MIDI Notes/CC's to toggle LED's?

[guatamaham]

basically, here's what I want:

- a MIDIBox with many LED/switches (i.e. a switch that's also an LED)

- each switch sends a note or CC and switches the LED on when hit, this fires a clip in Ableton Live

- when the clip is over, it sends a note/CC back and the LED turns back off

I'm posting to the Ableton group to see if clips will send notes or CC's when they're done playing...  But is this even theoretically possible with MIDIBox?  Do I need to do anything special in order to get the LED's to toggle like this?

This would be my first project and it seems simple enough, I'm just curious if it's feasible and is as easy as it sounds.

Thanks in advance!

[Jidis]

Hi,

I'm not real familiar with Ableton, but I'm guessing you're referring to "audio" clips (like one-shot samples). For that, I personally would guess no, at least not from the MB's side. It wouldn't really have any means of knowing note duration, as there wouldn't really be any "standard" sequence info being played or output. The Ableton app is really the only one that would seem to know when a clip had ended, and I know it is sort of unique and geared for event triggering, so who knows?

Other than than, the only way I could see would be some sort of crazy sidechain setup on a gate-like processor, either to trigger a relay/voltage, or maybe even note on/off events to be used externally (for MB,etc.). An audio gate would need full, separate analog or digital outputs for the different clips, if you were using an external gate processor with different lights for the clips, as well as separate gates I suppose ($ :o $), but maybe you could get lucky and find some cool software plug to get some MIDI out of them (much easier).

Good Luck,

George

PS- Funny, I seem to remember my old SPX90II effects box having an inverted version of that crap (MIDI note to gate), but not the other way around. ;D

[guatamaham]

update:  according to the Ableton forum, yes Live will send out a MIDI note when the clip is over.  for those unfamiliar with Live, a clip is just an audio (or MIDI) sample or sequence.  you can have them loop over and over or you can have them play once.  and you can assign a MIDI note (or CC) in Live so that when the note is received, the clip is triggered.  my problem was, will Live send out a note when the clip is over and this is what I've found out to be true.

in short, what I need from the MIDIBox is that each button/LED sends out a MIDI note when pressed and then turns its LED on.  when Live sends back a MIDI note (with velocity 1, I'm told) when the clip's finished, the LED goes back off.  simple enough, right?  can I make a MIDIBox that will do this?

[Jidis]

Too Late!  ;D (just saw your reply after Googling)

Yes, the assigned MIDI note outputs for the MB switches/LED's will also receive any corresponding note info to trigger the items in the box (I use that for the mute/solo status in Nuendo)

-George

Hey again,

That was sort of a cool request. Made me sort of curious. ;)

Looks like there's at least one really elaborate plug which does that, at least for MIDI to pitch, but it also obviously does some fancy analysis crap, so I'm not sure how heavy it is for multiple "basic" gating (maybe it's load varies with the active functions). I just grabbed it's demo, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to trying it.

http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/2004/TheExtractor.html

Here's another for OSX too:

http://tinyurl.com/zrz98  (where the crap is a simple one??)

and one more for good luck:

http://www.knzaudio.com/index.php

Take Care,

George

[guatamaham]

Too Late!  ;D (just saw your reply after Googling)

Yes, the assigned MIDI note outputs for the MB switches/LED's will also receive any corresponding note info to trigger the items in the box (I use that for the mute/solo status in Nuendo)

thanks, George!  sounds exactly like what I'm after then.  (though I'm not sure what your other links were referring to, just trying to use this feature in general, i assume?)  now I just need to figure out how to get started from here.  sounds like a MIDIBox 64 to me...  anyone know where I can get some cool switch/LED's?  as you might have guessed, I'm looking for some like this: http://music.calarts.edu/~tehn/(tehn)mlr.mp4

[Jidis]

Guatamaham,

Looks like they were all sort of for the same thing (audio to pitch or note events). They were also sort of the same amount of overkill for what you were seeking. ;)

Looks like Ableton's built-in MIDI output feature would make a heck of a lot more sense.

I have some Digitast type lighted switches here, as well as cool small ones a guy on eBay sells. Sorry I can't provide any links, but there were a few discussions here, about lighted pushbuttons, which will have the details (maybe in the parts questions/archive forums). There were a few other common brands of that style (ITT or someone), but I personally wouldn't recommend that for "performance" type button strikes. I'm sort of fond of PayC's lighted buttons in the "MB Of the Week" section myself. There's also a few threads here with tips and pictures about making some out of non-lighted switches. Seems like a homemade translucent button membrane, over maybe a surface mount LED, stuck to a switch, would do it (maybe that's what he used?).

BTW- Probably already come up, but I wonder if the the D.IN stuff could be easily set to trigger on a "high" state, with the lights just tied into the same momentary supply (with current lim. resistors of course). They do that "gradual decay" thing anyway, and it might save some D.Out pins for applications which didn't require constant status lights. - Sorry if that's already how some are setting it up. ;D 

-George

PS- Who the hell is that guy anyway, and how did he get so damn proficient at navigating that crazy layout??

[adamjking]

Hi guatamaham,

Not sure if it is exactly what you are trying to achieve, but I wanted my MidiBox to react in a similar way and you might want to check out this thread: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=2888

Modifying the code will allow the LED to be toggled On/Off by both the physical button or by a Note On/Off message sent from the application (Ableton in your case).

Cheers,

- Adam