Midi Controller Setup

Hello everyone,

I’m new to Ardour, and I’m attempting to get it set up on my small project studio at home. I’m running a G5 iMac, with Leopard installed. My interface is an Alesis io|14, and I have an old Event EzBus used as a midi controller, and additional inputs if I need it. My interfaces are connecting just fine, and I’m able to get audio in from everything I need. The problem that I’m having is I can’t seem to find where to get the EzBus to control Ardour. The controls on it are basic play, stop, rewind, fast forward, record, and there are 8 midi faders that can be programmed to control up to 32 channels.

I’m coming from a Logic setup where I could go into the controller setup, and program all of my controls just the way I want them, in Ardour I can’t seem to find anything like that, so I’m wondering if there is a way to program controls, or what it is that I need to do in order to get my midi controller to control Ardour.

Thanks in advance, I apologize if this is in the wrong forum, or if similar questions have been asked already.

@jballard: its not well documented. a quick summary.

  1. if a device uses MMC, ardour can respond to it (Options -> Sync -> Use MMC) (and control it (Options -> Sync -> Send MMC)
  2. if a device sends MIDI SPP, then ardour will respond to it
  3. there are NO default bindings of MIDI continuous controller messages in Ardour. We prefer to think that users will want to set things up for themselves, save the setup as a template and use it over and over that way.
  4. you can bind any fader, panner, transport control button, rec/solo/mute button or plugin parameter to any MIDI continuous controller. To do so, after getting MIDI connections set up correctly, you first enable Generic MIDI control (Options -> Control Surfaces -> Generic MIDI). Then Ctrl-middle-click on the GUI element. A small popup will appear if things are working to say “Operate controller now”. Move the MIDI surface device. Done.

There are complications with all of this, but that’s the basics. For actual help, you should really get on IRC (see http://ardour.org/support). If you want to help document this, please get involved with the manual project.

Thanks Paul, I really appreciate that, I should have some time to really play around with it late tonight, so I’ll see what I can figure out. If I need help I’ll jump on IRC. If there is any way I can help document this for the next guy in my shoes I’m all for it! Thanks again!