Hiya,
Just got the new Akai AMX and also the AFX am well pleased with them, They are what i have been after for a long time. I bought the behringer CMD stuff last year and was most disappointed with the quality and the support and to be honest it was my own fault because i said years ago i wouldn’t buy anything from them ever again.
Anyways, the akai stuff is in a different league, only one little niggle and one quite big one. The little niggle, well they are all plastic but i suppose you cant expect anything else these days, But owning Vestax gear spoils you a little bit.
Now to the big niggle and thats Serato DJ, Yes i knew it was a serato controller but i thought what the hell i’ll have to adapt and it did come as standard. Well i still much prefer Traktor and i’m begging for one of you Traktor genius’s to make some tsi’s then i would be really, really over the moon. So who’s up for it? touch sensitive knobs, touch strip, velocity sensitive pads.What a challenge, i would do it myself but im rubbish at it beyond just altering existing tsi’s to suit myself.So there you are whats the chances? they are selling well so should be plenty of people interested.
I owned one AMX for a week.
In general it’s a good controller.
I need more buttons, so I decided to sell it.
Anyway, my idea was to use it with Traktor, so, if you want I could try to help you with Traktor mapping.
@LIz4rd,
Thanks, that would be cool,i agree that the AMX by itself is a little lacking in buttons thats why i got the AFX as well(Xmas pressie to me from me) if you need any info like midi info etc just ask and i will find it.
+1, I have two AFXs and an AMX. Awesome hardware, pity Serato DJ doesn’t have a prelisten function. I was going to return them and wait for a mapping/feature update to Serato but I live in Australia and our dollar has gone to shit so am thinking about hanging onto them. I would pay for DJTT to do a mapping as I think they would be better than my S4 MK1 with a good mapping.
Nice work Stewe, I have made a few changes to your mapping:
Hi, mid & low pass filters set to hold for touch. I tried to do the same for the filter sweep but it is too easy to accidentally leave it turned off when going out of touch mode.
Set the deck LED meter to bounce in time with the beat phase meter.
I haven’t hooked up headphones yet to test the cue issue you mentioned.
Actually the mapping is not mine - I’ve just recently found it at Maps site and thought to share with you guys.
[QUOTE]- Hi, mid & low pass filters set to hold for touch. I tried to do the same for the filter sweep but it is too easy to accidentally leave it turned off when going out of touch mode.
Set the deck LED meter to bounce in time with the beat phase meter.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for feedback. What about other functionality? Any functionality missing or broken?
I believe that was mentioned by someone else. I don’t see why would that be a Traktor issue except if the PLF buttons are hard coded in Serato so they don’t send any MIDI to other software.
I only did some preliminary testing last night. I have been busy creating an AFX mapping, this is my first mapping so learning as I go. It is surprisingly simple but very time consuming.
I spent way too much time trying to get the touch strip working with very poor results. It would be good if I could get the LEDs on the touch strip to light up to show how far the track is through but I have no idea how to interrogate the MIDI functions at that level.
Do people step through every function until they find the right one or is there a better way?
The cue buttons do act a little strange pressing one turns the other off. To listen to both tracks you need to press both cue buttons at the same time. Not a big deal.
The cross fader reverse switch does not work as expected. It turns all routing of audio to the decks to off when switched on and when you switch it back it stays that way. I don’t need this function so I will think up something else for it. Maybe switch the AMX into track prep mode.
The browse knob does not have pre-listen mapped. I will work on that tomorrow.
It is unfortunate that there doesn’t seem to be a way to get the touch strip to work as this setup would compete with the S8 minus the screens of course.
I have read reviews from people stating that the AMX does not have enough output power. I think it is insane what it is capable of, I am running one AMX and two AFXs off one passive USB hub hooked up to a 2013 Macbook Air. The LEDS are ridiculously bright, the headphone output is more than enough and the main output is very loud plugged directly into my foldback (Yamaha DXR12) via a RCA to TRS cable. When I hook it up to my Behringer XENYX Q502USB mixing desk it will be plenty loud through my front of house speakers.
Perhaps the USB port other reviewers are running it off is underpowered or they are plugging it into crap gear.
Pluses over Traktor S4 MK1
Half the size - all three can be packed sideways in a medium pelican case with plenty of room for a small mixing desk, cables, headphones, microphone and cables.
Better filter options (the capacitive knobs in touch mode are great)
More powerful LEDs & more saturated colours on the velocity pads on the AFX
Velocity pads feel much nicer on the AFX
No power pack required (all run off passive USB hub)
More intuitive effects interface on the AFX - control six effects per deck without toggling any switches.
Capacitive touch knobs add a new element to effects on the AFX
I have spent the last two nights working out all the LED colours:
Colour
Midi Dull
Midi Medium
Midi Bright
Midi Lighter
OFF
White
42
63
Off White
41
White Blue
21
26
Red
16
32
48
Orange
36
52
56
Peach
37
57
53
58
Light Yellow
61
62
Yellow
40
60
Lime
020?
24
44
Pale Green
45
Green
4
8
12
28
Turquoise
13
29
Blue Green
9
46
Light Cyan
25
14
30
Cyan
6
7
11
Pale Blue
22
23
27
47
Baby Blue
5
Blue
1
2
3
Purple Blue
19
Violet
35
Light Violet
39
43
Purple
18
Pink Purple
17
34
55
Magenta
33
50
51
Light Pink
38
59
Pink
54
Pink Red
49
There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to how they are ordered. Perhaps if I looked at their values in HEX or binary they would make more sense. The final column is the same brightness as the column next to it but it is whiter/lighter.
I am still a long way off from creating a mapping but this might help someone who wants to play.
Cheers for your great input.
I’ve read the manual but I couldn’t find anything about MIDI map characters to start one from scratch… But if ether you or somebody else in this Forum community is willing to chip in for an AFX then would be very glad to provide a good solid Traktor mapping based on Serato mapping work flow VS some other ideas and feedback.
Sounds like it’s a firmware thing. Pressing a button sends a note ON message for the first button plus the note OFF for the second button. This is useful feature when you’re having a good monitoring and you don’t really have to be switching to your headphone mix very often. I use the same principal for fx routing to decks in my mappings to faster my flow.
[QUOTE]It is unfortunate that there doesn’t seem to be a way to get the touch strip to work as this setup would compete with the S8 minus the screens of course.
[/QUOTE]
What is the command that you had already tried to map to the strip? Note that if your touch strip works in absolute mode (same as the standard Knob 0-127) than the "Deck Common>Jog Turn" wouldn’t work.
I updated my last post with a table of all the LED colours instead of a screenshot.
I tied to map it to Seek Position, it works but it doesn’t matter where you touch the strip or what direction you swipe in; it always jumps backwards an amount based on the sensitivity.
I would like to map the seek bar LEDs to show how far the track has played through, how do I find out what Channel that is on?
And I can’t work out the MIDI channels for the 7 segment display. Is there software out there to batch send MIDI commands so I can narrow it down?
I have done further investigation of the touch strip by using Snoize MIDI Monitor. It is sending lots of “Breath Control (course)” data.
If I apply enough pressure to the touch strip I can get it to output each of its 127 states as I drag my finger across its surface.
Pretty cool but it doesn’t bode well as I can’t see anything about “Breath Control” on these forums.
Update - I have everything working now - touch strip, seek position touch strip LEDs, 7 segment display, capacitive touch effect knobs, etc. I ended up sifting through each CC# until I saw the output change.
One interesting “feature” is that switching decks changes almost all the MIDI commands, I am not sure if this is standard practice (this is my first go at mapping) but it is going to be quite time consuming setting up the other three decks. Therefore a mapping worth sharing is at least another week or two away.
If I can get my hands on one I will let you know.