MIDI Based Controllers

Lecture Content

A controller is any device that can be used to trigger or manipulate a sound. Controllers
fall into a few main categories. There are many variations on those themes, but they
function in broadly the same way.

1) Controllers you should already know

Conventional keyboards

Play MIDI notes into a soft-synth to trigger additional functions besides note playing

Computer Keyboards

Use keys on your computer keyboard to control switch based commands or indeed to
play notes

Encoders

Most commonly knobs or sliders, Generally used to manipulate parameters on soft-

synths or effects 


Drumpads 


Usually arranged in 4x4 pattern and generally made of rubber, sometimes lit. These
began with early drum machines, then became hugely popular with the Akai MPC series
and now the Native Instruments Maschine 


2) Grids 


It began with the monomer which are generally 8x8, but can be bigger (monome make
some very large grids as you can see !). They can be used for both clip launching in
Ableton Live, for playing melodic instruments, for longer drumming and for step
sequencing – and in the case of the monome even more. (Max for live is now beginning
to add further functionality to Push, also). It is very common nowadays for controllers to
work with dedicated software on a computer to offer the advantages of both hardware
and software at the same time. We will be looking at the two biggest names in this field.
Push and Maschine. 


3) Push - Main features

It can control the majority of functions in the Ableton Live software, with minimal need to
look at the screen, keyboard or mouse. Ideal for live performance as it can be used to
launch clips from the session view and also be used with drum racks to finger-drum or
step sequence beats

Scales mode allows melodic instruments to be played on the grid. ‘Wrong’ notes are
omitted, so every note sounds ‘in key’. Many different types of scale are available from
basic major and minor scales to exotic and unusual. Melodic instruments can be step
sequenced from the grid. Song arrangements can be built up and navigated easily from
the grid – parts can be duplicated, made longer or shorter, entire ‘scenes’ can be
launched, copied and modified. Custom mapping templates can be created to control
your favorite VST or outboard You can also use it to control and perform external
hardware
4) Maschine Main Features

Maschine is primarily a beat making device. As with Push, it operates with its own
software on the host computer. Being as it is, based on the Akai MPC, it is very strong

for producing Hip-hop. (Although not limited to that.) Great drum library for modern
production, It has excellent integration with the rest of NI Komplete and great for
working with sample-based material, it can lock to scale like the push and
quantizes your performance on the fly. Maschine can also work as a standalone
live application as well as AU/VST

5) Touch screens

While Apple has traditionally positioned the iPad as a media-consumption device, the
tablet has gained a reputation as a very capable and powerful music-creation tool.

To Android app developers, device fragmentation means that their apps need to work
on a rapidly growing number of unique devices. Last year, about 4,000 unique Android
devices were released. This year, that number had tripled. Apple dominates the music
app sector with regards to Mobile devices as they have made it
is easier to distribute the apps in one place. However, for most of us, we haven’t yet
replaced our desktop/laptop DAWs, but they can still be useful tools to help us control
most of them. There are many IOS Applications to suite your DAW of choice
6) Leap Motion

The leap motion sensor offer revolutionary control over your live set. coupled with
Gecko MIDI which is available on Leap Airspace apps store. The Leap Motion device
can be made to output MIDI messages dependent on the position of a hand above it.
This provide the performer with almost telekinetic powers to manipulate effects and
filters

7) Data Gloves

This piece of technology is behind Imogen Heap’s quest to build the Mi.Mu Gloves
Recently launched as a kick-starter campaign. Mi.Mu are data gloves compatible with
MIDI an OSC that control everything from pitch to reverb through a combination of
unique gestures by the wearer. Sew your own pair of Data Gloves, each with 8 bend
sensors for finger gesture tracking and recognition, an Arduimu for measuring
orientation and acceleration, an RGB LED for visual feedback, and a vibration motor for
haptic feedback. You’ll find the patterns, materials & parts lists and full instructions for
making a pair of DIY Data Gloves in the recommended links.

8) Piezo transducers
They can be connected to microphone inputs and
used to trigger MIDI notes with Max For Live devices
such as “Peaks and Notes”. If these MIDI notes are
fed to drum racks, suddenly any object can trigger any
sound.

Other Controllers you could investigate include Reactable, Soundplane and

Linnstrument

9) Controller Mapping - The Receiving End

In this case, Ableton live.

Use MIDI monitor app to confirm that your device is sending the type of MIDI
information that you’re expecting to see. (very often you want a CC# with values going
from 0-127). If it isn’t you may need to do some work mapping the controller. 


In Live, hit the MIDI button in the top right. This will turn every parameter that can be
mapped to a MIDI controller purple.

Select the parameter that you’d like to map by clicking on it. (It should get the small
square brackets at the corners) 


Send some MIDI from your controller (turn the Knob you want to use, for example). You
will see some numbers appear over the parameter in Live showing the MIDI channel
number and CC number. 


If you dont: check that in Live MIDI prefs, you have the device turned ON as a Remote.

Check the MIDI activity indicators in Live (the two little boxes between KEY and MIDI
buttons. The op one lights when there is MIDI coming in, the bottom when there is MIDI

going out.


Understanding the Midi Mappings Tab in Ableton Live

Using it to troubleshoot and to give us more control

When we hit the MIDI button in Ableton Live, the browser section at the top left of the
screen changes into the ‘MIDI mappings tab’.. It’s worth looking at this tab before
adding anything to see if there’s anything in there that’ll clash with what you’re planning
on doing. In the example above, my default Live set at home has several things that
might be a problem. In this situation, I would either un-assign the things already
assigned (by right clicking their control in the main window and choosing ‘delete
mapping’) or I would set up different midi channels to avoid ‘clashes’. 


One other *HUGELY* useful thing in this panel is the Min and Max columns.

• One example would be tailoring the range of a knob so it only goes between two
‘useful’ points on 
a control in Live - and not into a range that sounds nasty. 

• Another example would be to reverse the range of values by right clicking and
choosing “Invert 
Range’. This is really useful when mapping a parameter to the
output of a pad. It means that ‘at rest’ the parameter would be at its maximum
value and when we push the pad in, it moves down to its minimum. Ideal for a
low pass filter frequency in our example. 


10) Sychronisation of Devices using Midi Clock – The Basics

● It works differently to SMPTE timecode or MTC (which is basically SMPTE over

MIDI)

• SMPTE and MTC began as a way of sync-ing to film / video, so gives absolute
time positions (as 
values of Hours: Minutes: Seconds and Frames - 25 frames
per second in the UK for TV sync and some ridiculous nonsense of 29.97 frames
per second in the USA because they can’t count properly). 

•
• MIDI Clock still gives information of the position in the timeline, but it does it
using Bar, Beat and ‘Ticks’ 
(sub-beats, basically). This allows you to vary the
tempo on the master and have the slave follow accordingly. 

• The fact that it is still referencing the timeline position can be limiting if you are
slaving on a second machine with a timeline - based DAW (Logic, Pro Tools etc)
and want to do looping or anything ‘off the timeline’. This is not a problem if we’re
in Ableton Live and using the clips view - as this is not timeline based. 

• MIDI Clock is less precise than SMPTE and sync and has a tendency to ‘drift’
over a long period (eg an hour show on one timeline). 

• This is not a problem if you are playing short songs up to around 5 minutes. Each
time a song stops and then the clock is re-started for a new song, Sync will
tighten up again. 

Why use MIDI Timecode ?

• Each message in MIDI Timecode is an absolute timestamp - so a slave can be

connected at any time and will be able to pick up where it is. 
SMPTE is more
robust for syncing devices together solidly (e.g. two tape machines, two pro-tools
rigs), where the two devices work across a timeline and don’t really care what the
beats and bars are doing. It’s also obviously the absolute standard for
sound-to-picture.