Recently we were contacted by musician Bruce Muphy (ex member of Men Without Hats, who also just happens to be a Dentist) who wanted a custom Code built to match his Moog Voyager. As you probably know by now, we LOVE making custom finishes, so we were super excited to make it match. His Moog had a black face, green LEDs, and white washed oak end caps. Since we already offer custom metal colors, and Code’s LEDs are already green, we just needed to make some custom ends caps. We picked up some oak planks and white wash, and here’s the result.

It came out so nice we decided to add white wash as an option for customization in our online shop.

You can see more images by visiting our Flickr stream.

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news by Jay

We recently got an email from user Boaz van den Ban asking if he could use a second Code in his setup that already included an Ohm64 and Code. I was really interested in seeing what his setup looked like and he send me some pictures. It was pretty obvious that he had a very specific vision for his creation and his website is all in Dutch, so I put together a little interview for him to see how he uses it. You can see from the pictures that there is a lot that went into the design and execution of his controller from the case design to the mass amounts of tool in his workshop.

The build quality on your custom creation looks really thought out, can you tell us what exactly you use it for?
The computer is meant for light control via dmx. I use it as a light artist at al kinds of events, mainly parties and club nights. The case design and choice of hardware was made based on the demand for high reliability, small size, and safety in transport and adaptability for different purposes.

What is your background in?
Originally I am a theatre light and scenery technician. A few years ago a friend of mine ask me if I was interested in helping him with lights at a party. One thing led to an other. Now I run a small company which organizes lights and decorations for interesting and challenging events. I design, build and operate the sets.

Why did you decide to put it into one case?
The fact that my setup is prefab in the case saves me time, inside are more than fifteen connections and eleven devices. It makes a more complex setup possible. The case protects the valuable gear and is great in transport together with my lights which are also in flight cases.

It looks like a totally custom build, did you do all the work yourself?
Yes, I made the entire case. I did use some standard issue elements like the connector panel on the back. And in the non visible division, I had help with a max patch on the mac inside.

Why did you choose the Ohm64 and Code?
This is not the first custom light controller I’ve build. Before I used a kaos pad and a separate faderbank from different brands. The ohm64 gave me the possibility to put the two machines into one and the build quality is significantly better. The merge saves me space and makes changing of the controllers more intuitive. And off course it looks much better. The code gives me a lot of extra control. I use it as an auxiliary fader bank and to control an audio filter patch to isolate sounds in the spectrum to control chases.

I usually find after I am done building anything, I want to make revisions and create version 2. Is there anything you’d like to add or change in this unit?
This is version 2! Off course there are always more dreams. In the future I would like to add a second code controller so I don’t have to switch between the aux faders and the sound module during an event. Also I would use it to have direct control over as much dmx as possible for programming purposes. Furthermore I would like to ad an Ipad as a remote.

Where can we see you using it?
My next gig is dnb rave the 21st may in Amsterdam. In may and June there are some festivals and in July I go to Berlin for a three day gig in a big club. Keep track on my website:www.boazconstructies.nl, soon also available in english.

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interviews by Jay

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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uncategorized by Peter

Hi, this Hawk the intern here at Livid and I’m here to teach you how to use a Livid Code midi controller to manipulate the iElectribe app for your iPad!  You can download the code editor mapping preset here, or follow my tutorial and program it yourself.  Then you can try customizing it to your preferences and if you have a Livid Block too, you can plug into a multi-usb hub and program both to get maximum control. But let’s start with the Code first.

In this tutorial I am using a prototype code controller with a built in iPad dock, but this will work with any code.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial:

Plug your Code into the computer and then open the code editor. For reference you can go here for the complete midi mapping instructions.

It’s important to know that iElectribe uses channel 10 for all messages, so you’ll need to reassign all of the controls to channel 10 when you do your mapping. You can either follow the mapping instructions below, or just go here to download the preset for Code editor that does it for you.

Now to start mapping buttons and knobs, you can click on them with your mouse or touch the corresponding button/knob on the actual code.

I began by assigning the bottom row of buttons to correspond to the instruments of the drum machine.  From left to right: synth 1, synth 2, synth 3, synth 4, HH closed, HH open, cymbal, and clap/snare.   To do this, assign code buttons 38 – 45 to note values 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 46, 49, and 39 (respectively from L to R).   Also, assign all the channels of these buttons to channel 10.

Make sure to press update each time you assign a button, and at this point hit “send” and “save to code.”  You can also hit the “store” button to save these settings to a preset in the code editor.

If you want to, you can unplug the code and plug it into the iPad via a powered usb hub (the iPad alone doesn’t power the code) and test it out.  Each time you press a button on the bottom row, it should activate the corresponding drum machine button.

Now let’s plug back in to the computer.  *Note that you might have to restart the code editor and pick back up from your saved preset.

Next, begin to assign each of the knobs or ‘encoders’ of the Code.  Each column of knobs will affect the drum machine instrument below it and the row will designate the type of change which will occur.  I have programmed mine to affect pitch, mod depth, mod speed, and decay.  (I might also suggest substituting decay for level but for this example, we’ll stick to decay).

The top row (Code knobs ENC1-ENC8) will be mapped to control the pitch of each instrument.  Make sure to set the ‘type’ to ctl and the channel to 10.  From the left to right, the values should be 15, 28, 42, 55, 68, 81, 94, and 107.  Hit “save”, “send to code” and “store” at this point if you have not.

The 2nd row (Code knobs ENC9-ENC16) will control mod depth.  Set all as ‘ctl’ on channel 10 and assign values 17, 30, 44, 57, 70, 83, 96, and 109 from L to R.

The 3rd row (Code knobs ENC17-ENC24) will control mod speed.  Set all as ‘ctl’ on channel 10 and assign values 18, 31, 45, 58, 71, 84, 97, and 110 from L to R.

The 4th row (Code knobs ENC25-ENC32) will control decay.  Set all as ‘ctl’ on channel 10 and assign values 20, 34, 47, 60, 73, 86, 99, and 112 from L to R.

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news by admin

Part of our mission is to create “living controllers.” What this means is that over the course of what is hopefully a long relationship with your Livid controller, we will consitently provide new ideas, new capabilities, and new ways of being creative. While the industry at large focuses on single purpose and disposability, we think you deserve better.

The Code controller has a bootloader in it, which means you can update the firmware over USB. The firmware is also open source, so if you know how to program a PIC chip, you can alter the source, and update it yourself. But we have our own ideas, and want to incorporate some of the suggestions we’ve gotten over the past 6 months, so we’ve made an update for everyone.

With that in mind, we have a new firmware for the Code controller that adds some cool new features that we think you’ll like.

• Dual Speed Encoders: You can set 2 different speeds for encoders, where this shifted speed is accessed by assigning one of the buttons on the Code controller as the speed shifter. Any button can act as the speed shift, and a convenient macro is in the Encode panel in the CodeEditor to set the Logo button as the speed shift.
• Prettier Lights: LED rings have the options of working as “walk” or “fill” mode. The “walk” mode (default) illuminates only one or two leds to indicate value. The “fill” mode will illuminate all LEDs that precede the current value, eventually lighting all LEDs at the maximum value.
• More pretty lights: The LEDs for the button LEDs have 3 modes for illumination controlled by velocity values.  1-31: LED Blink, 032-063: LED Blink Fast, 064-127: LED On. Velocity 0, of course, turns it off.
• Roll Your Own: Sysex command for independent control of all LEDs in the encoder LED rings. This is a feature that will be enjoyed mostly by programmers and those writing custom software.
• Local Control for Encoder rings lets you take over the LED rings with your own illumination designs.
• Relative mode (inc/dec) has been changed to better integrate with Ableton Live and Native Instruments Traktor.
• Feedback Friendly: The encoders work better with Traktor.
• A new CodeEditor software gives you access to all these new features in the Inspector and the new Encode panel. See the wiki manual for more information http://wiki.lividinstruments.com/wiki/Ohm64_Editor
• Complete technical details of implementation can be found here http://wiki.lividinstruments.com/wiki/Code#Code_Sysex

So how do you get this? First, you have to have a Windows, Intel Mac OSX.5+, or Linux computer. You can download the update zip from our downloads page, then follow the simple instructions in the ReadMe. Here’s a video that show how it’s done:

Now that we’ve made it seem so simple, there’s some things you should know. If you DON’T follow instructions, or lose power during the few seconds this process takes,  you’ll brick your Code, and have to send it into us to re-flash the firmware and bootloader (or find someone with a PICKIT2 programmer, take apart the Code, find the programming pins, and DIY!). We don’t want to do that, and you probably don’t want to lose your Code for the several days it has to travel to Austin, Texas.

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news by Peter