I was mostly interested in software control from the connected computer, and I’m happy that this is working now. Here are the things I had to do to set it up.
As @niks.arturia mentioned above, being on a Mac I had to go into the Audio MIDI Setup app, choose “Show MIDI Studio”, find the AF16Rig MIDI device, and delete it (hit delete on the keyboard) with the 16Rig turned off (it won’t delete if it’s currently connected).
(The first time I turned it on, the device didn’t pick up the correct name for some reason. I turned it off, deleted it again, and turned it on again. It worked on the second try.)
Now the new Mixer Control MIDI port shows up at the end of the Ableton Live MIDI settings. I turned on “Track”.
Then selected that in the MIDI To menu of a MIDI track:
As mentioned earlier in the thread, you also need to set the 16Rig Mixer Control setting to USB Device.
I tested it out using the CC Control device in Live 12. I used the (honestly kind of haphazard) Factory MIDI CC mappings in the 16Rig and assigned the CC Control dials to the aux bus levels and track levels.
After clicking the Send button to reset the mixer settings, everything works great. I did notice that there is some value scaling happening, and the position of the aux dials in the AFCC Main Mix page doesn’t exactly match up with the position of the corresponding dials in Live. They do cover the entire range. It’s not a problem, just something to be aware of.
I put it in a rack to make the knobs more accessible and hide the unused controls. It also works well with my Push 3 in controller mode, and I would assume also earlier Push versions.
It doesn’t seem there’s a way to control the overall volume of the unit without touching the knob or opening the software. I was hoping to do this by hooking something up to the MIDI port on the front… sort of like a remote control.
The MIDI mappings only cover the main mixer in the 16Rig. If you set the monitor outputs to the main mix, you can control the output level of the main mix using MIDI. That’s probably the best way to get control of the overall output level.
It would be nice if everything that can be controlled via AFCC could also be MIDI mapped, but that’s not the case right now. As welcome as the new improvements are, there’s still a long way to go.
Interesting, no matter how many times I turn the 16Rig on and off, it keeps showing up in my midi studio with the wrong name. I am also getting a lot of crashes in the AFCC.
I’m not sure I understand also, if I don’t have a midi controller can I still control the AFCC mixer with my DAW? I’m using Ableton with those same settings, but I can’t figure out how to send CC messages from a fader in the daw to a track in the AFCC when trying to midi learn.
It remembers the (wrong) name if you don’t delete it from the MIDI Studio. So turn off the 16Rig, delete the item from MIDI Studio, then turn the 16Rig back on so it reappears in the list. Hopefully that works for you. It did for me on the second try.
Me too
Yes, by sending MIDI CC messages to the AF16Rig Mixer Control MIDI device.
Have you tried the rack I shared above? If you’re trying to control it with Ableton’s mixer faders, that won’t work because it doesn’t send out any CC messages for those. You can use the CC Control device if you have Live 12, or there are various Max for Live devices that can send CC if you have an older version with Max for Live.
I’m going to look at making a Max for Live device that can watch for changes to the Ableton mixer and use that to send MIDI to the 16Rig. I’ll keep the forum posted, but I haven’t had much spare time lately, so it might not be that soon.
Yea the AFCC is slowing down to the point of crashing and then it usually comes back. So the Ableton rack you made sends CC messages to AFCC I assume? If so that’s amazing and I really want to get this working.
I tried the rack and got an error. I’m admittedly not too familiar with Ableton racks though I understand Max4Live instruments. It’s awesome you are working on that.
this is what I see when I try and load it. I feel stupid but I still don’t fully understand how this works. If the track faders in Ableton aren’t sending CC data, are you controlling gain with this device? Is the purpose for the 16 Rig to reflect the track and aux levels within the DAW?
Sorry for my delay responding. I’ve been away from my home studio.
Are you using Live 12? It uses a device that’s new in 12. I do get a message like that when I try to load it in Live 11.
If you are on 12, I’m not sure what the problem is. I tried redownloading the rack from my Google Drive link, and it’s working OK for me. The rack isn’t too special. If you want to recreate it yourself, it’s just taking the MIDI CC Control device settings that I screenshotted above and mapping them to knobs in the rack so that you don’t have to switch between the 1-8 and 9-16 tabs to use them.
Right, the knobs in this device are sending MIDI to the hardware mixer in the 16Rig to control the track and aux levels.
That’s not something I’m trying to do personally. Mostly, I was just testing to see if sending MIDI from Ableton to the 16Rig works now, and it does. I’m not sure if this rack is really useful to anyone, but I shared it just in case it is, or someone else wants to experiment with sending MIDI from Ableton to the 16Rig.
What I’m interested in working toward is a Max for Live device that lets me easily switch between direct monitoring from the interface and monitoring through Ableton. My plan is to build a Max for Live device that can use the Live API to tell when a track in Live has record armed but Monitor set to Off, and then send MIDI to the 16Rig to unmute the corresponding mixer track there, so that I can monitor directly. Then, if I switch Monitor to In or Auto in Live, or unarm the track, it will mute it again in the 16Rig, so I don’t get doubled up audio.
Right now, I have to switch over to the AFCC app or navigate the menu on the front panel to use this workflow. Not the end of the world, of course, but if I can make it more convenient, that would be nice!
Yep, I figured out it was because I am using 11. I realized though, that theoretically it should be possible to map a control surface to your Device, and also simultaneously control track and send volume in Ableton. Then with your device, it seems that track levels could be reflected in the 16Rig mixer.
I really like the concept of that immediate switching for direct monitoring, that’s pretty genius.
I am having trouble with using outputs as sends simultaneously in Ableton/DAW and in the 16Rig. It seems if I have the Auxes set up in the 16Rig to go directly to the outputs, as you would on a normal mixer, I can’t have the same routing set up in Ableton for hardware Sends. I have to change the use USB outputs therefore cancelling out the Auxes I set up in the matrix mixer. Could be doing it wrong. But that has made direct monitoring kind of difficult, as my sends are mostly hardware and an important part of monitoring what I’m recording sometimes. Nevertheless it’s cool you got this working, wish I had 12 to try it out!
Are you experiencing slowdowns/crashes still when doing Host mode?
I haven’t had any crashes lately AFCC (not the 16Rig itself) was crashing a lot right after upgrading to firmware v2.0.0, but then it stopped happening. I’m not sure if there was an AFCC update in the meantime, or if I’m doing something different, or it was just a coincidence.
AFCC (not the 16Rig itself) was crashing a lot right after upgrading to firmware v2.0.0, but then it stopped happening. I’m not sure if there was an AFCC update in the meantime, or if I’m doing something different, or it was just a coincidence.