Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
By Scott Righteous Sun Nov 15, 2020 6:48 pm
Is there anyway with the MPC Live, to have a program send it's midi to another internal program?

I only today realized that a plan of mine to set up custom note mapping on the MPC won't work because keygroups are unique in that they don't allow you to assign the same note to more than one pad. I hate that they assume someone wouldn't want to do that. Of course, because I want to do that :?

I guess i could set up a midi program with a custom note map, and use a midi cable to route one output to one input, but I'm going to need those physical ports.

This seems like something we should have gotten in the 2.8 update, to allow multis.
But I can't find any options to do this.

I also tried setting up a custom progression, (which you can use with keygroups) where instead of chords I used single notes - this doesn't seem to work either.
By Scott Righteous Sun Nov 15, 2020 9:46 pm
I found the setting to allow a program to output midi to another program. You have to un-hide the midi output section for the program in question.

However I now see that all midi-maps only allow you to use any note number once, it's not just a limit of keygroups. I had some vague memory that this was entirely possible with drum programs, to allow you to re-use sounds without re-loading a sample. Why, oh why would this limit be set. Any midi controller allows you to set the same note number over and over - I mean why not?
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By elstebbano Mon Nov 16, 2020 11:50 am
I don’t really get what you are saying^^Do you mean that, for example you made a melody..In your melody on for example Keygroup program 1 you play a C note 2 times and when you send the Note data to another program 2, it only play that C note one time?
By Scott Righteous Mon Nov 16, 2020 9:06 pm
I should give some background into what I do.

I like to program 8 drum kits in one program, using the 8 banks to switch between them quickly. I usually have some sounds in the MPC and some sounds coming from external gear. A midi program lets you do this.

With this set up, some pads will use the same midi note numbers as other pads (same kick in two kits), but because they are in the same program, the MPC won't let you do this. When a midi note is duplicated for a pad, it nudges one of them to an unused midi note number and then gives me the finger. (unless there is some setting I can turn off?)

Also for live use, I will have ranges of notes that I improvise with. I want to have each bank set with only the notes I want for a given song. 8 banks = 8 songs. As you can see, that won't work - unless I had 8 songs that never used any of the same notes. I could use a different program for each song, but even then I tend to use duplicate notes within one range for a given song - just like progresssions do, but I can't use progressions with single notes it seems.

Akai controllers (from what I remember) don't care, and let you assign the same note number more than once, so you could have a kick on the far left and the same kick on the far right - the mirror method of finger drumming.

If they allowed duplicate midi note numbers (like other gear), users could still 'not' do that if they wanted, but others would have the option to duplicate midi note numbers. My Octapad for example puts the note number in brackets to show you it's not unique. Other gear gives other indications.

At minimum, if Akai thinks the MPC can be the "hub of my midi set-up", they need to allow Midi Programs to do this - as it's a common and useful feature. I see no reason for them to set this creative limitation.
By Scott Righteous Mon Nov 16, 2020 10:35 pm
Actually I will go one further and say that the current implementation is buggy.

On most gear, if I want to select note numbers to trigger sounds from an external midi device, like an Octapad, I select the sound I want to trigger and start hitting the pad I want to map, while scrolling through midi note numbers on the device. When I hear the sound - I know the pad is mapped, I move on to the next one.

On the MPC Live, if you do this, as soon as you scroll past a midi-note number that is already mapped, it moves that other pad to some other midi note number! It constantly screws up your work as you go.

Essentially to select a midi-note number on the MPC Live, you have to select the exact number you want, without making a mistake, and without 'scrolling' through the various note numbers, because doing so will unset all the other pads you had set to note numbers that got scrolled past.

This is a terrible user interface for something so common.