I missed a couple of points on this.

Mostly, that the NativeKontrol template gives me several more pages of endless encoders, which I use to control global BPM, scrub the playhead, and a couple of other useful things.

Ah. And the top knobs of my track FX knobs are mapped to the fade to grey and extra gain functions for each deck.

Thanks for sharing!

The only thing I think is being overlooked here is the fact that if you hard assign over the track control and then go in between banks, your levels are not recalled. This is a major fail which does not allow you to hard assign eq over track control without loss of your other banks. I'll def peep your template to see if you found something I overlooked. But I do like the idea of cycling through launch, specially using a trigger finger in combo for instant lazer zaps n shit. Cheers

dl link says no files found??? alt link?

De Novo Creation:

The knobs actually send/receive different MIDI notes when the bank gets changed: so I do get to keep the levels.

It works this way even when you override the default settings, so it's pretty seamless.

Which download link is giving you grief? They both work for me, but I can test that.

Ah, looks like it just worked! I think it's pretty cool that we both independently have came up with VERY similar APC40 templates, even borrowing from Tom's dummy clip package.

I am eq'ing through a hardware mixer currently making the eq a non-issue. But I've tried hard mapping tarekith's eq 3.8 to the pan section. If I then say move over to the send A bank then move back to the pan bank, all the levels are a 'zero/all the way to the left'. I do not see this when using the track control in its default mode. Maybe I will catch something in your template or can video respond somehow to be clear.

Thanks for the post and the reply brotha!

I think I've seen that behaviour before, but I've always fixed it by rebooting the APC40. It's definitely not how the APC is supposed to behave. Are you using the NativeKontrol template, or just a raw APC/Ableton connection.

Doesn't work in any template. Been in touch with Ableton/Akai support and this is a bug in all APC40s currently. Just does not recall between any banks. :(

But there is still a lot of good insights in the template aside from this...

I think we must be talking past each other a bit: cos I'm pretty sure this works fine for me.

You want to post a brief video of explanation of how to replicate this? I'm sort of curious.

I will prob do that actually as I know of some other folks who have the same problem too. Cheers

edit: removed vid

Edit: This looks to be a problem with the APC40, that can easily be fixed using Bomes/Puredata/Max

Thus my inability to replicate.

Sorry to jump in guys, but if your running 1.7 of bomes i've set a template up (based on Tom's originally) that has a record function for the pan banks so that when switching between the banks Bomes recalls the last setting and automatically lights the knobs correctly not relying on Ableton to do it (i think this is where the problem lies in that ableton doesn't send the info to the APC but i could be wrong)

Cheers
D

No worries. Appreciate the comment.

I think Darren has it right. I haven't had time to test, but it sounds like the problem.

I think what I've heard back is that indeed some sort of midi translator is needed to make this work efficiently. It's great to finally be able to put a finger on the problem. Akai/Ableton is trying to fix this bug. I encourage everybody to email their support team to emphasize this issue. Big ups to everyone for the input.

My ableton says that empty.wav is missing.. What's this?

Empty.wav is a file used inside dummy clips. Basically, Ableton won't let you create a clip without it pointing to a file - so I use a small .wav with no sound called empty.wav

However, because of the way Ableton handles clips with missing files, it doesn't actually matter at all that the file is missing. I just put on in on my machine cos I got annoyed by the 'files missing' dialog.

Thanks Will.. really man, your template makes me feel happier about using the akai..

Thank you a lot!

Cheers from Brazil!

And why the metronome isn't working and making no sound at all?

If you click the IO button in the bottom right corner of the session view, you can set the sound channel for both cue and master. Make sure the cue is set to a channel you can actually hear (or the same as master, just for testing).

Then, make sure the Cue Volume isn't set to 0. Again, on the bottom right of the screen, but the APC40 has a dedicated knob for this.

I accidentally did this and spent about 10 minutes tearing my hair out trying to fix it :)

Thanks Will! Problem Solved!!

Hey Will, I'm here again =/
Just to know why all my clips in clips 4 section, are getting pink and unmarkable... i dunno what's happening..
Can u help me out?
img12.imageshack.us/img12/101/imagem1ig.jpg

You've selected the "envelope" editor at the bottom of the screen, instead of the "sample" editor.

See at the bottom, it says "Clip", "Launch", "Sample" and "Enveloples"? Click "Sample".

:)

Thanks a lottttt

In ableton 8.0.8 this message keep coming all the time!
img188.imageshack.us/img188/2218/imagem1rk.png

?

Hey, i love this set up. but it crashes quite often. does that happen to you also?

It does on old versions of Ableton. If you upgrade to 8.08 it should be rock solid.

all right! thank you again for sharing

nice!! you should come down to dunedin and play a set at bath st using this :D

I see in your list of midi maps a control 1 cc80 is tempo, 1 cc81 is tempo fine, 1 cc84 is clip play position and 1 cc85 is clip volume.

What are these controls?

They're provided by the NativeKontrol template I'm using. The track control knobs have several pages with different functionality.

I didn't cover this in the video, but I plan to. After I've moved house, I suspect.

where do you get standard dj rack and the other plugins you were using?

I build some of the plugins myself. Others I have downloaded from other people (tarekith.com/misc.html is a good place for some).

Most of the ones I built myself are partly mine, and partly put together from other people's plugins

You can group several plugins into a Macro Rack once you learn how they work.

Does that answer your question? I can explain in more detail if that helps.

You can download this template and pull the plugins out of it if you want to use them for something.

Phenomenal contribution, thanks!

Thanks alot, great information, but i wanted to ask can you make a video explaning what are and how to make dummy clips?

I am new to djing with ableton (i mainly do production), and your method seems very organized and intuitive. I have downloaded your template, but am not sure on how i map my controls on my apc40 like how you did? Should it be automatic or do I have to do it manually? Thanks!

@Taylor Gittin: you need the NativeKontrol template, google it.

Will, hi!
I'm having some trouble, live failed to "load the audio unit "FreeG", audio units not available on your operating system". WTF? i usually use a mac, but i thought it was Pc friendly, no?
I bought the nativekontrol template, but I can't make it work. Is this why?

I made sure the settings for midi are all good in live, and I resolved any issue with mtPlayer, but no action...
none of the hard coded stuff does anything, no difference from turning the script on/off. Gah!

Any obvious stuff many people miss?

I had a chat with Stray, he sorted it out in the end.

Is there a way I can remove the FreeG, so I don't have to click the friggin box every time?

it doesnt open in my ableton 8.1. in what version it saved?

it says "the document was created in a newer version of live and cannot be opened" i have ableotn 8.1 also... i dunno

Hi Will, just wanted to say this is a great video. I'm just starting out with Ableton and have been considering getting either the APC40 or Novation's Launchpad. I think after watching this video I'm convinced that the APC40 offers much greater flexibility.

I really enjoy watching your videos - thanks for uploading them here.

APC40 + Will Marshall+ nativeKontrol = Great Fun!!

Will or anyone have 8.1.0 version? im using multiple things at once and not willing to update just yet. any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks

Hi, firstly great template mate, have used cowleys one then i stumbled across urs. nice one! One thing tho... i see u updated ur file ur few days ago. It appears that everything is working fine except for one thing. That is the sends...

I watched your vid and when you turn for instance the send A knob 6, you get the appearance of sound coming through the levels before you then slide the crossfader to get the effect. When i do that i get nothing at all coming through my levels. This is the same for sends B & C. I dont have nativeKontrol cause i have already forked out money for bomes haha but let me know if u have a fix. cheers mate!

First,thank's for sharing,nice and promissing video,and the comments sounds like a nice template...But!
I'm running ableton 8.1 under osx and he's telling me that the .als file is corrupted "unknown compound stream.(i can not update my version right now)
I've downloaded the file a couple of time but the same message remain.
As i'm really not a technical type of user,i'm kinda lost. :)
Any idea?

Hey Will, any hope of a new video of the new version soon? The world wants to see it!

I have been messing with the old template for about a month. I have to say I really like this new one better. The routing makes much more sense to me, and I like how you have the follows set up on some of the dummy clips. I do miss launching from groups, but that is easy enough to change. Im still trying to figure out how you figured out the proper delay. dunno how you did it, but im glad someone did. Good show!

(To anyone) Any chance of getting a quick write up as to the differences between the template used in the video and the current template? Routing appears to be much different, and seems to have many more goodies. ;-)

New version out! marshall-law.co.nz/2010/09/22/dj-template-v5/