Akai APC40 Traktor 2 - THE APC40 mapping! 4 deck (2 sample)

Akai APC40 Traktor 2 - THE APC40 mapping! 4 deck (2 sample)

Hi Guys!

Got my APC40 the other day spent some time mapping it to traktor instead of playing around with it in Ableton:stuck_out_tongue:

This is I daresay the most comprehensive mapping as of yet, or will be once I have finished it!
This IS a beta, I call it 0.8. (because 24 buttons are not mapped)
There however to my knowledge no bugs!

Windows users watch out, you need the send monitor state fix… if it’s not fixed:confused:

Anyway here you go!
I’ll upload a demo vid of it once it’s finished.
Until that time, feel free to study the ā€œmanualā€ (Oh yes!) and try it out:wink:

(soz the zip file is 2.9mb and the uploader failed, used dropbox instead)

http://db.tt/FYI2YGz

Download if you find out you need the manual as well.

The tsi only is attached to the post

Just got my APC40 a couple of hours ago and I already love your mapping! This is definitly the one I will be using (actually I already do :slight_smile:. Until now I have only 3 little things to add:

  • Led feedback on master button would be nice (to see if x-fader is in dry/wet or x-fader position)
  • According to your manual ā€œDevice On/Offā€ button is for parameter 1, but it’s for parameter 2, same for the other buttons to activate parameters, they do not what they should as written in the manual. And I don’t see what the reset button is for, but maybe that’s just me :slight_smile:
  • I’m on a windows machine, until now the only problem I have is when scrolling fast through the FX bank I can here something like a growl. I haven’t tried the Send Monitor State Fix yet since when going through slowly there’s almost no trouble. Anyway if somone is looking for a fix, the only thing I found is here: http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showpost.php?p=167327&postcount=69

Thanks for your nice work, can’t way for the final release :slight_smile:

EDIT:

  1. Tried the Send Monitor State Fix, it’s quite a hazzle to make it working on win 7 and it didn’t help. But I think it’s easy to live with that almost unhearable growling (see above).
  2. The gain + fader for deck C & D isn’t working properly (see not much use for it anyway :smiley:)
  3. EQ-knobs are not easy to get used to for me, is there a way to make them more responsive?
  4. Otherwise it’s so much fun, I love it :slight_smile:

Thanks for feedback

Hi bcuz,

and grats on your APC40!

I have encountered a heap of bugs since I uploaded, it seems a lot of the bugs show up after you release stuff. Anyways it wasn’t final.
If you want I have a fixed .tsi that is to say it contains a lot of changes.

To reply to your feedback,

Un-fixed.
the parameter buttons, I assume was the only fault with the fx? (apart from the strange noise?)…
I do not have that problem, I will look over the manual and see if I wrote anything mistakenly. If not you can easily map them by open up the controller manager and looking sort after control name, then look for the effect parameter buttons, on/off and parameter reset.

Fixed.
I have fixed the EQ. I have only a slight unwanted thing at start-up now (that the Deck B knobs start in a -50 (1) position… while Deck A starts at 0 (63)

I have mapped the master buttons functions to the master fader instead. I found it tedious to push a button which was far away from the x fader etc. Besides you can suffice with sliding the master fader 51% and it hits 1.

Found issues
I have thought without proving that relative faders are bull unless you have something that resets it properly when loading a new tsi on to a pre-configured Traktor. That is f.ex. the Gain and Filter faders for the sample decks are not faulty. In fact it is your configuration when loading the tsi that makes them faulty.

To fix this simply have the APC40 fader 4 and 5 slid all the way down then do the same thing manually in traktor with the gain and filter. Since both faders are mapped relative they will start of where you left them and go from 0-127…Which is a problem. I’ll upload a video explaining all this when I am finished with the mapping.

Currently I am implementing effect combos. Any ideas on good combos are very welcome! There will be three main combos as well as 5 or 6 extra mapped effects/Mini combos… (as much as i can do with 2 modifiers)

Ps. Bcuz the master button should have feedback. I checked the version I uploaded and it does work. In any case you can fix it by looking up modifier 5 not mapped to d7 but G#5 or something. Make a modifier 5 out mapping with parameters 0 - 1 top 0 - 1 bottom:stuck_out_tongue:

Hey Subconcussion

Thanks for your response! I see now how much work you put in this the last couple of days: the LED ring of the filter for deck b wasn’t working (Send Monitor State to cc.063 was missing) and I tried to fix it myself. It took me about 1.5 hours! Ok, this is my first MIDI-controller and I have to learn a lot about MIDI-mapping, but it seems to me that mapping an apc40 to tp2 is a mess! I somehow had to restart traktor twice until it would work (after the first restart the leds were working, but all the knobs didnt work anymore at all, only after another restart of traktor everything was fine). Is this maybe a windows thing? Or am I missing a trick?

The changes you’ve already made sound really good. I would love to test the latest version, but I only have spare time tomorrow evening. So if you would like me to test your latest update, you could upload it then.

Managed to fix the master button. In the version I downloaded the modifier 5 parameters for G#5 were 1 - 1 top 0 - 1 bottom. Changed it to 0 - 1 top 0 - 1 bottom and there was light :slight_smile:

For the parameter buttons on the FX unit: FX param reset on A#3 was assigned to Fx Unit 3 instead of 2. I didn’t mess around with the other buttons (I might just didn’t understand the single fx well :wink: ).

Looking forward to test your latest version (and since I learned some basics in the last hours I hope I’ll be a better help :slight_smile:…

By the way, I think I would like to have the hotcue buttons not lighted for the empty slots. But that’s a personal thing and I’ll figure out how to do it when I got more time.

Another thing you might be interested too is: when a hotcue is a loop and looping is not activated, the hotcue button works as normal cue point. Would be nice if looping would be activated when using a hotcue loop.

Again…

Thanks again for feedback.

Yes there was a lot of first things for me too when mapping this controller.

I seem to have forgotten some bugs.
Indeed you were right I had forgotten to remap fx3 after I decided to go for only the two right ones. And, it seems mac handles LED signals different. I found out I could virtually delete all the send state OUT to all buttons but one at it would still work with all buttons… must be some bug in traktor. At least when deleting the mapping and importing it again it didnt seem to remember the send states anymore and I had to map all of them. Indeed at that time I forgot c63:stuck_out_tongue: anyway I have done the whole EQ setup differently as the OUT messages messes up the in messages, on a mac at least, when mapped to the same knob. Thus Akai has one in and one out for each knob… since they’re not notes I mean.

A trick is to just switch the input output ports of the mapping whenever you want to reset leds… In a sense. I find that when looking at other mappings I usually have to restart the Akai itself to reset the led lights properly.

I only restart traktor to check how the whole clean slate LED output.

That said I’ll upload the current tsi tomorrow as I am too very busy with other parts of life:stuck_out_tongue:

On your requests.
I am aware that the hotcue triggers are not entirely ideal.
And as long as they dont take up a whole modifier to fix, then I will certainly find a fix at some point.
As for the LEDs not lighting up if empty just change the Hotcue State Outs. They are currently 0-1 , 5-6. just replace the 5 with a 0 and you should have that fixed.

Edit: regarding the loop system it seems I will get rid of two buttons in the Deck interface I am most certainly going to use one of them as a switch, but the second one might end up being either a re-trigger, activate or deck focus button:wink: We’ll see what’s most useful.

Edit 2:

I appended the tsi today.
There is some fixes like the EQ, Single FX etc. I recommend starting Traktor with all faders 0ed.

Also in the build is the MF instant grat. beatmasher combo on Deck A only.
The buttons are the first for Activation buttons (no LED feedback)
Also the first solo/cue and Record Arm buttons function as Lo-fi and T3 delay respectively.

Finally the x-fader, single fx select lock is now the ā€˜Master Fader’.

Enjoy:slight_smile: And tell me of any bugs you find!

Thanks for uploading the new version this is really getting a great map!

The new EQ mapping works great, love it!

Also I like the change in the single FX section, only ā€œDry/Wet Singleā€ on CC19 is missing in this version. I’m not so sure yet if I like the master faders function, what are you planing for the master button?

The Beatmasher FX-Combo is great too, but there are two problems: first the Transpose Strech effect is loaded in FX Unit 2, I think would be better if loaded in Unit 3 and second would it be nice, if Transpose Strech would turn off on button release. Now I have to move the Dry/Wet knob on FX unit 1 to get out of the effect. EDIT: just realized that it works well on deck A (yeah, you have written that, should read more careful :slight_smile:)

I guess that’s it for now, I’ll add it here if I find other problems…

EDIT: I upload a version of your mapping in which the FX-combo on activator 1-4 button is fully working on both decks. The changes are:

  • load Transponse Strech in Unit 3
  • activate FX Unit 1 and 3 on decks A and B
  • the Transponse Strech effect turns off now when releasing one of the four buttons. The fix was to add a hold button: ā€œEffect 1 onā€ in FX Unit 3 under condition M5=4

Beside that the only change to your version is that I assigned ā€œDry/Wet Singleā€ on CC19

Wow, great you take things in your own hands too! Maybe we will have many great mappings out of this.
The best thing is when you can change a mapping during a set for full flexibility, I wish there was a simple way to do that however.

Anyhow. I don’t know what happened to the single fx knob… I must have deleted it by accident or something (curse the small window and tedious mapping in Traktor).

Besides that, yes I have my reasons for both the fader and the fx 3 unit usage.
The fx select should reset the panel to single fx.

The reason for using fx unit 3 is that I will duplicate the combo possibilities one for each deck. and then have a switch for deck 3-4. In other words you can do different combos on both deck a and b at the same time. Same goes for Deck C and D

Which leads me on to my plan for the master button which will switch all the functions of EQ knobs fx knobs to filter volume and eq control over the sample deck, as well as change the combos to work on deck C and D.

It will take hours to make and that’s why from today on I will try out Xtreme Mapping… cheap program anyway, to see if it makes working conditions easier

I think the nice thing about Traktor is that you can map almost everything and since everybody has different ideas about the best mapping I’m pretty sure I will end up with an individualized version of your mapping (which of course I will share later). My dilemma now is, that I have a DJ-set in a week. Of course I want to use the controller and even though it will be not such a disaster if some things go wrong (if you have a DJ who only plays for a couple of beers you can’t have high expectations :slight_smile:) I need some practice before. Therefore I don’t have enough time to find my perfect setting yet. If only the Cotroller Manager wouldn’t be so ridiculously dumb. I totally understand that you try it with Xtreme, I guess I would do the same if I was on a Mac.

I’m a bit confused of your talking about the fx 3 unit usage in the case of the combo, because in the last version you uploaded Transponse Strech was mapped to fx 2 unit and I changed it to unit 3. But anyway, I somehow get the idea on what you are planing and it sounds great. But in any case I think the fix for the ā€œbrokenā€ hold button on the Transponse Strech effect in the combo (by adding a second ā€œEffect 1 onā€ under condition M5=4) keeps interesting for you too.

EDIT: Traktors Controller Manager makes me so angry!! Why can’t they add really simple features like bigger window, filtering, color highlighting, learning for out entries? Even copy/paste and assigning multiple functions to one button can’t be such a big deal to integrate. So why don’t they do it? Probably because they want that people get frustrated and give up and finally think it’s easier to buy a NI-controller… (that’s probably said a thousand times, just had to let it out somewhere and I feel better now :slight_smile:)

Found a little thing: ā€œDeck Focus Selectā€ on Ch3 and Ch7 G3 is in your last version a ā€œHoldā€ button, probably should be ā€œDirectā€

Hey bcuz

Good luck on your gig!
I totally understand your concern! But worry not!
I believe I will have the major part of the mapping down by Monday! I’ve got the whole week-end for myself and am hyped on getting this done! Xtreme mapping is working wonders! I am just slow with figuring what to do with the combos.
At least I will have the combos down by monday and I’ll see what work I can get done on the sample deck side.
On the other hand I’ll tell you why I chose the fx2 fx4 for third and fourth effects.
fx2 works as a chain with extra effects since loading an effect and turning it on at the same time with one button is not possible in traktor one has to preload the effect then turn it on, in that case combos become hard when you are working with more than three effects.
My layout is:

FX unit 1 = Instant effects Deck A (& C)

FX unit 3 = Instant effects Deck B (& D)
(The reason is I’d like to do different instant effects on both decks simultaneously, e.g. Deck A is running a beatmasher combo while I phase Deck B out with a loong reverb delay freeze. Of course this sounds really pompous, but who cares! I wanna do it.)

FX unit 2 = extra finisher chain effects (transports, reverbs, MHD/peak filter)

FX unit 4 = Delay (echo)

I am thus contemplating making FX Unit 2 into a permanent chain where one loads 1 2 3 via a simple shift mechanism…

thus you can control the parameters of fx 2 and 3 while performing combos! How sweet! :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway I’ll have another version up by tomorrow some time so you’ll see better what I mean:wink:

That sounds great! Believe me I looked at other APC40 TP2 projects for hours but not one of them felt like it comes as close to my needs as your mapping. I just wish I could somehow help you with all the boring work. But since there is no easy way to compare or even merge to different tsi files (an other easy thing to do if they wouldn’t encrypt… no, I will not start again) it’s not really possible to share work (if you can think of a way I could contribute, just tell me). But anyway, I’m looking forward to beta-test your next version…

Well, it is possible to merge tsi files, they can work in combo inside traktor, but even better the Xtreme Mapping app can copy paste whole tsi files into another.:smiley:
If you want to help then there is the sample filter/volume and EQ that should be mapped to Modifier 3-1. It will be the last feature I add to the mapping as it is the last one on my list of things I want:stuck_out_tongue:
That said if you can do it then it would be of great help.
I thought about layering it so that volumes EQ/filter go in the top row knobs, and the FX 3 is deck C and FX 4 is deck B or some intelligent way to switch between the two… Also the whole combo system on/off would work with deck C and D and not A/B but that’s something I would have to fix later when I finish the combos
Also all faders 1-8 might work as volume controls or that one makes these the fx knobs instead… I dunno.
Need soft takeover in case of the faders… which I really dont like…

Anyway everything mapped to modifier state 3-1 which would be the master button.
Thats how it is in my head now anyway…

I attached a doc with my the only sane overview I have:stuck_out_tongue:

These are great news! I don’t have enough time today (Archive concert is calling) but tomorrow I will map EQ/Filter of deck C and D to M3=1 on the TRACK CONTROL knobs. Also I’ll map the volume of each slot to the faders Ch1-8 on M3=1 (it would be a nice feature to unmute them by turning up the volume, but I’m not sure how good this will work when the fader is not on 0 when getting into M3=1, I’ll just try it). Also I’m thinking about mapping the filter of each slot to the DEVICE CONTROL knobs, what do you think about that?

If you think that sounds like a plan I will do this tomorrow in a tsi file for it self so that you can easy copy paste everything to your mapping…

Very nice! It sounds great! Once you finish it I’ll go over it and add it to my current mapping, troubleshoot etc.

I have attached my current version… not at all much change in this one… There might be broken stuff Although I haven’t noticed any… I spent hours pondering over what effects to put where etc.
Anyway Deck A has all the effects. Tomorrow I’ll map Mirror deck B and add some final touches to the effect on/off&Loop buttons… My head is a mess today:stuck_out_tongue: Too much modifier here and there work.

You’ll soon figure out how the fx is mapped since they should change when you press.

On another note I cam over some interesting stuff on saving and loading fx states.. Sounds like it could very well be implemented into this mapping… Although I won’t start that journey before I see myself finished with my first.

Ok, I found an hour today to do the job :slight_smile: Here is what I got so far:

  1. Filter Amount for each slot on the knobs of the DEVICE CONTROL
  2. Filter on/off for each slot on the 8 buttons below these knobs
  3. Volume for each slot on the faders Ch1-8. I tried to map mute/unmute to the fader but I did not manage to make it work nicely. The best I got was mute/unmute when volume is at 50% but I thought that’s not good enough.
  4. EQ for deck C and D (same as for A and B)

Of course everything on condition M3=1 and with working LEDs. I think everything should work fine, but have a look yourself. I hope this was a help for you and if you got something else I could do, just tell me…

Couldn’t test you latest map yet but I’m sure it’s great :slight_smile: Test it tomorrow, now I’m off for the concert…

Hi!
Thanks so much!
This will indeed be an awesome mapping.
I am gonna check it later after some groceries.
Enjoy the concert!

Hey. Two little things: In Special_xmap.tsi the Dry/Wet knobs on CC.019 and CC.023 are gone and the Deck Focus Select on Ch3 and Ch7 G3 are Hold buttons, Direct would somehow make more sense…

Hi bcuz!

Yes I am aware that the Dry/wet is gone… In the new version their back again as well as fx panel two having become a chained panel with select being cc 19 when holding down clip/track, device on/off…

I don’t have much time to explain, I am off to work in 5 min.
But I’ll upload the mapping anyway and you can have a go at it. Combos work but not flawlessly for all decks. Your mapping is implemented though some LED work is needed for it to update correctly.
I wish I had time to fix a lot of it this morning… but I prioritized a nice breakfast instead:stuck_out_tongue:

When I get back home I’ll fiddle with the last tweaks then there’s only troubleshooting left. And Ideas for a revised version as I have made two really obivous finds…
Fx Panels and split mappings allowing for more modifiers… infinite number actually… duh!

Anyway play around, and tell me what you find .

PS. the deck focus will be made direct, I find it slightly annyoing myself. I’ll fix it when I get home.

Great, I will test it tonight and report what I find!

I actually was thinking about splitting tsis too, not because of having more modifiers (which of course is a great reason, it just didn’t cross my mind that this would be the consquence and I’m still not sure how in theory it could be an infinite number) but because it’s much easier to handle small maps in the controller manager and on top of that it could make the mapping somehow modular, what means people could share mappings only for parts of the controller and then simply switch between different mappings of for example the DEVICE CONTROL. Or splitted by modifiers, though I’m not quite sure how that would work…

Yeah so in theory you could map any one button to any one modifier in several different maps… which means if you want to have a super modifier then you can. Just map the button to modifier 1-8 in each map and assign different functions to each modifier in each map… and you would basically have a button which did almost everything.
I am thinking about splitting up the mapping into one for the main decks, one for the samples, and one for the fx. But, it would be at a later stage as I have just found some other modifier tricks which will leave me open with maybe 2 available modifiers…:stuck_out_tongue:

That said I am currently testing the mapping and trying to fix the LED updates for the deck switching and it just doesn’t seem to work flawlessly (maybe with a split mapping it will, maybe not.)

Else I have discovered and fixed many bugs… more than I can remember… But find any bugs tell me and I’ll double check if I have fixed them or not!

After troubleshooting a bit, I am going to implement the last part of the mapping (the loop), and also remove control over fx unit 1 and 2’s on off messages. They are controlled by the combo buttons anyway and reset by pushing the master button… so no need to control it.

EDIT: Going to sleep now.
Finished almost the whole mapping… again LEDs are a pain!
Anyway I have an awesome (possibly not good for the LEDs) beat phase mapping on the effect buttons.. since they didn’t wanna function normally.

Only thing remaining now is the full loop functionality. And that will be done tomorrow after work:wink:
I am really hyped on just finishing this so I can use it once and for all!
The Apc looks really cool now btw especially when playing both decks!

Damn, the beat phase mapping IS awsome!!! I thought that it could be a pain to map the LEDs with all this modifiers but this is a GREAT solution!

Here some little bugs I found:

  • It seems like you managed to adjust the LEDs when changing modifier 3 on the FX section, but it’s still not working on EQ knobs (couldn’t find out how you did it)
  • FX 1-4 on/off buttons behave very strange now (because of modifier confusion I guess)
  • T3 Delay doesn’t turn off when releasing the buttons in the third (red) combo on both decks

Features I’m thinking of to add to my personalized version:

  • Layout / Only Browser Toggle on by twisting CC47 M2=0

  • Layout / Only Browser Toggle off by pushing Ch1 C7 (load selected)
    → already tried it, works great and it’s a great help on my not that huge laptop

  • Getting rid of the VU-Meter and placing the loop buttons there (Device Target, 1,2,4,8,16, with a modifier (no idea which one until now) setting them on 1/32,1/16,1/8,1/4,1/2)

  • Using the after that empty four buttons on each deck for:
    a) Deck Select C and D (this is somehow needed since EQ Kill buttons are ā€œDevice Targetā€, EDIT: just saw now that you put the EQ kills on M3=0, if there would be a Deck Select for all 4 Decks I think that’s not needed)
    b) Loop active
    c) Loop in (Pich Bend?)
    d) Loop out (Pich Bend?)
    → Not sure about all this. Since, at least as I understood, you are planing to implement the looping differently I wait to see what your plans are

  • moving some buttons around (Play/Pause, Cue, Sync, Shift/Deck select in the top row seems more ā€œnaturalā€ to me)

  • adding one or more Super FX-Faders

  • adding Volume Fader for C and D and a Tempo Fader (Device Target)

Since I will implement at least the FX-Faders anyway in my custom mapping I already made a little map. The only things it does is:

  • Ch8 Fx-Fader of HarryHope
  • Ch7 Fx-Fader of ArmyOfMe (I tried to set an echo freeze effect at the end of this, but it doesn’t work as it should, maybe it can be done better by using different settings, but I’m too tired now)
  • Ch6 Fx-Fader of an MFPro mapping

I uploaded it just in case you are interested in something like this too. And I think that’s it for now. Greetings from Switzerland…