I’d like to use Generic MIDI Learn to set up a few bindings. I have an Akai MPK mini 3 and I’m working on MacOS. I followed the steps. First, I opened Ardour8 → Preferences:
(This is slightly different from the instructions.)
The next step is to Cmd-Middle click on an on-screen element like a fader. I connected a 3-buttoned mouse via USB. Cmd-Middle click would only make the fader jump to the position of the mouse, but Ctrl+Middle click did open the “Operate the control” popup. I moved one of the knobs (it sends CC#002 on channel 1) and the popup disappeared.
I moved the knob, and at first nothing happened. I wiggled the knob quickly all the way up and down. The fader shifted slightly. I moved the knob slowly. The fader seemed to “catch on” at some point, but then as I kept moving the knob, the fader would stop. It looked like as if I was only able to set the fader within a small range. I saved my session, and closed Ardour.
I looked into my sessions .ardour file and I found this:
Many questions come to mind, but the main would be, how does the mapping work for faders? The CC parameter that my MPK is sending varies between 0 and 127. The fader seems to only respond to a fraction of that range (32 to 45), and then it maps this onto a fraction of its own range (-24.6dB to -18.5dB). Is there a way to tune that?
For non-motorized faders, movements that are distant from the current value are ignored, This is so that the value cannot jump.
You have to move the physical fader close to the current value and then Ardour will start to pick up and follow. . You can change the distance using the “Smoothing”. or you could try to check “motorized” to test.
One other thing that may be causing an issue, you seem to be trying to utilize Generic MIDI and a Binding Map at the same time (Your control protocol settings, MIDI Bindings Value seems to indicate utilizing a binding map already written for the AKAI MPKmini). So the issue may be the two things are conflicting with each other, and you might try without the binding map.
Also in your output of the MIDI trace I didn’t see the 00 and 7f values you mentioned?
Thanks for the help; I kind of gave up on this. I wanted to ride channels using a knob as a poor man’s fader. It should be doable in principle. But I sank too much time into this and didn’t get to ride a single track. It was never going to be the end state anyway. I ended up getting a control surface.
Ok, I also have the Akai MPK mini mk3 and somehow I figured out how to use the learn feature.
I just do not know (yet) how to store the settings and I do not know if that’s the
official way, but it works for me.
I connect the mk3, check that it is recognized by Ardour
In Edit → Preferences → Control Surfaces → I select the Generic Midi
Also click on “Show Protocol Settings” and connect the mk3 to Incoming and outgoing MIDI
Now put your mouse on a fader, press CTRL and middle mouse and while pressing move the knob on the AKAI
Now the fader should be controllable with that knob
repeat that for any fader you like
If someone knows an easy way how to store and recall please let me know
And I just found this video which seems to confirm somehow what I did
Nope, I followed the Generic MIDI Learn instructions and that didn’t work. See the first post in the thread, it’s following the instructions and describing where it goes off track.
