Sneak Peek - Introducing Maxwell - A software laser synth (analogish)

[daderaide]

I had another MIDI questionif anyone out there knows the answer. Is there a way to select the MIDI input source? I'm playing around with some MIDI automation with some different sequencer/DAW apps and can easily use the built in macOS MIDI Studio to create a virtual MIDI bus that the audio program is sending it's output to, but when I play the prerecorded MIDI data Maxwell doesn't respond to it. Here is what I am hoping to do in a bit more detail.

I would like to pre-record MIDI CC data from my controller that is hooked to Maxwell while I listen to a song and twiddle knobs along with the music. Once that data is recorded into a DAW program like Logic, Ableton, Reaper, etc and synced with that song, I would like to play it back while having the MIDI data fed into Maxwell and controlling the laser.

I have everything working up until the point where I try to play back what I have recorded. Maxwell doesn't see the IAC Driver Bus as the MIDI input, it still only sees my controller. Is there a way to change the MIDI input device? Thanks!!

[daderaide]

Oh, I noticed also that in Logic and Reaper I have two options the came up automatically in the midi devices sections called "to Maxwell 1" and "to Maxwell 2". In Reaper, in the MIDI hardware setting I also have options for "from Maxwell 1" and "from Maxwell 2"

This is in addition to the IAC Driver Bus that I had previously set up. It seems like I should use one of these, but I'm not sure what settings to use. and it doesn't seem to work with those inputs either.

[BlueFang]

I had another MIDI questionif anyone out there knows the answer. Is there a way to select the MIDI input source? I'm playing around with some MIDI automation with some different sequencer/DAW apps and can easily use the built in macOS MIDI Studio to create a virtual MIDI bus that the audio program is sending it's output to, but when I play the prerecorded MIDI data Maxwell doesn't respond to it. Here is what I am hoping to do in a bit more detail.

I would like to pre-record MIDI CC data from my controller that is hooked to Maxwell while I listen to a song and twiddle knobs along with the music. Once that data is recorded into a DAW program like Logic, Ableton, Reaper, etc and synced with that song, I would like to play it back while having the MIDI data fed into Maxwell and controlling the laser.

I have everything working up until the point where I try to play back what I have recorded. Maxwell doesn't see the IAC Driver Bus as the MIDI input, it still only sees my controller. Is there a way to change the MIDI input device? Thanks!!

Well I can tell you why it is not working as you intended...

When you "assign" a MIDI event to a control in Maxwell, it assigns the name of the device plus the MIDI CC number as the source of that assignment. And it will then only control that parameter when it receives a value from that specific device.

So when you are recording MIDI data to your DAW, it is recording the MIDI data by CC number - and not by name of device. Then when you play back this data into Maxwell, it is not matching because when playing back from a DAW, the device name is not going to be the same as what was used to assign a device in Maxwell. I hope that makes sense.

There is a work-around you can try:

1) For each parameter you want to automate in Maxwell, record a simple automation change in your DAW - and then turn on MIDI learn and do the normal steps for Maxwell to "learn" a MIDI controller, i.e., select the parameter you want to assign to that automation (the parameter will either turn pink if no current assignments or green if there are already assignments) - and then play back the automation track in your DAW. This will "teach" Maxwell to look for automation from that device (your DAW) and that specific MIDI CC number.

You will have to do this for each parameter you want to control through automation - but only once.

As alternative, if you want to get hands on with the saved controller assignment files, you can edit the midimap.json file in ~/Library/Application Support/Maxwell and change the name of the MIDI controller used when you recorded the automation in your DAW, to whatever the name of the MIDI device is that is output from your DAW - but I would try the former method first.

[BlueFang]

Ok, I just went through the exercise of getting this to work.

Here is a video to show it working:

MIDI CC automation was recorded into Ableton Live and played back into Maxwell to control a parameter.

Ableton Live recorded MIDI Automation sent to Maxwell





Pretty much have to do as I explained above - though if you have live monitoring turned on and the MIDI To: of that channel set to "to Max 1" - you can assign MIDI CCs to Maxwell before recording them - and then when you playback the recorded MIDI CCs in your DAW, it should just work - it did for me..


P.S. Let me know if this does or does not make sense - as there can be quite a few "gotchas" in getting it to work as I found out - but it heavily depends on what DAW you are using to record the automation data - in Ableton, in order to get Ableton to recognize MIDI CC as actual MIDI CC, I had to turn off (disable) my APC40 as a Live Control Surface (Preferences->MIDI->Control Surface table select NONE for Input & Output of the APC40 row) - then in MIDI Ports, for the APC-40 I had to make sure the APC40 Input port has Track ON, Sync OFF, Remote OFF - and the Output to Max 1 Track ON. Then I was able to record standard MIDI CC into Ableton Live instead of having Live interpreting the APC-40 as native Ableton Controller.

This is pretty cool stuff - as it opens up a HUGE possibility for recording, editing and synchronizing full performances.

[norty303]

Do you have much control over the midi implementation in Max?
It seems the ability to ignore the device name (maybe with a button/switch) might make it 'safer' whilst being able to be more flexible when required.

[daderaide]

ok, I got it working. It is definitely really cool. I'm excited to really dig into this now that I have it mostly set up. I have Logic Pro and Reaper but Logic doesn't give you easy access to CC data in the piano roll or hyper editor. It's just a little too complex for this particular purpose so i downloaded Reaper because they have a 60 day full version free trial. The ableton demo that you recorded looks great! I only have ableton lite though. Haven't tried it with that. I also considered trying it with fruity loops. Anyway, back on topic.

Reaper sends out a bunch of extra pitch wheel 0's and control 0's at the beginning of each track which gave me a bit of hassle at first, but if you set playback to loop, it only sends those messages the first time around. So for each of my control knobs, I recorded a little clip of me turning the knob and then set it on a loop. went to maxwell and selected the knob i wanted in the midi learn. then, when i turn off midi learn and play the little clip, it works!! :-)

so I just went through each knob and set them all that way (it took a while). I also noticed that I can easily assign two different controllers to the same adjustment in Maxwell, so I just went through afterwards and did a second midi learn run through with my control surface. So now, I have the DAW set to recieve input from the control surface as well as Maxwell and I can record and control the laser at the same time, and then play it all back. Exactly what I wanted! Thanks!

[BlueFang]

Do you have much control over the midi implementation in Max?
It seems the ability to ignore the device name (maybe with a button/switch) might make it 'safer' whilst being able to be more flexible when required.

I absolutely do - the feature of matching a device name and MIDI CC # input to a parameter was actually quite a large development process (and is one part of Maxwell that is Open Source!)- but if you don't do that, then it would be impossible to support multiple MIDI devices controlling Maxwell at the same time - or to be more clear - it would mean that you would have to partition out MIDI CC numbers between MIDI devices. And well, most of the time these days this is simply not possible. For example, on Akai APC instruments, the MIDI CC numbers are hard-coded to different knobs - and can't be changed.

In this case, having a mapping of device name + MIDI CC # and channel is way more flexible than merging all MIDI controllers as a single unit. Though your idea of having a "switch" to disable device names would be quite doable - it would just need a use-case that makes it worth the effort.

The use-case daderaide came up with is totally doable without having to ignore device name.

[BlueFang]

The ableton demo that you recorded looks great! I only have ableton lite though. Haven't tried it with that. I also considered trying it with fruity loops. Anyway, back on topic.

Logic Pro is my usual DAW - my goto comfy blanket... But I have been trying to learn Ableton Live more and it just so happened was the DAW that I had open to try this out. I don't think there are any restrictions with the Lite version that would restrict your ability to do this in Ableton Live Lite. The other versions just add more Ableton software instruments, more audio tracks, and more send/return tracks - none of which are needed for recording MIDI. Lite should be perfectly usable - but getting your head around the "Ableton way" of doing things takes a bit of effort.

[dkumpula]

We're doing a show just after New Year where Maxwell will be featuring as the core visual content for the night. We will be using 2 sacred geometry style backdrops as the projection canvas. Should be interesting and I'm having fun with phasing in Maxwell

This sounds great, Norty. I hope you'll take and post some video and pics for us. I've been searching through 'sacred geometry' art for months now and been dutifully copying / adapting them for use with glow in the dark art.

-David

[norty303]

Hmm, maybe I'm a bit old school with my midi then. I tend to naturally partition out my controllers, comes from 90's music production I guess. In nearly emailed you about being able to allocate specific channels per control but thought I'd sent enough emails already