Midi mapping q-links?

Bought an Akai MIDIMIX today, mainly because it was so cheap and I really wanted some physical sliders/faders to use when mixing. I generally mix within the MPC DAW but sometimes in Logic Pro X.

Now, the MIDIMIX is billed as working with virtually any DAW, although comes bundled with the traditional Ableton Live Lite

Loaded up the Ableton demo and everything works fine. The LED lights on the MIDIMIX come on, sliders work and so on.

Then on to Logic Pro X. Here it was fiddly as it didn't recognise the device, but you can just about map the sliders, but have more problems with the track mute/solo/rec buttons and the LED lights don't seem to work.

Onto the MPC. In order to get the mix sliders mapped, I would need to map the Q-Links to the MIDIMIX sliders. I can see the CC number in the midi mapping thing on the MPC, but entering these values onto the MIDIMIX have zero effect. I can map buttons to pads but can't get the Q-Link functionality for mix faders.

This is annoying because Akai make both the MIDIMIX and the MPC software, so why on earth can there not be some compatibility between the two. It's pathetic that a company would build two things that cannot talk to each other in this day and age.

Unless, of course, I am missing something or doing something wrong. Any ideas?

Nope it's locked to the Studio, Ren, and Mpc Touch only. It's time to open it up to real midi mapping.

http://community.akaipro.com/akai_profe ... -360-knobs

lol, so basically Akai should say it "works with virtually any DAW, but most certainly NOT with the DAW we ourselves create"

Mink wrote:lol, so basically Akai should say it "works with virtually any DAW, but most certainly NOT with the DAW we ourselves create"

Its really silly that the MPD 218 comes with MPC essentials and you can't even use the mpd qlinks with with the program.

Yeah, the Ren is a closed midi cc system. It would be great if I could set up a 2nd controller to control a bunch of features I want to automate rather than having to click back to a particular view so I can use the qlinks.

This is a feature I would love to see happen as it would be a performance game changer.

Im not sure what you mean by a closed midi cc system, but there is "midi mode." Theres an Akai video controlling Ableton with the Ren.

Im not for mapping every control to a knob, that way is too clumsy, I prefer the Yamaha/Steinberg AI technology. Point the mouse and it gets assigned. Mouse in your right hand controller on your left.

dustymaestro wrote:Im not sure what you mean by a closed midi cc system, but there is "midi mode." Theres an Akai video controlling Ableton with the Ren.

Im not for mapping every control to a knob, that way is too clumsy, I prefer the Yamaha/Steinberg AI technology. Point the mouse and it gets assigned. Mouse in your right hand controller on your left.

We are talking about assigning midi in the MPC SOFTWARE not using the Ren, Studio, Touch in Midi mode.

So the MPDs now come with MPC essentials but the qlinks can't control the software qlinks.

I can understand Akai wanting to keep the MPC software associated with the MPC hardware only.

But I think they are missing a trick by making other hardware controllers (not necessarily pad-based controllers) that don't work with the software. They could make a standard set of faders for example (like the midimix) which could control the faders in the MPC mixing, or even a separate set of mappable q-links that could be an extension to the existing ones on the Ren, or for Studio users who would like to upgrade to extend the number of physical q-links etc

I wouldn't mind if they locked it down so only Akai products worked. But right now, they don't....and worse still, Akai are not up-front about this in their marketing for other devices, leading to assumptions like the one I made.

There's some dude on here who bought an expensive controller (Seaboard or Riseboard or something like that for close to 1000 bucks) and I didn't have the heart to tell him the thing is useless with the Ren or Studio. It'll work right out the box with his DAW and any Hardware gear but not the Akai stuff.

Hopefully Akai see sense and free this thing up because for live performing it's very, very, very important.

I have a Roli Seaboard Rise, got it for cheap. It sends poly pressure messages. The MPC software doesn't except poly pressure but it works as a standard keyboard controller. There are work arounds, I haven't got a chance to try it out yet, I haven't mastered the MPC Software program yet to try it. Basically, its going to use more than one track.

Maybe you know something I don't, why doesn't it work?

Equator vst works with the Touch, I had a go with it earlier. Your tempting me to pull out the Rise out of storage though.

How well does it work with the MPC software? Can you map a vst, say Hybrid, to have the Rise do all the fancy manipulations seen in the demo videos?

Nubian Mindz wrote:How well does it work with the MPC software? Can you map a vst, say Hybrid, to have the Rise do all the fancy manipulations seen in the demo videos?

I haven't tried it yet.

As a happy Touch user, I don't mind saying that I'd appreciate the ability to use a 3rd-party controller to have the full array of Q-Links that the Touch lacks. I love Turnado as an FX plugin, but I'm stuck pressing the Q-Link select button to access all 8 FX parameter knobs.