Control Surface customisation

[vinno]

Hi there,
I've been using an Akai MPD226 for a while as essentially just a drum pad and I thought I'd try and use it as a proper control surface. However, in trying to set it up to use the sliders and knobs, I've found two issues that I have not been able to figure out on my own.

Issue One
There are four instances of the device in the MIDI Keyboard and Controllers settings page:

Screenshot 2024-01-07 at 3.55.12 pm.png (46.98 KiB) Viewed 11625 times

There are two more instances of the device below these labelled 3 and 4 but the dialogue box isn't resizable.

I have the other three instances of the device disabled, but I don't know if that will affect its operation. So far it seems to work correctly.
I assume that these duplicates either relate to the Pad Bank control on the surface itself, or possibly the In Port option when editing the device:

Screenshot 2024-01-07 at 3.57.05 pm.png (24.47 KiB) Viewed 11625 times

I'm using USB and not the MIDI output on the device, so I would guess that I should be using one of the other three outputs. However, I don't know which I should be using and if they make any difference.


Issue Two
The way the control surface is automatically mapped in Reason is not useful to me, but I can't work out a way to map it in a way that makes sense.

Specifically: If I have an Audio Track selected, the controls will default to the Mix Channel fader, pan knob, EQ, things of that nature. This is great and would be perfect, except that if I select an Instrument Track the controls all map to controls on the instrument device, like Filter Freq and ADSR sliders.

I cannot work out a way to keep the controls on the MPD "locked" to a target track's Mix Channel, instead of switching onto the instrument itself. I can't use Override Mapping because that locks the control to a specific track's control, rather than the target track (so if I mapped it to Track 1's level, then started working on Track 2, it would continue to control Track 1).

I had a look at the remotemap file but I don't believe that's what I'm looking for.


So to summarise: Do the multiple instances of the MPD226 in the settings matter? Does the output I have set for the MPD226 matter? And finally, is there a way to tell a control surface "control this thing for the targeted track, not a specific track?"

Thank you for indulging my very long first time question.

[Stamatz]

Im' no expert but what if you used it as a master controller? Will the controls work when you move to another track?

[vinno]

The problem isn't that the controls don't follow the targeted track, it's that the controls change what they operate based on the type of track targeted. It boils down to that if it's an Audio Track they control the Mix Channel, and if it's an Instrument Track they control the rack device.

[vinno]

Okay, I did a bit of fiddling and it looks like the four devices do correspond to the four outputs that the MPD226 is claiming to have. It's unclear what the Port B and Remote outputs are as Reason only seems to recognise inputs on Port A, but regardless that seems to resolve Issue One as far as I'm concerned.

[mcatalao]

Issue one seems to be the same as my BCR2000, where it loads 2 interfaces at the same time. Ignore the interfaces 2 to 4 and begone. The only thing you must do is to be sure the additional interfaces are disabled on the easy midi inputs if there's a chance they start sending data at the same time.

For the second part of your question, this is due to the way reason works between the mixer and the devices.
Reason has a channel device and the device itself. On the case of audio channels there's only one thing, wich is the audio track channel. For groups thats pretty much the same, you have the group channel mixer device.

But to "navigate" all these, you need to have the device channel track on the sequencer, and if you put your context on a device the context of the surface changes, unless you slave the surface to the mixer, but for that the surface uses the remote of the full mixer.

So, what i usually do is i have a little preparation when i start mixing, i usually make sure every channel has a sequenc er track even if it is a midi device, and then i set up my favorite order. I'm afraid there's not much more you can do because this is the behaviour of the software.

[selig]

For one of my controllers I had to go to Surface Locking (Options Menu) and select the surface you want to use, the lock it to the Master Section from the popup. I saved that configuration as my startup song so I don't have to do that for every new project.

[vinno]

So, what i usually do is i have a little preparation when i start mixing, i usually make sure every channel has a sequenc er track even if it is a midi device, and then i set up my favorite order. I'm afraid there's not much more you can do because this is the behaviour of the software.

This makes sense, even if it's an annoying workaround.

For one of my controllers I had to go to Surface Locking (Options Menu) and select the surface you want to use, the lock it to the Master Section from the popup. I saved that configuration as my startup song so I don't have to do that for every new project.

So I thought about doing this originally, but I wrote it off because that would prevent me from using the drum pads because they'd be locked to the Master Section instead of the device I'm using. However, I had a think about it and if I edit the MPD preset to send the pad signals on Port B, I can treat them as seperate devices in Reason and have them follow the master keyboard. So the issues were related in a way

The way the pad is mapped to the Master Section is wonky, but I can probably fix that in the remotemap file.

Thanks for the idea.

[jam-s]

In case mapping to port B does not work:

You should check what exact midi messages the controller is sending using some kind of midi monitoring software and having a good look into the midi implementation chart in the manual of the controller.

In case the drum pads can be or are configured to send on another midi channel, then the "midi aware codec" could be of help so that those pads can be setup as an individual controller and then they could be used as the "master keyboard" while the knobs could be locked to the mixer.

[vinno]

Mapping to Port B did work, but thanks for the advice. Akai natively allows you to send signals on two channels so by just editing the preset I can send the signals to two different rack devices.

Locking the MPD to the Master Section works but it’s still a bit of a hack. Ultimately I think I’m stymied from working the way I’d like because of by the issue mcatalao described. What can you do.

[mcatalao]

Mapping to Port B did work, but thanks for the advice. Akai natively allows you to send signals on two channels so by just editing the preset I can send the signals to two different rack devices.

Locking the MPD to the Master Section works but it’s still a bit of a hack. Ultimately I think I’m stymied from working the way I’d like because of by the issue mcatalao described. What can you do.

I have a hack for my setup, with autohotkey, where make a selection based on the soloed channel on the mixer. I always work with 3 screens separated. So if i'm mixing i solo a channel, then with some mouse fiddling with ahk's img scan check for a soloed channel, i can select the track with the soloed channel on the rack. If then i want to go to the device, i just have to press up in the left mixer (sequencer navigation) and i have the device. But it's fiddly. To be honest i don't know if i lost more time coding ahk to do that and if i gained that time streamlining my mixing workflow.

If youre interested in this kind of stuff check these 2 videos: