Momentary Note or Allow Momentary Switches to follow IA Cycle

I'm trying to set up a single footswitch to send a sequence of note messages. I can do this with IA Cycle, but then all of the notes hold forever. The Momentary mode on the foot switch prevents the switch from continuing through the cycles, and there is no "Momentary Note" as there is with CC actions. Is there any way to achieve this?

Thank you!

EDIT: I was able to get around this by translating CC messages to Note values within Ableton. This is a pretty specific use case, so don't worry about it unless someone else may need this functionality.

As far as I can tell, I'm one of the few people using the GT solely to control Ableton, so expect a few more strange posts from me :)
 
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Thanks for letting us know about this. I will have a look at momentary buttons vs note messages, but I'm happy to hear you found a workaround.
 
Another option would be to have a note off for the previous steps note for each step, if that makes sense so something like the attached. Only issue would be it would loop round and round with the last note always playing, so you could use another button to be 'all notes off' type thing, which sends a velocity of 0 to every note you've used, or see if the device has an 'all notes off' command in it's midi CC list as quite a lot of synths and things do.

If you're using Ableton and aren't already, I'd look into Max 4 Live properly. I find a combination of that and the GT is pretty next level, even if it's just for some basic number crunching of midi info rather than any turbo fancy DSP stuff (which is what most people use it for). The way you can handle midi note in and out, and work out whether things are responding to note offs or ons, ignoring one or the other is really useful and pretty essential to my setup with Ableton! I've built some pretty cool pedal board editors with it, so I can edit my mini gizmos, strymon pedals and infinity loopers on my laptop, and then get a readout of what I'd need to write in the GT editor to get the same settings on an IA button on there. In the example you're talking about above, you could use a momentary button, and generate the notes to cycle through in M4L, or even generate chord progressions etc.
 

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Another option would be to have a note off for the previous steps note for each step, if that makes sense so something like the attached. Only issue would be it would loop round and round with the last note always playing, so you could use another button to be 'all notes off' type thing, which sends a velocity of 0 to every note you've used, or see if the device has an 'all notes off' command in it's midi CC list as quite a lot of synths and things do.

If you're using Ableton and aren't already, I'd look into Max 4 Live properly. I find a combination of that and the GT is pretty next level, even if it's just for some basic number crunching of midi info rather than any turbo fancy DSP stuff (which is what most people use it for). The way you can handle midi note in and out, and work out whether things are responding to note offs or ons, ignoring one or the other is really useful and pretty essential to my setup with Ableton! I've built some pretty cool pedal board editors with it, so I can edit my mini gizmos, strymon pedals and infinity loopers on my laptop, and then get a readout of what I'd need to write in the GT editor to get the same settings on an IA button on there. In the example you're talking about above, you could use a momentary button, and generate the notes to cycle through in M4L, or even generate chord progressions etc.

Thats some good advice with the note off messages in the steps. And yeah, I'm using M4L to do the translating of cc's to note messages, which works quite well and affords me the flexibility I needed for this particular use case. M4L is definitely the obvious bridge between the GT and Ableton. Although, I'm working on a remote script that is helping me do some super useful things, based on a script called "Selected Track Control". It's helping me use song setlists on the GT to cycle through and directly select individual scenes without having to directly map anything, have consistent mapping for devices regardless of what chain-selector is active, etc.
 
Sounds like it's all heading in the right direction! The flexibility of M4L is pretty awesome, as I'm sure you're noticing with the remote script. Whilst it takes a bit of getting around, the Live API (which the script uses) let's you control/observe anything in Live in anyway possible, and I don't think I could imagine going back to the old days of Live without it.

I'm also very happy to see someone else on the computer setup with the GT on the forum. :cool:

Hope the setup goes well, and I'll keep an eye out for any posts/problems in case it's something I may have picked up over the last year of setting up the GT with Max/MSP and Live!
 
I'm trying to set up a single footswitch to send a sequence of note messages. I can do this with IA Cycle, but then all of the notes hold forever. The Momentary mode on the foot switch prevents the switch from continuing through the cycles, and there is no "Momentary Note" as there is with CC actions. Is there any way to achieve this?

Thank you!

EDIT: I was able to get around this by translating CC messages to Note values within Ableton. This is a pretty specific use case, so don't worry about it unless someone else may need this functionality.

As far as I can tell, I'm one of the few people using the GT solely to control Ableton, so expect a few more strange posts from me :)


Sorry for the newbie question...but how did you get your GT to talk to Ableton? I'm starting from square one and having trouble...??
 
What sort of things are you wanting to control within Ableton? If you can be more specific there are quite a few people using the software on here who I'm sure will be happy to help out.

Starting from scratch, once you've decided whether you're using the USB or midi via a soundcard to talk to Ableton, you need to go into the Ableton options, and in the Link/Midi tab, make sure on the input for that device that 'Remote' is turned on if you want to control parameters via midi cc or midi note.

One of the biggest selling points of Ableton is how straightforward midi mapping is compared to other DAWs. To do that you need to enter midi map mode, which you can enter by hitting the 'midi' box in the top right of ableton, or ctlr+m/apple+m. If you click on a control in Ableton, then send it midi from a controller, that will then control the parameter. You then exit midi map mode to see it in action.

To get the GT to send info, you'd need to setup a button with a specific midi note or midi cc info, with it sending that information to the device/output you've got connected to Ableton.

If there are any specifics you want to get started with I'm sure we can help you get the ball rolling!
 
What sort of things are you wanting to control within Ableton? If you can be more specific there are quite a few people using the software on here who I'm sure will be happy to help out.

Starting from scratch, once you've decided whether you're using the USB or midi via a soundcard to talk to Ableton, you need to go into the Ableton options, and in the Link/Midi tab, make sure on the input for that device that 'Remote' is turned on if you want to control parameters via midi cc or midi note.

One of the biggest selling points of Ableton is how straightforward midi mapping is compared to other DAWs. To do that you need to enter midi map mode, which you can enter by hitting the 'midi' box in the top right of ableton, or ctlr+m/apple+m. If you click on a control in Ableton, then send it midi from a controller, that will then control the parameter. You then exit midi map mode to see it in action.

To get the GT to send info, you'd need to setup a button with a specific midi note or midi cc info, with it sending that information to the device/output you've got connected to Ableton.

If there are any specifics you want to get started with I'm sure we can help you get the ball rolling!

Thank you for the prompt response! At this point, I'm just trying to get Ableton to actually see the Mastermind GT's MIDI signal. Ultimately, I'd like to use the GT to start/stop scenes and possibly mute/solo channels.

I have the GT connected via USB to my laptop. Under the Link/Midi tab in Ableton's preferences, 'Remote' is turned on for the GT's input:

Screen Shot 2016-04-01 at 7.55.41 AM.png

On the GT side of things, I've created a device for Ableton:

Screen Shot 2016-04-01 at 7.58.27 AM.png

Then created a test button sending a MIDI Note:

Screen Shot 2016-04-01 at 8.01.55 AM.png

But no dice...I'm sure there's something obvious that I'm missing...do you see anything?
 
To thicken the plot, I am also using the GT's MIDI Out port to communicate with an external pedalboard. The GT is being phantom powered through this connection. Could it be an issue of trying to using both the standard MIDI Out and USB B port at the same time?
 
That actually looks pretty legit to me, so I don't think it's something you're missing. I'll have a proper look in a bit, as actually got my GT setup after a little while of neglecting it for some other projects I had on the go, so can test the setup with USB.

In the meantime, I looked at my GT settings, and noticed that my outputs going to Ableton are all listed as a Strymon Mobius, which I then edited the settings for (see screenshot). I do remember when I set it up I had some issues getting it to work with the default 'None' or Generic device, in the device setup. Yet when I modified the strymon preset it randomly worked. When I originally setup my GT I was also using the USB output.

It might sound a bit random, but if you setup a device like I've described, then also change the output to USB, do you have any joy with that? Feel free to attach your GT settings file and I'll have a look and see if I have any joy this end.

I personally can't see there being any issues with using Midi and USB outputs at the same time, as I've done that in the past. I haven't used the phantom power option so can't comment on that.

We'll get there! :cool:

EDIT: It might be worth turning on 'Track' in the Ableton settings too, I've since read that that's for recording notes to midi tracks, but I have always had that turned on too with the GT setup and various setups I've had over the last 10 years I've just realised.
 

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I've just had a further look at my settings, and seems like i'm using a CC Toggle for all of my stuff talking to the laptop, even if it's setup as a momentary button. It doesn't make any difference to ableton if it's notes or CC, so this could be another option to try out.
 

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WOW! Changing the device to a Strymon Mobius did the trick...I would have never discovered that on my own. Thank you!
 
It turns out there isn't anything magical about the Strymon Mobius device setting after all...setting it to a Generic - PC/CC Device worked as well. However, it did not work having it set to the 'NONE - ???' as I originally did. Thank you for steering me in the right direction.
 
Glad you got it all working! To be honest I completely forgot that mine was setup like that, and you jogged my memory. I think when I originally had the breakthrough I was so happy it was working I didn't actually check it further.

Enjoy getting involved with the GT though, and glad I wasn't the only one who went through the same issue!

Not sure if it's possible Ron, but maybe in the future for things like that the settings could be greyed out or something to make this a bit more obvious?
 
Yes, "None" means that the device is disabled and will not send any MIDI messages in any circumstance. Greying things out in this case does make sense...
 
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