Confused about saving MIDI mappings (again)
phillipadsmith
United StatesBeta Tester Posts: 89
So, after reading a ton of forum and Facebook posts, and re-reading the thread on templates here, I'm stumped on this seemingly simple thing:
- I create a MIDI mapping for a Kit on Clip 1 (say, for example, volume of each kit row to faders)
- I create a MIDI mapping for a Synth on Clip 2 (say, reverb send to a rotary encoder)
- I save the song with a filename to remember that it's a "template," not a song (which should save the mappings)
I then go into Clip 1 or Clip 2 and change the Kit or Synth preset, and nothing is mapped anymore (for that preset). And when I say nothing, I mean nothing other than the notes -- so, yes, I can still play the new Kit or Synth preset from a MIDI keyboard, but none of the other parameters stay mapped.
In the thread referenced above (and in the FB groups, etc.) I've regularly read that this should be possible (I think?):
@Icoustik said: "Yes, I have lead synth, lead multisample instrument and bass mapped to standardized midi channels, ready to play when loading the template. Easy to open a clip and scroll presets while the midi connection is maintained and the presets can be auditioned with the midi keyboard.
Also, drumkit sounds + other kit samples are mapped to midi pads on its own channel, so I can scroll thru kits while keeping the midi pads connected."
Am I mistaking Clips with internal Kits or internal Synths for MIDI clips that control external gear here?
Long story short, I'm scratching my head about how to simply have some basic parameters like Master Volume and Reverb or Delay Send mapped to my controller, regardless of what Kit or Synth preset I load. Having come at this several different ways now, I'm starting to think it's not currently possible to do this because the parameter mapping appears to be saved with the preset (within the song), whereas the MIDI channel setting seems to get saved with the Clip (within the song).
Any and all help appreciated, as always.
Phillip.
Comments
I think, essentially, you've run into the limitations of the current MIDI implementation on the Deluge. It needs attention. I find the ease at which you can learn and use a controller really good when you're in the flow creating from scratch. If you're working on the idea of creating a MIDI template though it just won't work, as far as I know, because, for example, mapping of a MIDI channel to use an external keyboard is at preset level (Synth) and not at Track level (as it would be in a 'traditional' DAW). So, change the Synth and you lose the mapping, unless the new Synth has been mapped and saved. Having a Master MIDI Channel setting would go a long way to healing the Deluge's MIDI ills. Currently it listens to all channels all the time, which can be flexible but is also hindering people who would like to use the MIDI input in a more traditional way.
CC mappings are saved to the presets/ patches, not the song/ template
While midi notes-stuff like mutes and keyboard mappings are saved to the song and its clips.
When I said "Yes, I have lead synth, lead multisample instrument and bass mapped to standardized midi channels, ready to play when loading the template. Easy to open a clip and scroll presets while the midi connection is maintained and the presets can be auditioned with the midi keyboard...+++"
I was talking about midi notes - not CC's!
~ Distinguished Delugate ᕕ( ◎_◎)ᕗ
Thanks for the input @Icoustik & @neilbaldwin!
Thanks to your comments, I believe I've found a solution to this (for me at least).
Given that the Kits and Synth presets are just XML files, I did a bit of investigation and experimentation and found a work-around.
In a typical song, I'll only use one Kit preset, so I wrote a script to edit all of the Kit XML files to provide MIDI mappings for the Kit rows to volume faders and mutes. I also mapped each Kit row's filter cutoff to a single fader, so I can filter the entire Kit with just one fader.
With that, I can load any Kit and the basics will be mapped already.
For the Synth presets, I'm going to experiment with a few different approaches, but I believe I'll do something similar, e.g., I'll likely only have one bass instrument preset in a song, so I might try mapping all of the bass presets to the one bank of MIDI encoders; I might do the same for Keys presets and so on.
The thinking here is that I can quickly load presets for a drum kit, bass, keys, etc., and they would have key parameters mapped to certain MIDI banks.
Having given this a bit more consideration, I'm kind of coming around to Synthstrom's thinking on this "MIDI mappings are stored with the preset" approach. This way, if you map the parameters that are relevant to that preset once and remember to save the preset, then the mapping will always be there when you load the preset. (Of course this might overlap with mappings in other presets already loaded in the song, but I believe if one was careful per above it would generally work as expected.)
The only parameter where I believe strongly it would be better mapped at the Clip level in a song/template is Volume, along with Mute, and MIDI channel, i.e., it would be great to feel confidant that Clip 2 could be volume adjusted with Fader 2, no matter what preset (or audio) was loaded within that Clip. Fingers crossed for a future firmware update along those lines.
Anyway, just thought I'd share the above. Really appreciate your replies, which sent me in the right direction.
I definitely understand why you'd want faders to be consistent, but the problem is that you might want them to be consistent so many different ways.
Think about the way the "custom" functions work on the gold knobs. You really want these to be patch specific for them to be useful. So in a TB303 patch, for instance, you'd definitely want to map envelope mod amount and distortion. For an organ, you might do vibrato, tremelo, and LFO speed, or something. If you have a limited number of faders, there's no way to set up a one-size-fits-all template. Per-song, per-patch flexibility is awesome.
I like your idea of a standard volume template, and wonder if you couldn't do something clever like that with the XML files, following what you did with the kits? Could you write a script that would do this on a per-song basis? Mapping the volume of the first clip to fader 1, etc? Should be doable. AFAIK, the clips are saved in order. (Someone go check.)
OTOH, mapping parameters to faders is as quick as holding the learn button anyway. If you map 8 faders, it's not going to take more than 20 seconds, and that's a one-time cost per song/setup. Are templates worth the hassle if the by-hand setup is fast anyway?
I'm finding for basic drum Kits, I pretty much always want them to be the same, e.g., one fader per kit part.
I agree with you here -- well, more with the per-patch approach vs. per-song approach -- and yet I believe you're suggesting roughly the same thing that I've suggested: that it might make sense for me to make fairly standard mappings for fairly obvious categories of presents/patches. For example, I have a lot that would fall into the general TB303 category of bass patches, and I'd typically want the same parameters mapped for all of those. I mean, in a sense, Synthstrom agrees because they've pre-mapped those custom functions roughly the same for groups of presets.
This is already fairly easy to do by using a song template that has 8-16 clips loaded with obvious presets. But the challenge here is that it's not Clip volume that's mapped (there is no real concept of a Clip without a Preset/Kit/Audio/Midi loaded into it), it's the volume of the Preset/Kit -- so you'd be mapping Kits/Presets and then the mapping would be gone if you changed them and the new preset didn't already have the same mapping.
Well, that depends -- again, if you assign the volume of Clip 1 to Fader 1 and then change the Preset/Kit that lives in Clip 1, the volume mapping goes away. That's my point. It would be easier to be able to actually map the volume of Clips because -- like mutes and MIDI channel -- it would be sensible for it to stay, even if the other Preset/Kit mappings changed.