nanoKontrol MIDI channel question

timeboy · Post by **timeboy** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:01 am

I'm a bit lost whether this is possible or not. I tried asking around on other forums but with no success.

I basically want to assign the bottom row of buttons on my nanoKontrol as MIDI channel selectors. For instance, the first button would switch to MIDI channel 1, the fifth button to MIDI channel 5, so on and so forth. I want to assign all 9 buttons to select MIDI channel 1-9. Is this possible?

Any help would be really appreciated.

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:41 am

I'm not sure what you mean by 'selecting a channel'. I can think of two things: either you mean that pushing a button on the nanoKontrol will change the MIDI channel on which the nanoKontrol transmits, or you want to have the button do something in your software that deals with selecting a MIDI channel (perhaps, use the software to map all incoming data to a specific MIDI channel).

There's no such thing as 'selecting a channel' in the MIDI spec. Each MIDI message (note on/note off, pitch bend, control change, and so on) is sent on a specific channel. In the nanoKontrol, you can only send MIDI messages, so you can't change the channel that's sent by other controls.

On the other hand, if you want the software to respond to a control change message sent from the nanoKontrol and somehow use that to filter MIDI channels, that depends on the capabilities of the software.

timeboy · Post by **timeboy** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:05 am

you want to have the button do something in your software that deals with selecting a MIDI channel (perhaps, use the software to map all incoming data to a specific MIDI channel).

This is exactly what I want to do. I'm starting to think Ableton Live isn't designed to do this. I hear Bomes Midi Translator can do amazing things but I'm totally lost on how to use it.

I've been ripping my hair out and making retarded warewolf sounds trying to figure it out. Seriously.

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:11 pm

So what you really want to do then is somehow store a channel number in a variable in some piece of software, and rechannelize all incoming data, other than one of the other triggers to switch channels, to use that channel.

That might be possible in Bome's, and I have an idea of how you might be able to do that in a host like Live, but why don't you back up and describe what you're actually trying to accomplish. What's the point of having this rechannelization? There may be a different way to accomplish your main task that will be better or easier, and this rechannelization thing could just be a dead end.