mpd218/ableton issue

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Hello,

I’m having an issue with the standard setup. I have successfully set up my push 2 with both your max4live script as well as the drum rack methods, but I realized that I wanted bigger pads for finger drumming, and am having an issue with the MPD218 I bought. Although I’ve confirmed that it is set up correctly and is outputting the correct notes using your preset and confirmed with max, I am still having an issue with just one of the pads. For whatever reason, one of the pads that should be outputting a tom (note 50) is outputting a crash. It’s driving me insane because I swore that this is a recent issue and that the same layout worked correctly before. I thought maybe I had accidentally changed something in ableton, but I confirmed that I have the same issue whether I am using a komplete drum kit or an ableton one. All the rest of the pads on the kit are mapped correctly. Any advice?

(https://www.xpresspads.com/wp-content/uploads/STANDARD-Finger-Drumming-Layout.pdf),

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Asked on September 6, 2020 7:31 am
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Hi fenderbender,

That's indeed a weird issue. When M4L is confirming the correct notes per pad, my assumption is that there might be something odd with the midi mapping of the virtual drum module you use. Have you checked it's midi mapping? Have you loaded a GM (General Midi) mapping with your virtual drum module?

Alternatively, if you use ezDrummer 2 (or 1), you cannot change the midi mappings, which means that you'd have to look up the midi mapping chart of the kit you use. Unfortunately, ezDrummer doesn't allow you to change midi mappings, which is one of the biggest flaws that I see in this program. That means that you need to either change the pad controller midi assignments, or you need to work with custom midi mappings in your DAW. Both is a bit annoying.

An option that I use in Ableton Live to quickly have access to all the ezDrummer EZXs is the following: I've loaded the EZXs into Superior Drummer 2 and adjusted the mappings there (meaning: made them GM-compatible, Tom-pad makes Tom-sound play...) and saved one instance of Superior Drummer 2 per EZX that I own. Based on that concept, I've created one big "Finger Drumming Test Room" Project in which I've inserted all the EZXs (via SD2) as well as other virtual drum kits. I use this Ableton project file as a "container" which I can drag-n-drop from the one EZX I want to use into my current project, while not even opening this Finger Drumming Test Room project. I do it right from Live's browser. It works fine... IF you have Superior Drummer 2. If you don't, there's probably just the option to change the pad controller midi assignment, or use a custom midi mapping within your DAW.

You can download the Finger Drumming Test Room file via this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fvp06lmh7ajog1z/AADi8YpRacAMuXMt2NTiUY9Ca?dl=0

Please store the project file somewhere on your machine as I cannot promise I'll keep it as a permanent link.

Hope this helps and best regards!

Andreas

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Posted by
Answered on September 6, 2020 11:45 am
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I believe that your standard preset template for the MPD218 outputs midi note 49 instead of the 47 that you see in both the push/novation max4live script as well as in the drum rack setup instructions. Perhaps even more confusing is that your standard layout pdf (linked below) has neither 47 nor 49, but 50 as the standard setup for that note that is supposed to be a tom. When using the mpd218 with either note 49 or 50, neither the ableton drum kits nor the komplete drum kits output a tom for me. So I just switched the mapping to 47 to match the other methods. Hope this is helpful to someone.

https://www.xpresspads.com/wp-content/uploads/STANDARD-Finger-Drumming-Layout.pdf

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Posted by
Answered on September 8, 2020 6:30 pm
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