Akai MPD24 and Ableton Live 8? Anyone got this working

Performance & Techniques Music Production
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Akai MPD24 and Ableton Live 8? Anyone got this working

I’ve finally found a bit of time to get my head around Ableton, and to try to get my Midi controllers working with it.

The Oxygen 8 was easy to do, but I can’t seem to get the MPD working … I’m currently only using one at a time so it shouldn’t be a device clash.

There seem to be some interned forum rumours of a need to upgrade the MPD24 firmware to 1.10 as there was some strangeness as to the messages being sent out?

A little help?

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I’ve got a MPD24 also, works fine in Logic 8. Works fine in Ableton 8 too.

It’s worked ok when triggering samples via a drum rack.

I’m sure i’ve re-mapped the pads with different note compared to standard unit. (Tried looking for the video, but it’s been a long time since i remapped it.)

Bank A
Pad 1 = note 39, Pad 2 = 40 and so on. Pad 16 = note 51.

Each time it’s +1, it would be easier if i could find the video?

Not sure if this helps?

Cheers

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be shure to set everything to ON in the midi preferences inside ableton…

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I’ve got an MPD 24 and I’m using it under the Live 5 Preset. Also as mentioned in the above posts, check to make sure it’s selected as a controller in the Ableton Midi Prefs dropdown menu and make sure they’re on. If that doesn’t work, you can remap the pads to different notes if that helps using the edit button on your MPD.

I think even with the older firmware it should still work. If I’m not wrong the firmware update solved the bottom transport controls problem which changed them from sending MMC messages to normal MIDI messages (read this somewhere but unfortunately I can’t pull up the link) Good luck!

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Done that - nothing doing. the MPD shows the velocity of the pads hits I’m making, but Ableton doesn’t respond.

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Ahhh, is that what the fix is - it’s been difficult to get a clear view on this.

I’ve picked up an mpd 24 ‘red box’ mapping from the ableton forums.

Meh, I’ll just keep bashing away … I’ll work it out eventually.

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hey there… could you point me in the direction on the red box mapping. Would be a very handy tool as at the moment i am having to colour my mpd’s pads

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If I can find it again I will - I think I just searched the ableton forums for “MPD24” and trawled through the first few pages (I might have also added Live 8 to the search as well)

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OK, firmware updated.

Still no joy on getting any data from the MPD

Could someone write something really really simple to get me started?

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Hmm…ok if my MPD24 wasn’t working i’d probably check:

  1. The USB cable.
  2. The firmware.
  3. The program preset (mine uses Ableton Live 5 preset for default)
  4. The ableton midi preferences to make sure MPD24 is the selected controller and needs to be on “On”
  5. Check to see if the controller is sending midi. (Any kind. Test pads, faders and encoders and not just one or the other.)
  6. See if you’re using the right OS? Maybe you need to update drivers?

Idk if that helps but that’s how I’d look at it.

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  1. USB cable is fine - I use it for my VCI100 and never had a problem.
  2. Firmware is 1.10, I flashed it last night from my wife’s XP machine, as I was having issues with USB midi ports on my Win 7 x64 machine (which I think is the crux of the problem, I just want to be sure everything else I’m doing is correct)
  3. I’ve set it to the Live 5 preset (option 5- right?)
  4. I get 3 MPD24 devices for and the same for out - I set all of them to ‘on’
  5. I don’t seem to get any midi data. When I use my Oxygen 8, the small lights on the track flash on and off when I hit keys/use rotaries. I get nothing with the MPD24
  6. this is my concern …