I’m thinking about getting an Oxygen Pro Mini. This would be my first real MIDI keyboard (aside from my 88-key Casio digital piano), and I would like to know what the setup process for it is like and how I would use it in Ardour.
How do I set up the pads, knobs, and faders?
Do the pads just output MIDI notes on a separate channel? How would I use it with ACE Fluidsynth to play a drum soundfont, or with an AVL drumkit?
For knobs, I’d like to use those primarily with Vital. Can I use Vital’s built-in MIDI learn function, or do I have to go through a slider in Ardour?
Are the faders as easy as “click MIDI learn on a fader in Ardour and move the one on the keyboard”?
How do banks work? If you change banks, does it just act like it’s an entirely different set of controls? If so, does it work like that for all of the pads, knobs, and faders?
I know these are a lot of questions, but I’m new to MIDI controllers. Also, I’m on Fedora 38 using an Ardour I built manually, if that helps.
There is no default midi map for this keyboard, so you can make your own or jump here for more detailed info: M-Audio Oxygen Pro Mini - basic midi map
Put the code into a text editor and save the file with “.map” extension in Ardour config directory / midi_maps. In Linux this would be for example
~/.config/ardour8/midi_maps/M-AUDIO-Oxygen-PRO-MINI.map
It’s been a while since I had an Oxygen88 but if they’re still the same, reading the fricking manual is really worth the hassle. Actually the’re great to be customized to fit the most unlikely demands once you’ve figured out how to reassign CCs. (RTFM, really!). You can re-assign each controller from the standard GM/XG preset it comes with without having to use a computer at all. So if your software and hardware supports MIDI notes and CCs at all it will cooperate. IIRC there’s some editor software coming with it but I never used it.