Hello everyone .
I am about to buy an Electra One . It seems to be the controller i am looking for since a longtime .
I had some few questions that has been answered by Martin but still it remains some .
I am an ableton-akai-push 2 user and uses Clyphx to .
I am making a new live set with Ableton with some vsti and wanted to make templates of those with Electra One .
I understood that it can monitor simultaneously “only” 432 MIDI parameters thru 12 pages . That’s a big limitation if you want to make in one Electra preset all your device templates .Nowaday lot’s of vsti uses lots of parameters . But it seems that you can switch between templates easily and that you can do it with midi messages . Like program change , CC etc.
Then the idea here it to switch between tracks on ableton and the electra one will switch from one preset to another to reflect current controlled vsti on the selected track and monitor the state of Ableton in real time .
Say whe have 5 tracks , Each track have a vsti , repro 5, Diva, Hive , Ob-E and Obsession
say we have all possible parameters exposed for each .
Each vsti have a template on the electra One .
Then, when i switch from a track to another one , the Ableton track send a PC(or a CC) to the Electra one and of course each PC(/CC) correspond to a template .
My question are :
When i switch from one preset to another on the electra one, does the electra one update his midi parameters in real time to reflect the Ableton liveset state or does i need to resend all the midi data from ableton to reflect the state of the vsti that the electra one have to monitor ?
I have an Akai force and each macro are touch sensitive . Each macro are able to behave like a switch . then when i touch it swith on then off . Does Electra one knobs can behave like this to ?
I have actually a more extensive version locally, but I am waiting for a few small firmware adjustments before pushing it out. This version includes a separate mixer track, and (even) more intelligent device preset generation.
Hello jhh!
That seems a great piece of scripting .
I am not a python programmer even if i have some notions.
But i understand the purpose of your script .
Still for now i would like to know more about the behavior of the Electra one in a
common configuration between ableton and a controller ,thru native midi CC assignment pannel of ableton.
simply . suposing i have 2 vsti . each vsti have it’s own electra one preset .
if i switch from one preset to another , does the electra one updates his parameter statue automaticaly to reflect the vsti state ? or does i need to dump the midi information from the vsti to the electra one manually ?
we have one Diva and one Hive both as vsti in ableton and distinctive preset on Electra one .
Diva and hive are on the same liveset in Ableton.
i have on the electra one the “Diva” preset and it monitor and refresh the parameters of the Diva vsti on Ableton.
Then i want to switch to the “Hive” preset on the electra one . Does the Hive preset synchronise his parameters state with ableton Hive Vsti automaticaly to reflect the state of the vsti or does i need to refresh manually(i don’t know how but it suppose it’s possible) the Hive preset parameters to reflect the vsti state ?
That’s an important question for me . as i would need to switch from one preset to another (i plan to have one preset per track) multiple time .
For know i understand that your script automaticaly create or reload a preset on the electra one regarding the selected device .
Regarding my configuration , i already have a push 2 and have already control on selected device.
I need control and feedback on not selected device in fact .
I already do that with the Akai force . I created a template to control important parameters with midi tracks on the akai force. In fact the akai force is really versatile but it had a biiig feedback problem for midi remote controlling things on ableton . I already use a custom midi patch with bome midi translator to limit this feedback problem but it would like to find another solution …Hello Electra One !
Thanks for you answer !
I would expect that if you map the controls in your two presets to two distinct VSTs in Live using the ‘manual’ native Live MIDI mapping process, that both presets keep their controls synchronised to whatever happens to the devices the control in Live. I unfortunately cannot check this for real for you now, as I have no access to my Electra One at the moment.
Thanks !
yes i would expect that to . But as i don’t know how the Electra one behave when you switch presets…
It seems that presets are like if you change the whole program of the Electra one . I am asking just if, when i switch from one preset to another, the electra one send midi messages to ableton to receive and update all the parameters presets regarding the ableton live set or something like this to be in sync without the need manually do that .
With 72 presets each with 12 pages of 432 parameters , i really have enough parameters to control my whole ableton live session !! . I am just waiting a clear answer about the syncing so that i will not be desapointed when if i buy the Electra One.
In fact , appart from that the akai force is really powerfull “portable” DAW, i was really disapointed to see the whole mess regarding the midi feedback problem with ableton. And i bought the akai force primilarly for controlling midi CC . A big customisable controller for live with knobs and visual feedback.
…The electra one is this answer i think so far .
I spent some hours to look on the forum to find the answer . I found lots of information about midi scripting, lua etc … i just need a basic feature in fact , without the need of scripting
Then could you keep me in touch if you have the time to test it ?
Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer to jhh
Hello ! @jhh : Did you have the time to test the Electra One behavior when changing presets with ableton live ? Or if someone could be kind enough to make this simple test ?
Thanks !
Have all a nice day !
Hi, I checked, and I think we have bug @Martin ! When switching away from a preset, and then switching back to it, apparently all controls are reset to their default value (or 0 when no default given)! This is not what you expect.
@martin So Abbes scenario (two presets controlling two different devices simultaneously, keeping their state in sync does not work because as soon as you switch to the other preset, it gets initialised to default.
well, not really a bug. When presets are changed, they load with the “default” values, as they were set in the editor.
I was hopping that Ableton will resend all CCs when plugins are swicthed. It seems it does not. Saving a state is a way. I will think about that. Snapshots could be used for that.
Ableton (or rather the remote script) does that when the selected plugin in Ableton changes. What happens here though is that the visible preset on the E1 is changed (and Ableton doesn’t normally see that). Does the E1 send a SysEx when the visible preset changes on the E1? Then I could try to catch that.
Doesn’t solve Abbas use case though where MIDI is ‘manually’ mapped without a remote script
Live knows 1 selected device. When this is switched, it sends all params and values which are exposed or mapped to the remote script device.
There is also the concept of a “locked device”, but I have not implemented that in the past.
Thank you for your test @jhh !
Unfortunatly it seems that the Electra One does not resync their parameters with the vsti exposed parameters when switching presets if i understand correctly ?
On the contrary , If i understand Martin ,When loading a preset on the Electra One it set all the Electra value to a “default” one? Is that correct ? Does it send them to ableton then or does it ‘just’ set them without sending nothing to Ableton ? In the first situation it’s not usable for what i want to do as it would set “default” value to the vsti when i would need the opposite : Receive the vsti current value to reflect the Ableton state.
I have a bcf2000 and i used it a lot wih Ableton . I used it with custom CC configuration not in MCU mode . One could say that it can be compared . When i switched on the BCF2000 or changed program bank it’s like loading a new preset on the electra . The bcf2000, then, synchronised all it’s parameters (faders, knobs) with the Ableton exposed and mapped parameters . Then i suppose that in a way or another the bcf2000 requested them ? i didn’t use scripts , i just used the native midi mapping CC of ableton .
I will plug it again to analyse the midi messages and see what is sent and received between the BCF2000 and ableton .
Thanks again to both !
Hello ! Then i reconnected my BCF2000 and began to analyse how does it behave with Ableton .
What i found was surprising .
Then , the config : BCF2000-Bome midi(for analyse midi in and out)-Ableton .
everything bidirectionaly analysed .
Then i discovered that when switching BCF2000 presets it does not retain parameters .
I tried with the left fader on preset 1 . Assigned it to ableton . midi CC 72 .
Then fader assigned to volume fader on an audio track on ableton .
All synced . Then the fader on BCF2000 reflect the fader on Ableton .
Then i switch the bcf2000 to preset 2, move the fader 1 on BCF2000 (that have another CC that is not assigned to nothing ) and return to the preset 1 . The Fader does not sync to Ableton .
Ok . BUT
When i switch off then on the BCF and the fader 1 is in the wrong position , it sync with Ableton fader postion ! but without sending nor reveiving any midi CC . Then somewhere in the midi driver memory the BCF2000 go to find the current parameter value of all the parameters to sync with ableton . Thing that it does not do when switching program .
And it has nothing to do with ableton as they does not send nor receive parameters at all when doing this .
i Tried multiple time with different Fader value on ableton . And it works flawesly . Then i suppose it’s possible to make the electra one sync with all parameters not depending the daw but just with the generic midi driver .
I am on Windows 10 , i suppose it behave the same way with apple ?
Does what i found can help ?
What does the BCF2000 do with the midi drivers when the device is switched on that it does not do when the presets are switched ?
would it be possible to test the Electra one with the same configuration to see if it behave the same way ?
When it is switched on , does it sync it’s parameters with the current midi memory ?
If no , what can be done to do that ?
if yes ? Why it does not sync again when switching presets ?
Does my questions relevant ?
Have a nice day
. I am just waiting a clear answer about the syncing so that i will not be desapointed when if i buy the Electra One.
