Hi, I am using my pyramid with ableton until I can afford to purchase some sort of sound module.
I am using a cheap little usb midi device so that I don’t have to scroll to the end every time I want a usb track to work with ableton.
I’ve been able to get transport to stop with the pyramid, but I can’t seem to figure out what set of options will allow me to start lives transport with the pyramid play button… Technically I imagine this is feasible somehow… Though… it may not be implementable with this hardware… I can accept that if somebody can tell me exactly why this is not possible… But the pyramid seems to be sending out some sort of midi message when hitting the play button so I’m not sure why this isn’t mappable…
Honestly… if I could somehow map the play button in live to the play button on my pyramid that would be great… because for some reason live will stop with a hardware press, button not start.
First, you need to configure Ableton Live to have clock/transport slaved to pyramid.
Preferences -> midi , select pyramid midi input , click ‘sync’
Hit EXT on ableton toolbar to use external clock.
On pyramid, go to midi output options ensure usb send clock and transport are both on.
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This method assumes I want Live as a slave to the Pyramid.
I actually figured out which set of options would make it so I could press play in live and my Pyramid would start with Live’s transport… and shortly after that realized that trying to figure out how to make it also stop with Live’s transport was a dumb idea simply because of the kind of device it is.
Thank you for trying though.
yes, because its usually the master that controls the transport…
(doesn’t really make any sense to do it any other way)
i guess - to make play start the ableton as master would mean it would have to ‘ignore’ the press on the play button (and stop?) , and then wait for the transport play to come from ableton - but really pyramid is not designed to be a ‘midi controller’ like this.
Well, the dev team is discussing it so we’ll see…
I’m not sure I could parse your second paragraph… It’s… not ignoring the play button and then stopping… it would be starting it’s own sequencer… playing… at the same time it’s starting the thing it’s getting it’s clock source from. Eventually, one thing is going to come first… clock signal… at which time it should sync itself… which if it’s getting bpm data from live it should already be near…
To summarize… I’m pretty sure this is entirely possible because there are already devices that can start lives transport on the market… No, I don’t know if this is absolutely feasible with the pyramid… But the dev member that responded didn’t say it was functionally impossible…
Yes… the master… would be controlling the transport… because the only thing being done would be to have the pyramid play button midi mapped to the play button in Live… I.E. hitting the play button would start live AND the master track… but like I said earlier… this is also just a matter of the workflow clicking… It matters less to me that the transport in live doesn’t move than it did when I first bought the device… I still need the transport moving for things like effects syncing up…
but the more I use the pyramid the more I find that I have to leave software sequencer modalities behind… the pyramid will play… whether or not lives transport moves… and that’s a good thing.
I can relate, see Exercises in absurdity, or ... M-Audio Code controller for the long version.
I don’t have any experience with Ableton, dead or alive, but “the others” are likely using MMC or Mackie to control its transport, whereas the Pyramid only talks MIDI Clock which is a rather different species as it’s transport and sync integrated. Which is why generally the device sending “MIDI Play” needs to be the clock master as well.
The Pyramid can’t talk MMC but Mackie transport is just Note on messages which it obviously can. The Pyramid play button can’t be remapped, but you could create a “Mackie” instrument definition which maps the Pyramid pads to Mackie transport control notes (for example, C pad = Play, D pad = stop etc). Which is not the same thing, but would allow you to control Ableton transport from Pyramid while keeping Ableton the clock master.
Yes, I suppose I could… but it sort of defeats the purpose of having a button with a silkscreened play/pause mapped to play/pause in Ableton.
I think I will eventually figure out a good compromise… What I think I will do once I find a decent hub is just remap my X1 MK2 to transport. It has 2 buttons that say play and I was meaning to eventually hook it back up again as it also has a nice CC control strip.
But, on the subject of remapping individual notes or smartpads… no… this is precisely why I also have a MF twister, MF 3D, and an old launchpad… Mappable thingies I have a plenty… It’s just important to whittle things down… the Midi fighters, the X1 and the pyramid should be more than enough to handle anything I could possibly throw at it.
I’d delve in to the possibility of creating a Live Control Surface Script, but yeah… at the moment I’m not sure there’s really anything to hook it in to on the pyramid side.
Just to clarify, mapping a Pyramid smartpad to Mackie that way would not be a global thing but only a specific control track. So yeah it’s cumbersome, way more so than a dedicated play button, but possible.
Very much know the feeling - dedicated transport controls are nice … if you can use it. I’m in the same boat more or less, impatiently waiting for ages for my MidiHub to arrive (should be close now, but sigh…) to be able to map things to my liking.
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