Automations complicated in Logic here is the fix

[raphy75]

Hello,
I wanted to share my issues with the great Arturia Keylab Essentials MK3.
I’m using Logic Pro 11.1.1.
Analog lab Pro.

It’s all about automations.

In Arturia mode Analog Lab is controlled perfectly, it’s amazing.
In DAW mode no problem it works great.

Now the issues is when you want to record automations from the keyboard and with AL.

1 - In Arturia mode in the keyboard: no automation can be captured in Touch or anything… It’s so annoying. Nothing. You have to make work arounds but with problems with other plugins… So it’s useless…

2 - You can record automation when you RECORD with Logic and the keyboard in Arturia mode. Just record the midi, and latter you can record automation in midi merge mode. They will be displayed not in the automation mode but in the region view. OK I can work with that. Great and thanks. But big problem on the display (see below).

BUT: if you have multiple tracks of Analog labs with some automations recorded, and you are navigating in a new track, Analog lab will always show values of what was automated. So the display is no longer showing the current preset. It’s crazy, I don’t understand how it’s not possible to switch off that.

Finally, The Keylab Essentials is a great keyboard, but lacking easy functions to make life easy in the studio in Logic. It’s unfinished programming to me.

1 - Please make an option not to show automation values when working on other tracks in Logic. Lacking that makes the experience so bad.

2 - Please make a function where we can easily capture automations in Logic in Arturia mode so we can have a great and simple experience and no one will come troubleshooting as it’s what we are waiting for for a normal controller.

Thanks Arturia please continue updating the keyboard and make it perfect

[raphy75]

Hello,
After getting crazy and almost thinking returning my Keyboard, I found the fix.

1 - You want to stay in Arturia mode when playing with Analog lab and you want to edit multiple tracks with multiple instances of Analog Lab. You don’t want CC messages messing with your Keyboard display.

Solution: you need to use Smart Controls in Logic.

Stay in Arturia Mode on the Keyboard.
Open Analog Lab.
Press B to open Smart Controls.
I use the 8 knobs layout.

Use Learn to map each Smart Controls to the first 8 rotary knob of Analog Lab.
Use External learn then to map the Keyboard rotary knobs and match them with Smart Controls.

This way you can use Logic Automation as normal without CC showing on the keyboard all the time.
You can use multiple instances of Analog Labs without CC messages on the display.
Much easier to manage automations in the normal dedicated automation Logic mode.
You can use DAW mode and use normal DAW mapping if needed.

So only the first 8 knobs are possible to automate nicely and it should be good enough.

Hope it makes sense.
Better being familiar first before blocking a great inspiration since the presets of Analog Labs are so amazing

[raphy75]

Sorry I reply to myself so others can see how I managed to give up on good automation…

Finally using Smart Control is not so smart because everytime you re-open Logic it looses a couple of controls…
Even doing a User preset with different midi channel and CC makes SC to loose controls.
So back to normal with automations in region mode but getting all the controls automated back to showing on the keyboard display which is horrible and then makes the user experience on multiple Analog lab instances bad.

Apart from that great keyboard but useless controls within Logic and too much problems just to make a simple automation… Spending hours to make something work and failed.

Why can’t it be just simple?

The only thing will be to stop showing all theses messages when a CC automation is read back. It’s crazy.

[Jon_Vincent]

I think this probably cross-relates to a recent thread where someone was having all kinds of issues getting the KL controller to work properly with Analog Lab in Logic when he had more than one instance of Analog Lab in a Logic project. Apologies that I’m not directly helping you but it sounds to me like it might be related to the same bug.

[raphy75]

Thanks,
Hard to know. I saw some problems with Automations back in 2021 so Arturia was not able to figure out how to make it work outside the box. Maybe Apple is not opening their code so Arturia is having hard time to integrate things and they have prefered to communicate between the keyboard and Analog lab and by passing Logic…

It’s frustrating that you can’t make just a simple automation in the correct mode in Logic. And if you do it the hard way you get buffered with all the crazy CC messages on the screen making multiple instances useless.

So, after almost looking for another keyboard, but, since I love so much Arturia and Analog Lab, I found a fix and hope this one is gonna stay!

**** You need a different CC and midi channel for knobs and faders if you want to make automations easy within Analog Lab or with any other plugins. For that you can configure user mode 1 as I did with empty CC availables for all the knobs and faders. I took channel 2 for all of them. If you keep channel to keyboard you are going to mess with some parameters you don’t want in Logic. Once it’s done and it’s saved as a template and in the keyboard, you need to configure Logic. I forgot, but I changed all the pad colors to green so when I take User mode 1 I know it.

**** 3 modes: Arturia is for navigating and configuring in Analog Lab. DAW mode is for controlling volumes and pans. And User 1 if for automations I renamed it AUTOS

**** You have to by pass Smart Controls as it’s not working well enough it makes a useless layer, better go straight to what we need. So I assigned each 9 Keyboard knobs to the 9 Analog Labs knobs, leaving the fader for free for other plugins. If you just do that you won’t be able to move the knobs on different instances, for that you need to configuring as fallow:

Channel Strip: Selected Track
Make sure Exclusive is ticked
Repeat for the 9 knobs
Be very careful in Logic to make sure it’s tidy and that you are not changing an existing parameter, I even made a zone I called AUTOS and put all the controls in it. Tidy is the key in Logic.

See below:

Will see if it’s stays put within time

So Arturia mode to play and input midi
User1 to get automations in Logic with Latch or whatever and simple editing and no crazy messages and no useless Smart Controls…