Device Details

Device Overview

Name/Version: MIDIccTWEAK mr 0.01
Author: synthesizerwriter  
Description: MIDIccTweak, as the name suggests, is a MIDI CC messages (Control Change or Continuous Controller) processor. I wrote it to process the outputs from the DJ Tech Tools amazing MIDI Fighter 3D, but it can be used on just about any source of CC messages. It is particularly useful when you have multiple channels of CC data to play with…

For finger drumming applications, where you place the MIDI Fighter 3D on a surface and tap the buttons, then tilting the box along one of the edges feel very natural, and the box has rounded rubber feet that make this very easy to accomplish. But if you pick up the MIDI Fighter 3D, then you can tilt it in any direction, and so having the edges as the reference points doesn't make much sense. Also, you can tilt it either way because there isn't any surface getting in the way. There isn't a 'free space' mode, although there is a mode where you can also detect rotation, but that requires you to press a button each time you want to know what the orientation of the MIDI Fighter 3D is...

So, I wrote a little utility, in MaxForLive, that takes the CC messages, and processes them so that when you hold it in your hands instead of being on a surface, then it combines the 4 controller messages (CC0, 1, 2, and 3) so that they are combined into just a pair of messages where you can go from vertical, through horizontal and back to vertical again with a single continuous clock-wise (or anti-clockwise) movement, and the result is a 'Composite' controller message that goes from o to 127 (with a small 'dead zone' as it goes through horizontal). This works for left and right, as well as forward and backwards, so you get two composite controllers.

The 'inverse' composite controllers are also output from the Utility, so you get pairs of CC messages that go from 0-127, and 127-0, simultaneously, depending on how much you have tilted the MIDI Fighter 3D away from the horizontal. Not only does this feel 'right' when you hold it in your hands, but it allows you to control two different parameters as if the MIDI Fighter 3D was a cross-fader - but one that works in two dimensions instead of just one.

This MaxForLive Utility, MIDIccTWEAK, will work with any source of CC messages, and provides offset and gain control, plus inversion for the basic CC messages, then the paired 'composite' controllers, and finally paired 'composite' controllers using the 'other' pairing - for this application, it uses position sensors at 90 degrees to each other, instead of being on opposite sides of the MIDI Fighter 3D. That's 12 mappable outputs from the four CC sources.

Setup

The far left hand side has three light purple boxes that control the CC numbers. Just click and drag the mouse, or put the cursor in the box and use the up/down keys to increment or decrement tha value. When you have set the values, then the values from those Controller numbers should appear to the right of the CC number selector boxes, and the graphs should show a rolling time plot of the values.

There are then three processing sections. The next one to the left has A B C D labels for the four controller channels, and is a basic CC processor. You can Invert the value with the ‘Normal/Invert’ button, add an Offset, or adjust the Gain. These controls allow the most common linear transformations of the controller values. There are four ‘Map’ buttons which allow you to assign these controller values to any parameter inside Ableton Live (and a ‘X’ box that clears the assignment). The four white numbers on the right of this section show the values for each controller.

The next section, the middle one in this left to right tour, is specifically designed for the DJ Tech Tools MIDI Fighter 3D controller. This time, there are only two controls: Normal/Invert buttons for the A and C channels, as well as the B and D channels. On a MIDI Fighter 3D, CC0 and CC2 are the horizontal tilt values, so if you assign CC0 to A, CC1 to B, CC2 to C, and CC3 two D, then the A+C output is processed so that you can move the controller from side to side, and the value will be a 0-127 value as you rotate the MIDI Fighter through 180 degrees - 90 degrees either way from horizontal. B+D works the same, but for forward and backward tilting. There are four output values, show in white for positive mixes, and light purple for negative mixes, and separate Map buttons to assign the composite control values to any parameter in Ableton Live. The ‘Normal/Invert’ button work on the pairs of controllers in this section.

The final section in this left to right tour is the one of the far right. This is exactly the same as the middle section, except that it mixes A and B, as well as C and C, so different pairings of controllers.

I have used MIDIccTWEAK to provide a single 0-127 controller as I tilt the MIDI Fighter from left to right - this sounds good on filter cutoff frequency in the AutoFilter, for example. If you use this to control volume, then using the inverted version on the light purple output gives you a cross fader - but a cross fader that can work in two dimensions! I’m sure there are lots of other uses for the processing inside MIDIccTWEAK…






 

Device Details

Downloads: 68
Tags utility, other, hardware, dj
Live Version Used: 10.1.30
Max Version Used: 8.1.11
Date Added: Jun 05 2022 20:30:51
Date Last Updated: Not updated yet
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Device Type: midi_device
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License (more info): None

Device Files

Device File: MIDIccTWEAK_mr_0v01.amxd
 


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