How to Map Midi Controller to EboSuite?

Hello EboSuite Community,

I’m wondering if any of you can point me to information on how to map a midi controller (I have an Akai MPD32) to the EboSuite plug-ins within Ableton, or perhaps share any suggestions or best practices about using a midi controller for a live performance ?

For many years I used Livid Instruments’ Cell DNA software and their Ohm64 controller, with a simple approach of mixing 2 channels of video clips with many basic effects.

Thanks for any info you might share with me !

Hi Marcus!
sorry for the late reply.
There are various options to control Ableton Live (and the EboSuite plugins) with midi controllers. It all depends a bit on what you want to do and what controls you have available.
For most live controllers there are remote scripts available which give you ‘standard’ ableton live control to start/stop playback of clips and control levels and such (the details of course depend on the controller you use). But it is also possible to bind individual buttons, knobs, pads and faders to Ableton live parameters (and thus also to a lot of parameters of EboSuite devices).

Here is more info about the remote scripts.
Here is more info about midi mapping

I might have more ideas for you, but it depends on what your use case will be.
Good luck and let me know how it goes!
Timo

Thank you Timo, for your helpful overview and the links to the key topics of the Ableton Live user manual !

I will hopefully find some time in the next days to try to some midi mapping to my Akai MPD32.

Marcus

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After spending some time with EboSuite, Ableton and the Akai MPD32, I was able to get some basic midi-mapping figured out.

Last week, I discovered to my delight, that my 2009 Livid Instruments Ohm64 controller also is usable as a midi controller :grinning:

However, I am still a little unsure about the best strategies for which controls to map to which EboSuite parameters, and I hope some experienced users might be able to share some suggestions related to the following questions:

  1. The Ohm Controller has a grid of 64 buttons that I will use to launch video clips. I am planning of structuring 8 columns of audio tracks in Ableton with 8 clips per column. If I map the eCrossfade to the master track volume to the Ohm64 crossfader control, that means I need to assign each column to either channel A or B, correct ?
    How would I create a video mix where more than 2 video clips are visible at a time ?

  2. The Ohm64 controller has 16 physical knobs. But considering each of the 33 eFX have multiple adjustment parameters, how does one choose or manage or remember the numerous options ?

  3. I tried to map the BrCoSa (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation) to the master track, but I could not get the knobs to affect those properties, and I’m wondering if there are certain settings in the master track that need to be enabled ?

Thank you for any guidance that can be offered !

Marcus

HI Marcus,
Yes, the Ohm64 is a really nice and capable midi controller.
First thing perhaps to try out is to see if there is a working live control surface script for this controller, this gives you a good and direct integration with ableton live (see this video as a starting point)

  1. yes, that is correct what you say. You can have multiple tracks assigned to A or B and if they are both playing you can let them alternate on the beat (if that option of eCrossfade is on). It also possible to mix tracks by simply changing the opacity (by default coupled to volume, but you can decouple it). It is interesting to try out different blend mode settings with eBlend to see how the different layers can interact. Also, you can also combine different videos in one frame with the eTracktransform and other plugins like eCrop and eMask that change the way the video is displayed in the frame (they don’t have to layer full frame on top of eachother).

  2. That is a personal question :wink: I think it is interesting to spend time on assigning macro controls to groups of effects. Hopefully the control surface scripts works together with this is well so that you can select a track with a device on it and then control the 8 macro parameters on that track which can be mapped to a multitude of parameters and ranges. You can also enable groups of effects with buttons for more options.
    Btw, you talk about the 33 eFX, but the biggest thing to explore is perhaps the eFX-ISF and all the shaders that can be found online.

  3. This works fine here, how did you try to do this? Does it work on other tracks? Keep in mind that your midi device first needs to be enabled for ‘remote’ in Ableton’s preferences.

I hope this helps, have fun!

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Hi Marcus,
Timo mentioned downloading shaders for the eFX-ISF plug-in. You’lll find many shaders on the ISF website (https://editor.isf.video). On the OLAV channel on that site (https://editor.isf.video/u/olav) we collected many shaders. It is very easy to download and add them to EboSuite’s ISF folder, so you can use them in the eFX-ISF plug-in. You can read about that in the manual here: eISF – EboSuite
The ISF website has changed since we wrote this article, so some things look a bit different, but it works basically the same.

Thank you Timo and Jeroen for your helpful suggestions !

I’ve been meaning to write to thank you both. I work a full-time job as a chaplain, and have limited amounts of time to play with VJ elements, but the band I work with have a show coming up at the Berklee College of Music in July, so I am very motivated to learn Ableton better and to get my controller situation figured out.

My bandmate Ed Blomquist has been using Ableton Live for 17 years, and yesterday I got to hang out with him and get some good pointers. He drew my attention to a really useful app called touchAble Pro, which is available for iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows, which automatically maps the Live Set to my iPad Pro, to give me full control over all of the eFX parameters that I have loaded for each track :grinning:

So now I can use my Ohm64 controller for launching clips and scenes and utilizing the physical crossfader, etc., but also have touch-screen control for each and every adjustment knob within Live !

I’m very excited to begin loading a variety of ISF shaders now, knowing that I can tweak every setting without running out of physical knobs on my controller(s).

Marcus

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