Akai APC40 and TPro (MISA basic setup)

[misa]

DJ TechTools Community:

I was asked to post my basic setup of the Akai APC40. It should provide a decent starting template for anyone creating their own mappings. I created the tsi file section by section according to the hardware, so it should be fairly easy to figure out how to disable or change commands.

PLEASE NOTE: I use the APC in conjunction with a VCI-100. As such, I didn't map out many basic mixing functions for the APC40.
WARNING: If you try to use this tsi in conjunction with a VCI-100, many MIDI notes and CC values will be repeated and conflict. For things to jive using both, I used MIDI Patchbay (for OS X) to take all MIDI from APC40 channel 1 to channel 10 on Traktor Virtual Input and then output all MIDI from Traktor Virtual Output channel 10 to channel 1 on APC40. I will post that tsi and the directions to create that setup in a future thread.
UPDATE: The problem with the APC40 and the VCI-100 using the same MIDI channel is resolved with the new way TPro 1.2 handles MIDI mappings.

MISA APC40 1.0 TSI OVERVIEW

Every deck on Traktor has 2 columns dedicated to it on the APC. Column 1 and 2 control Deck A. Column 3 and 4 control Deck B. Column 5 and 6 control Deck C. Column 7 and 8 control Deck D. Column 9 has different functionality to be explained later. I will explain column 1 and 2 in detail, but its functionality is repeated for the other 3 decks.

CLIP LAUNCH MATRIX
The first four buttons on each column select HotCues. Buttons 1-4 in Column 1 select HotCues 1-4. Buttons 1-4 in Column 2 select HotCues 5-8. These buttons are lit green [the next 2 columns are lit red, the next 2 are lit green, and the last 2 are lit red]. Button 5 in Column 1 toggles Play/Pause. Button 5 in Column 2 activates/deactivates looping. These two buttons will blink green when a song approaches the end [the next 2 will blink red, the next 2 blink green, the last 2 blink red].

CLIP STOP ROW
There is nothing currently assigned to this row.

TRACK SELECTION ROW
You must press the MASTER button on this row for the mapping to work correctly. This really only affects the DEVICE CONTROL BANK of knobs and buttons, which are currently mapped to control FX2. If you need more controls for EQs and such in your own mapping, this section can easily be exploited.

ACTIVATION ROW
There is nothing currently assigned to this row.

SOLO/CUE ROW
The button in Column 1 turns on FX1 for Deck A. The button in Column 2 turns on FX2 for Deck A.

RECORD ARM ROW
There is nothing currently assigned to this row. I would suggest to leave this row as a placeholder for when TPro update 1.2 comes out and provides 4 banks of effects.

FADER BANK
The fader in Column 1 pans Deck A left to right. There is nothing currently assigned to the fader in Column 2.

SCENE LAUNCH BUTTONS
This column of 5 buttons outputs LEDs showing Master Level. The top button lights when clipping occurs. The lower 4 buttons create something like a VU meter.

CUE LEVEL KNOB
The knob changes the CLOCK MASTER BPM when Tempo Mode is set to Internal. Sensitivity can be adjusted in MIDI mapping to scroll faster through BPM range.

MASTER FADER
The fader changes the Tempo Mode from Man/Auto/Ext/Int. All the way down is Manual. All the way up is Internal.

TRACK CONTROL BANK
The top four knobs select the effects in FX1. Knob 1 selects effect in Advanced Mode. Knob 2 selects Effect 1 in Chained Mode. Knob 3 selects Effect 2 in Chained Mode. Knob 4 selects Effect 3 in Chained Mode.
The lower four knobs correlate to the GUI for both Advanced and Chained mode of FX1.
The buttons correlate to the GUI for the Advanced mode. The SEND A, SEND B, and SEND C buttons correlate to the GUI in the Chained mode.

SHIFT BUTTON
Pressing down the shift button activated MOD1. It also sets Browser View to default.

BANK SELECT
The left arrow loads selected track to Deck A by default/loads selected track to Deck C when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to default.
The right arrow loads selected track to Deck B by default/loads selected track to Deck D when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to default.
The up arrow scrolls up in the browser by default/scrolls up by a page when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to Browser Only.
The down arrow scrolls down in the browser by default/scrolls down by a page when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to Browser Only.

TAP TEMPO BUTTON
Sets MOD2 and MOD3 to 0 value. The potential need for this will be explained in next section.

NUDGE- BUTTON
This button switches FX1 from Advanced to Chained mode. Advanced mode is MOD2 = 0. Chained mode is MOD2 = 1. If for some reason TRACK CONTROL bank appears to not function, this may be due to a desynchronization of MOD2. Simply press NUDGE- until FX1 is in Advanced mode. Then press TAP TEMPO to set MOD2 = 0. This will synchronize the settings and everything will function properly afterwards. It would be wise to set default view of Traktor GUI at startup to have Advanced FX panels.

NUDGE+ BUTTON
This button switches FX2 from Advanced to Chained mode. Advanced mode is MOD3 = 0. Chained mode is MOD3 = 1. If for some reason DEVICE CONTROL bank appears to not function, this may be due to a desynchronization of MOD3. Simply press NUDGE+ until FX2 is in Advanced mode. Then press TAP TEMPO to set MOD3 = 0. This will synchronize the settings and everything will function properly afterwards. It would be wise to set default view of Traktor GUI at startup to have Advanced FX panels.

DEVICE CONTROL BANK
This bank functions to control FX2 in a way identical to how TRACK CONTROL BANK controls FX1.
PLEASE NOTE: For this mapping to function correctly, MASTER must be selected in TRACK SELECTION ROW.

DETAIL VIEW, REC QUANTIZATION, MIDI OVERDUB, METRONOME, PLAY, STOP, and REC BUTTONS
There is nothing currently assigned to these buttons.

CROSSFADER
The crossfader is assigned to the crossfader.

FOOTSWITCH 1 and 2
There is nothing currently assigned to these potential controls.




I hope this tsi proves useful for some people and gets them started on their own personalized mappings. I will be providing tsi files of my own settings including simultaneous use of the Akai APC40 and MPK25, Vestax VCI-100, Korg nanoKontrol and nanoPad, and iPod Touch running TouchOSC in the future.

[jasonking8]

This is great! don't let the lack of reply fool you into thinking your work went unappreciated. I just got my APC40 tonight and I'm timidly starting to tinker with it (still handling it like its made of glass or something). I like some of your ideas but I will for sure tinker with them a bit... I just don't know how to work all the modifiers.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I should be able to assign 2 tasks to the same knob and toggle back and forth right? Like- if I want deck A EQ to be controlled in the top row of the device control knobs, but then I push a button and they become the deck C EQ, I can do that right? And if I can, can I make it so the led gives me the right feedback when I do that? (you know, if deckA low is at 12-o'clock and deckC low is at 3-o'clock, the LED will move from 12 to 3 when I hit that toggle key)

I'd love to know how you learned so much already about Traktor Pro mapping language (which seems to be quite different from Traktor3 language)

Anything would help.

[nachopancho]

excelent!
keep up the good job

[misa]

Thanks guys.

jasonking8:
You can definitely use modifiers to toggle the function of buttons/knobs. There is an article written by Ean which can explain things. Basically, you make two commands. When MOD = 0, turn to 1. When MOD = 1, turn to 0. These are assigned to the same button, so it acts as a toggle between two states. At the moment, I don't think the LEDs will behave like you would like (or how I would like for that matter), but I'll look into it. My instinct says that the LEDs stay in the same place when you toggle and you have to rotate the knob in soft takeover mode to sync up your position. The lower bank of knobs and buttons on the APC40 would work this way when switching through the TRACK SELECTION section, but this is a hardware function.

As far as learning how to make mappings: I spent a lot of time reading through threads, I looked at how other people had made their mappings through the TSI Viewer available from http://www.traktorbible.com/en/traktorprobible.aspx (which won't work with TPRO 1.2 Beta right now), reading through the Visual MIDI Guide from the same website, and then just sitting down and spending time making it. I never used Traktor3, so those differences weren't an issue.

I would suggest printing out the MIDI Commands Reference section of the Visual MIDI Guide and working your way through it as you make a mapping. http://www.djzerowan.eu/tbib/midiguide_en_v2.pdf

Have fun with it. I hope to see some of your work in the future. Keep an eye out for a new APC40 mapping for Traktor 1.2.

[jasonking8]

@Misa: Holy COW!!!! Thank you so much for the link. I had been to that site a couple of times but never got to the PDF of how to use modifiers.
Too bad about the LED's though, it's still nice to have someone to lament with. I do have another question if you don't mind:

I'm mapping the things I want (just single use bottons, nothing fancy, turn stuff on and then off). I've got the top row on the 8x5 grid turning on effects (first 4 are for FXpanel1, second 4 are for FXpanel2). I want the first 4 to be green when off and red when I toggle the effect on. I want the second 4 to be orange when off and red when I toggle the effect on.
I've got the effect I want mapped, now I want to turn the lights on. When I plug this bad boy in, all the lights are off; however, your description leads me to believe that yours lights up like a christmas tree when you plug it in. Can you walk me through or refer me? I know I need to duplicate the command and then change it from a toggle to an output to get the led options page.
Range is min=0 max=1
midiRange is min=0 max=127

When I change midirange min from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 I get different colors and behaviors from the light on the second depress but I CAN'T make any sense of it. I know I'm in the right place I'm just not proficient in the mapping language. Can you guide me at all?

[jasonking8]

wait a minute.... I've got your TSI file on the TSI viewer online. let me see if I can decipher this... (I will post again to perhaps save you the trouble of explaining what I can clearly see)

(30 minutes later)

NOPE, still confused. Do I click "Add>output........????" to turn the light on or do I duplicate the command I already have in there and change it to an output? Any help would be awesome.

I feel like I've done everything that would rule out my own stupidity. I imported your TSI so I could analyze the data entry (which meant ditching my custom layout but no biggie- it was early anyway). Can you just walk me through one or two examples? I want a light to come on at startup (top row, first button) Then I want that button to change color when I toggle that effect on and go back to the original color when I turn the effect off.

[jasonking8]

[jasonking8]

I think I figured this out. Basically, I got the APC40 to work the way I wanted, just not exactly the way I wanted.
For whatever reason, TraktorPro won't let me map a toggle with an output on the 8x5 grid; I could map a toggle command, it just won't send an appropriate "toggle" behavior to the LED. NO big deal because there are still LOADS of functions to be mapped that are trigger or hold. Basically, I took the 40 square grid and made the top row an FX button row (4 for fx1 and 4 for fx2 be they chained or advanced- same buttons work for both without programing any modifiers). This row will not send an LED signal the way I want so I left them off
I took the remaining 48 squares and divided them in to 4 sections (1 for each deck). What I programed was a committed panel for loop/cue move, beatjump, loop in/out, loop activate, cue and monitor. Each deck gets 2 rows of 4 and looks a bit like the advanced window under the waveforms in each deck. FX1 and FX2 controls are in the top right corner (8 knobs) and the bottom right (8 knobs) are saved for FX3 and FX4 (1.2 update?). I reckon the clipstop row will become my buttons for FX 3&4.
I got myself an old XSession Pro left over from Traktor3 so thats my mixer. Even after my future planning for the 1.2 update, I still have 47 buttons, 1 knob and 9 sliders...AND ALL THAT WITHOUT EMPLOYING 1 MODIFIER! I'm sure I'll move it all around again a few times before I get it right but after my initial map I have to give it to the APC40; this dude is a bad little Traktor controller!

[misa]

Even after my future planning for the 1.2 update, I still have 47 buttons, 1 knob and 9 sliders...AND ALL THAT WITHOUT EMPLOYING 1 MODIFIER!

The APC40 is a button/knob beast!

[S4racen]

With Bomes you can set up a preset that does no midi message manipulation, it can purely be used to control the lights on the APC and indeed both the pad behaviour and the updates to the device control lights.....

I've got it so that the pads can cycle through any number of states outputting a different midi message each time....

I don;t use Traktor though so most of what's been written above is in a foreign language to me!

Cheers
D

www.vimeo.com/studiosessions