” then “save to Code,” then detach and hook up to the iPad with the Camera Connection Kit and a powered USB hub. Oh, and ENJOY!

PS – for those who landed here searching for the iMS20 MIDI spec, here’s the graphic:

MIDI cc assignements for Korg iMS20

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While a lot of people have seen our short introduction of CellDNA and Max for Live video, not as many have chased the link to the comprehensive tutorial. I’m all for an educated population, so I’m posting this so you can see how easy it is to setup, and discover the world of possibility that these seemingly simple devices offer!

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“Livid Sampler 03 is a basic sampling application designed to work with Livid Controllers. This is a final update to the first release of Livid Sampler, an open-source Max/MSP patch, application, and VST plugin. This is “final,” because it was done in Cycling 74′s Max 4.6 and pluggo, which is no longer sold or supported, and Sampler is also going to evolve into something more sophisticated.

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