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Question re: mapping midi messages to controls in AUM
I'm wondering if there is some way to automate the setup of mapping midi messages to AU controls in AUM. I understand it's easy to do manually via the "MIDI Controls" panel that pops up and lists each of the controllable parameters. But is there some way to automate create of these mappings, so that it doesn't have to be done manually?
The use case I'm thinking of is one with multiple-instances of a monosynth, each of which operates on a different channel. I want each of them to have identical mappings in the Midi Controls panel, except for the MIDI channel that they're responding to. E.g., I might have four instances, one each on channels 1 thru 4. I want them all to have the same control mappings, except that I want each to respond only to messages on its own channel. Do I have to set this up manually? Or does AUM have some facility for creating and/or editing these mappings, presumably via midi sent to AUM from something like Mozaic?
Comments
I’ve been thinking about this and did a brief test of one method on my phone last night and think it will work. Set up the MIDI controls for one instance and save it as an AUM project. Now you can append that project to any project and your mappings will be intact. All you’ll need is something to change the channel to the channel you’ve set the commands to. Drambo, Mozaic and MIDI Tools are solutions I can think of off the top of my head.
As I said, I haven’t tested this fully but I think it should work. I’m planning to use this method to set up templates for all my plugins so mappings will be ready to go as and when I need them.
Yep, some sort of interstitial router like Mozaic seems the only way to do this currently.
@j_liljedahl would it be possible to set midi controls on a track to “current track channel” or even “Omni”? With that, you could save a track preset all mapped to your controller, load it up into any project, set the track’s overall MIDI channel, rinse, repeat, rejoice. Or at least that’s how I’m imagining it. I’m assuming I’m missing something big though. As per most user “ideas”.
Thanks. I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting, but it doesn't seem to include any automation of the editing of AUM's midi message mappings to controls. I think you may be pointing to a different sort of solution to my problem, which would also be appreciated.
I'm wondering if you're suggesting to actually make every synth instance respond on the same channel, say Channel 2 (even though the notes for each are coming in on, say, Channels 2 thru 5, respectively). That way each instance could use the identical preset (including the same message mappings). And then use Mozaic to filter the incoming messages on, say, Channels 3 thru 5 and reroute them all to Channel 2, feeding each synth instance as appropriate. It seems like this method might work, but that it would require one Mozaic instance for each synth instance (except for the first, the "actual" channel 2). Because if Mozaic is re-routing everything to Channel 2 you need to specify separate Mozaic instances as midi inputs, with each Mozaic instance filtering down and forwarding a different channel (3 thru 5) to channel 2.
Yes, it seems like an 'omni' setting for midi message mapping to controls would fix this problem for me. I would then control the midi input to each instance so that only the messages I wanted were making it in.
I think the fact that a given track can have multiple AUs attached to it (along with internal items) might be a complicating factor here.
Yeah it’s far from perfect and I haven’t got into the specifics yet but it’s the best I’ve come up with as yet.
Ahh. You mean that with multiple AUs in a track you could potentially have message mapping conflicts if they accepted an 'omni' channel? Yes, but still having the option of 'omni' would be useful for a use case like mine, and would not prevent explicitly specifying channel inputs (as required now) if you wanted.
I've been fooling around with this and I don't think it can be made to work. It is possible to create separate instances of a synth on different tracks, and have them set up to all use the same channel, e.g., Channel 2. And it is possible to feed them with notes from different midi input sources, since the midi source is not part of an instance's preset.
A problem arises, however, if you try to use AUM's Midi Control to route cc messages to controls on the different synth instances. There is only one Midi Control setup that's global to the entire AUM session. So there's no way to have each track's Midi Control input set to a different source. They all run from a single source. I don't see any way to get this working if all instances are set up to have the same midi channel. Mozaic can get around this setup for midi note input. But for midi control changes I don't see how it can work. Back to the drawing board.
I don’t have a good solution, and typed the following before realizing I missed a similar alternative suggestion so apologize; I too wish each instrument track could have unique input sources, or that an instruments CC setup had a global/change all for midi channels.
One poor solution I sometimes use for very limited use cases is to set up your CC on an instrument, duplicate, change all the channels, repeat for the number of instances you’re likely to need, and save the session. Then import those tracks into future projects sequentially as needed. This only is useful if you tend to use say 4 instances of Noir with an otherwise hardware setup like I sometimes do. It makes adding those painless after the initial setup. The technique totally breaks down once you get into more complex AUM sessions unless you take the time to make 16 variations on 16 different channels for every single instrument, so you can avoid channel duplication. Which obviously is a pain in the ass.
I know that like the other similar suggestion this doesn’t actually do much for automating the process, but going through an entire list of mappings and only having to worry about changing the Chan vs having to do all the correct CCs on all the correct parameters is a night and day difference. Sort of thing I do while watching tv or something.
If a solution is found I hope I catch the post! Good luck.
Thanks. Merely knowing that I'm not missing something is helpful. I think I'm doing something similar to what you are.
To recap, I think the problematic part arises when you're using multiple instances/voices of a single synth that you want to keep the voice settings synchronized on (often called a "voice-per-instance" synth setup), but want separate control of each instance via AUM's Midi Control. Keeping the settings synchronized is somewhat possible if all use the same preset, but this means their Midi Control settings in AUM will all be set to the same channel, so you if you update the preset and refresh it in each instance, you still need to go through to change the Midi Control channel settings in each duplicated instance.
I wonder whether there's some way to automate things perfectly that I'm not seeing.
Ah, I think I may have misunderstood. I simply thought you were trying to automate the midi control/CC assigning process. But now I think I see that I missed that you are interested in a using these say 4 mono synths with the same preset/sound (as either a cascading poly or just triggered independently), as you said, voice per instance. That still leaves me not exactly sure if I understand the goal, though. Is it to have the patches and automation synced between say all 4? Or independent and therefore requiring their own channel for AUM’s midi control? I must still be missing something. Sorry, I have been pretty slow today lol.
When importing a track from another project, aren’t the AUM midi assignments married to that AUM Audio/MIDI Track? So that would certainly load whatever AU and settings of that track from the saved session, but those patch/sound parameters could then be replaced by as you said loading a preset from the AUM preset plugin and/or trigging your preset load controller. That would give you a pool of tracks with whatever AU all on their own midi channel for you to be able to import for the CC assignments portion (which also is a way around using the same channel accidentally with one plugin and having to manually redo them for a future one, again, not fun...) and then load up a preset across them which shouldn’t change CC assignments?
I suppose I’m mostly confused about “To recap, I think the problematic part arises when you're using multiple instances/voices of a single synth that you want to keep the voice settings synchronized on (often called a "voice-per-instance" synth setup), but want separate control of each instance via AUM's Midi Control. Keeping the settings synchronized is somewhat possible if all use the same preset, but this means their Midi Control settings in AUM will all be set to the same channel, so you if you update the preset and refresh it in each instance, you still need to go through to change the Midi Control channel settings in each duplicated instance. This is most easily done by (1) selecting the menu in upper right corner of AUM, (2) choosing Midi Control at bottom right of set of choices, (3) choosing 'Assigned' so list shows only controls that are already assigned in Midi Control, and (4) going through list looking at names and changing the channel inputs for the duplicated instance names to match the channel that's inputting the midi notes they're playing.”
I just made that way more complicated that remotely necessary, sorry lol.
Thanks, no, I'm not sure you misunderstood. I'm probably confused. I deleted part of my previous post, because it wasn't going to work, my mind isn't wrapping around this stuff very well. Or it wasn't a problem if you did misunderstand me, since issues seem similar.
Basically, I want multiple synth instances to use the same preset settings, but for them to be independent as far as notes input (not a problem) and AUM Midi control (the problem). That is, I want all instances to be able to load the same preset, but I want to be able to play different notes on each instance, as well as have the control of each instance be independent, e.g., to be able to adjust filter cutoff on one instance while filter cutoff in the other instances is unchanged. Basically, to roll my own MPE, have the expression of each voice be independently controllable. It's possible to set this up as a one time thing, but becomes a problem when you want to make preset changes and have them be reflected across all instances (which is doable by reloading the preset in each instance, but this wrecks the independence of Midi Control in AUM, so you have to redo the channel settings in Midi Control).
Ah, ok! So, they would share the same initial patch, but each instance would THEN become independently tweakable. I think I understand now. Will think on it when I get a chance.
Kind of. The issue is that with MPE each voice needs to be independently controlled when you play an MPE controller, which will be sending at a minimum CC 74, pressure data, and pitch bend to each voice. So each voice has to be on a different channel, that's how MPE works, built off a voice-per-instance base. If you're trying to "roll-your-own" MPE synth setup, this creates problems for sound design, where you want the opposite of independence: to make a change to the base preset and have that automatically reflected across all voice instances. So far I don't see any way of automating that sound-design process with a voice-per-instance setup in AUM. There are some partial solutions that help, but at some point you have to manually go to each instance to do something (if you want to preserve the independence of each for playing with an MPE controller).
I understand all this now, my apologies for not putting together the entirety of the request initially. mentioning MPE made things click more. Yeah, this seems like a reasonable issue that AUM could be tweaked to resolve without (hopefully) much trouble. I imagine the dev will pop in and reply to that tag above at some point and we may see! If I think of some outside the box solution I will be sure to let you know, haha. Good luck!