MMGT 10 - Ableton Live - Sending notes to trigger scenes

Michael Scarabino

Michael Scarabino

Active Member
I'm using a MMGT 10 to control an Ableton Live session for acoustic shows. The 2 audio channels in my Live session are designated for ambient backing tracks, and click tracks for their respective songs. Although there are no presets in this instance with the GT for any other devices, what I'd like to see happen, is that I can call up any Ableton scene for a song, by actually selecting a MMGT song within a setlist song menu. I've seen this work by simply using IA buttons, however, I need to be able to keep my songs organized in setlists for my shows, and you can't have setlists for IA buttons.

So right now, I'm attempting to do this by assigning a preset action for each individual preset that will make up a song on the GT, to send a note to the Ableton session to pull up the song, then I can hit play (with an IA button that I made) when ready.

My biggest problem is MIDI mapping in Ableton. I seem to be unable to assign each scene to it's own note/preset button. If anyone has some experience doing this, your help would be very appreciated. Let me know what you got!
 

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Michael, I have my MMGTs setup to do exactly this. The only difference is I use CCs to map to scenes in Live rather than Note commands.

For reference, each song in the MMGT references its own Preset, and each Preset has one Preset Action (which is the CC and device used to map to the Scene in Live). My Preset Actions are set as Momentary commands with off/on values set at 0/127 respectively.

You'll also need to have 'Track' or 'Remote' (I can't remember which one at the moment, play with it) enabled in Live's preferences pane for the MMGT datastream INTO Live for the mapping to work.

It appears in your first screenshot that you have successfully mapped something to your scene (I see Channel 11/?) in the MIDI map overview on top of the scene). This should indicate you have your routing setup correctly in Live and at the MMGT, but there are other variables potentially.

It may also be worth mentioning that when MIDI mapping Scene buttons you are essentially launching them as soon as you execute the button mapped to them. I am not 100% sure, but I do not think you can map a button to only select a Scene and not run it with the play button after. I could be wrong, but my Live sessions do not operate this way.
 
Hey! That's awesome that you happen to have a similar setup, you're perfect to model off of, thanks for a great response. If you don't mind, could you share a screenshot of how your preset action looks? And how exactly do you map the scenes?

In the screenshot that you showed me, all that number 11 represents is my MIDI channel, I still haven't figured out the right CC values in this case. Also an FYI, I am a little new to Ableton, my DAW has always been Studio One fore creating. I'm only using live for the purpose of running tracks at live events.
 
Also, Track and Remote is enabled for this, I heard to do that from someone else when it comes to setting the I/O for the GT. I'm not sure if that's wrong though. Let me know what you do, if you don't mind of course.
 
Here check this out for a second. Right now, this is what I have set with CC commands. When I attempted to assign another scene a command, you can see that the CC number is overwriting what I have as the number for a transport function. Despite that the button I hit from the GT has a CC Toggle set at CC #1, this still happens. I'm a little scattered as you can see haha!
 

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I see your problem. I'm noticing in the Ableton MIDI window on the left you have CC 88 controlling both Record and your Scene Launch. Diving into your editor file I see that under Buttons, your 'Record' Button is set to 'Send On Preset Change.' Here's what's happening:

1) You select a Song on the MMGT (good)
2) MMGT selects the appropriate preset linked to your song. (good)
3) Preset pulls up button page 1 (good)
4) Button page 1 automatically fires off the 'Record' button - CC88 (bad)

You'll need to disable 'Send On Preset Change' on every button you don't want to automatically fire off when you select a new song, or you'll end up triggering things you don't mean to. In this scenario, when you're trying to map your scene launch button, Ableton probably gets your CC 1 command first, then overwrites it with CC88 after it sees that.

A few other notes - I'm noticing your Preset Actions are CC changes with a velocity of 0. That may work but not in all cases depending on what Ableton Live is expecting to see data wise. It may be smart to have your 'on' value be 127, or something other than 0.

One last thing - every Preset by default sends a PC command - I would recommend turning that off unless you specifically need it, as it could cause you grief later on.
 
Thanks, guys, for this great discussion. I know very little about Ableton, so there's only so much I can do to get people set up. This info is great!
 
Mike, everything is working perfectly now, thank you so much for taking your valuable time to show me everything in great detail! You have an awesome rig, and have great organizational skills to make for an easy live experience, it was cool to see your way of doing things. It all makes sense!
 
It will ultimately depend on your desired workflow.

Songs reference presets (and you can reference multiple presets in one song), and presets can automatically send program changes upon selection, or you can use preset actions to automatically fire off CC and other commands.

I do not have an Axe Fx so I am unsure of if it changes presets via PC, CC, Note Values, etc, so you'd have to find out about that. If you're looking to have a 1:1 relationship between all of your Ableton Scenes/MMGT Songs/MMGT Presets/Axe FX presets, I would think it would be as simple as adding the Axe Fx as a new device in the MMGT, and adding in the appropriate PC/Preset Action in each MMGT preset to send out that data.
 
@Michael Scarabino I have been thinking of getting into Ableton Live so thanks for starting this thread!

@TelosHedge your setup looks amazing, I have a GT16, AxeFX3 and a XR18, considering an X32 Rack. Do you have any other videos on how you setup and trigger a song? I see you have audio, midi and even lighting parts but have multiple scenes per song for verse chorus etc, is that right? Do you have to click a foot pedal for each part of the song?
For starters I want to start a scene that has a count in, then play an audio and/or midi backing track and also have midi control automated guitar/vocal FX on the AxeFX3 throughout the song... maybe go into a simple lighting setup...
So yeah would you have a video on how you setup and control a song?

Cheers
Paul
 
Paul,

Thanks for the kind words! I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my video or not, but I run my band thru an X32, but use no MIDI capabilities on it, so utilizing an XR18 would likely work the same way with my system. It would depend on your workflow.

I'd be happy to take you through my setup a little bit more completely in another video. I can make you one in a day or so. I'll outline all of your questions at the same time!
 
TelosHedge said:
Paul,

Thanks for the kind words! I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my video or not, but I run my band thru an X32, but use no MIDI capabilities on it, so utilizing an XR18 would likely work the same way with my system. It would depend on your workflow.

I'd be happy to take you through my setup a little bit more completely in another video. I can make you one in a day or so. I'll outline all of your questions at the same time!
Click to expand...
Legend!
 
TelosHedge said:
Paul,

Have a look at this video. It'll run through some basic ins and outs of Ableton and how to get started with MIDI mapping some controls.

If you want to go deeper, let me know!

drive.google.com

2021-09-16 07-56-31.mp4

drive.google.com drive.google.com
Click to expand...
Mate yeah what took you so long?? LOL
I can't believe how fast you put that together

And wow thank you so much for doing that, it's great to get an inside look to what Ableton can do! I'm looking forward to getting into this even more now, cheers mate!
 
TelosHedge said:
Paul,

Have a look at this video. It'll run through some basic ins and outs of Ableton and how to get started with MIDI mapping some controls.

If you want to go deeper, let me know!

drive.google.com

2021-09-16 07-56-31.mp4

drive.google.com drive.google.com
Click to expand...
Hi, I came across this thread and I'm having trouble launching songs or pretty much anything in Ableton via my pcb6x. I imagine the programming is very similar. I keep getting the cc message cc102 for every button. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. any help would be fantastic.
I'm trying to set up a bunch of songs in Ableton for a live show, I want to be able to use buttons to toggle each instrument on and off via the speaker on and off button in Ableton, but also have a play and stop assigned to each song preset. so 6 buttons per page.
Thanks
Dan
 
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