How to Install Edirol Controller?

Personally I didnt jump throw all those hoops, everything was still attached.

However, you are correct it doesnt matter which end of the cable you disconnect. Indeed with the printer you can power it down and get the same result.

Okay so everything seems to be installed correctly - driver and PCR editor. P5 is "seeing" the Edirol. Now I am presented with the choose MIDI devices dialog:

Available MIDI Input Devices:
1:EDIROL PCR MIDI IN
1:EDIROL PCR 1
1:EDIROL PCR 2

Available MIDI Output Devices:
1:EDIROL PCR MIDI OUT
1:EDIROL PCR

Which should I choose? I mainly want to use the Edirol to control P5, Sonar and my soft-synths. But I would like to use some external MIDI only controllers such as my Roland A-90 and Akai MPC (For the 16 levels feature). And I might like to use my Roland Fantom XR as an external sound module via MIDI.

Please advise. Thanks!

Thx, Stu. Of course I am not satisfied until I understand what's going on "under the hood". Here's a quote from the PCR-800 manual, page 88 "Two MIDI Ports":

"If you're using DAW software, and you're simply controlling the sound module for the part that's producing the sound, the PCR's controllers (i.e. knobs and sliders) can use the same MIDI output port as the keyboard (i.e the notes and velocities it transmits). When the PCR is in the default state, the PCR's keyboard performance data will also be sent from PORT 1, so you can assign the controllers to PORT 1 as well.


"Some DAW software has an input port used to control the mixer section of the DAW software. Since the PCR has two MIDI output ports, you can use one port to play sounds and control the sound module, while using the other port to control your DAW software".

"For example of you want to use the PCR's [A1]-[A9] and [B1]-[B9] buttons to swithc sounds on your sound module, and use the [S1]-[S9] sliders to control the volume faders of your DAW software's mixer, you could assign the controllers to MIDI output ports as follows:

[A1]-[A9] and [B1]-[B9] buttons: PORT 1
[S1]-[S9] sliders: PORT 2
"

So as I understand this, PORT 2 exists solely in the event that your DAW software has a separate MIDI input port to control its mixer section. Thus (probably not in P5, but maybe in Sonar), you could have your knobs and buttons controlling the DAW's transport, and/or your soft synth, while the sliders are at the same time controlling mixer volumes.

The MIDI ports are pretty much self-explanatory. If you want to use a controller keyboard or like I said my MPC as input, then enable them in P5 so it "sees" the MIDI In port on the Edirol. Same in reverse for the output. If I want P5 to play my Fantom XR module, make sure P5 can "see" the MIDI out port on the Edirol. Plus there are some settings to make within the Edirol's software.

Now all of that being said, how does ACT and Cakewalk's special provision for this particular model of keyboard controller fit in to this picture?

As you can tell, I'm still kind of new at this, so it's still a bit confusing.

This is great. Continued thanks. I just printed the "Edirol PCR 300 Setup" from both the Sonar and P5 help files. They look identical except for a few minor naming differences. One difference from your advice here - they say to enable all three inputs: Edirol PCR Midi In, Edirol PCR 1, and Edirol PCR 2. They also say to enable Edirol PCR in the Outputs pane.

Here is another quote in both help files:

"You may need to read the documentation for your controller/surface to find out which MIDI input driver your controller/surface uses to control software applications. If your controller/surface includes a MIDI keyboard, it might use one MIDI input driver for the controller/surface functions (use this driver), and a different MIDI input driver to send MIDI notes and pitch bend data to the application (the piano keyboard functions)"

This seems weird in that this particular help file is dedicated to exactly one model of keyboard. So they should know how the Edirol is designed. There seems to be no "may" about it.

In any event, it looks like PCR2 will be the MIDI input driver which will control the software applications, while PCR1 sends the Keyboard and bender data. At the same time, if one wants to use an external MIDI-only controller, such as my old Roland A-90 or Akai MPC drum machine, I would make use of the EDIROL PCR MIDI In device which I also enabled along with PCR1 and PCR2.

This stuff is pretty complicated and a little convoluted if you don't have experience. I bought the Edirol because one of its specific functions was to integrate seamlessly with the Cakewalk DAWs. I'm glad I did. But someone needs to write a full-on tutorial on setting it up both in Sonar and P5. Not just the how, but the why.

LOL. I've been deciphering Roland instructions for years. You should see some of their stuff from the early to mid 1980s. Translated way poorly from Japanese. But hey, that's why we have the SWA video et al.!

It's funny. People gloss over this stuff to get right to the recording and it always seems to bite them in the *ss. So this time, I'm taking it way slow. I want to learn, digest, and understand exactly how my controller surfaces interface and interact with my software applications.

BTW, since it appears the Edirol does not have fixed velocities for the pads or keyboard, nor does it have a "16 velocities" function for the pads, I may consider a Korg PadKontrol or Akai MPD-24. I may also consider a Frontier Design AlphaTrack or Tranzport. How does one go about interfacing a number of USB control surfaces?

ORIGINAL: techead

ORIGINAL: Nick P

This stuff is pretty complicated and a little convoluted if you don't have experience. I bought the Edirol because one of its specific functions was to integrate seamlessly with the Cakewalk DAWs. I'm glad I did. But someone needs to write a full-on tutorial on setting it up both in Sonar and P5. Not just the how, but the why.

Nick, if you can write up a detailed-step-by-step of how you did it I would be willing to edit that and post it onto the Project5 Wiki for you so the whole world can use it as a helpful resource. You can send me a private message through this forum with the information in it if you'd like.

What a great idea. I was totally thinking that would be useful to others. Don't forget, Stuart has the same keyboard (PCR-300) so I'm learning from him as well.

I haven't completely made the connection yet, so when I do I'll post it and you're welcome to post it on the WIKI.

"Enable" means that the knobs/sliders/whatever on your Edirol can control plugin parameters (synth or FX parameters).
What happens if "Enable" is not checked? The Edirol knobs/whatever can then be used to control host parameters (e.g. track or buss parameters).

I have an Axiom (not a PCR), so I'm not familiar with the PCR-specific control surface.
With the "ACT MIDI Controller' control surface, there's a table (4 rows with 8 cells per row). Cells that are ACT-enabled are blue, while Cells that are ACT-disabled are green. When a cell is blue, the corresponding hardware controller (a single rotary, slider, button..) is mapped to control a single synth or FX plug-in parameter. When a cell is green, the associated rotary/whatever is mapped to control a single host parameter (e.g. track or bus volume, pan, etc.). You can also map buttons to host transport functions (e.g. play, stop)

When I started working with ACT, it confused me that the ACT MIDI Controller surface had lots of internal functions that could be ACT-enabled or ACT-disabled. Isn't the whole thing ACT? That's the name of the control surface, right? Well .... actually, the 'ACT ..." control surface affects both host parameters and plugin parameters - even though 'ACT' is clearly defined as something that "allows you to use your MIDI controller or control surface to control whatever plug-in effect or soft synth currently has focus" (from online help). For example --- in the ACT MIDI controller, there's one row of cells for rotary controls. If the 'Exclude this bank from ACT' checkbox for that row is checked (in the Options tab), the rotaries can be used to control track or bus parameters. If the 'Exclude this bank from ACT' checkbox for that row is not checked, the rotaries can be used to control plug-in parameters. You've probably noticed that the 'Options' tab is mostly concerned with host parameter assignments ... not ACT assignments (ACT is specifically for plug-in parameter control, not host parameter control). If you think the terminology is kind of confusing ... I'd have to agree.

The 'Enable ACT' checkbox (on the Controllers tab of the ACT MIDI Controller surface) - enables or disables ACT mode (plugin parameter control) for all the cells that aren't otherwise 'excluded' from ACT. Why did I say cells, rather than controllers? Because this checkbox only affects controllers that are mapped to one of the cells in the 4x8 table. The ACT MIDI Controller surface defines two sets of mappings: MIDI Learn is used to defined external-controller-to-cell mappings, while ACT Learn is used to define cell-to-plugin-parameter mappings. (The Options tab is where you define cell-to-host-parameter mappings).

In addition - if Rotaries Mode is set to 'Multi Channel', all the Rotaries are mapped to the same track (or bus) parameter. It might be effect send, or pan, or whatever - but each rotary will control the same parameter on a different channel (track, bus). However, if Rotaries Mode is set to 'Channel Strip', each rotary can control a different parameter for the same channel (track, bus). Rotary 1 might control pan, Rotary 2 might control low EQ cut/boost, etc. Of course, this only occurs if a) ACT is disabled for that bank of rotaries, and b) the cell-to-host-parameter mappings are set up correctly.

To make things even more flexible, 'Exclude this bank from ACT' can be set separately for each bank (1-4) of rotaries, for each bank (1-8)of sliders, and for each individual button within each bank. . Rotary Bank 1 might have ACT enabled (for plug-in control), while Rotary Bank 2 might have ACT disabled (for track-parameter control). If you want to always use sliders for track/bus volume control, you should select slider banks 1, 2, 3, 4 in turn, and check the 'Exclude' box for each bank.

On "Lock" - when checked, this keeps the ACT-enabled controllers assigned to a particular plug-in instance. Let's say you have Dim Pro and Rapture installed. Normally, the ACT-enabled controllers will control Dim Pro when you have the Dim Pro property pane open and in-focus (selected), but the ACT-enabled controllers will change to controlling Rapture when you click on the Rapture property pane. If you want the ACT-enabled controllers to stay locked to Dim Pro -- click on the Dim Pro property pane (make sure the plugin name appears in the field next to the 'Lock' checkbox), and then check 'Lock'. Now, your ACT-enabled controllers should always control Dim Pro, even if you click on Rapture (to select a different program or make an adjustment).

HTH,

Jim

Nick, I just edited my post to fix some errors, please make sure you have the latest.
Stuart/anyone: if there are remaining errors, please let me know and I'll edit my post again.
I'm hoping to write up something more detailed for my Axiom (and post on P5 wiki).

Nick: in case you don't know this, it's quite possible to have multiple Control Surfaces active at the same time. This may not be important for the PCR (it has a dedicated control surface that may do all you need). However - for the Axiom 61, I'm choosing to use both the ACT MIDI Controller and the Cakewalk Generic Surface at the same time. The ACT MIDI Controller surface is used for handling the 8 rotaries, 9 buttons (under sliders), and 8 of the nine sliders on the Axiom. The GCS surface is used for handling the Axiom transport-control buttons.

Since the ACT MIDI controller surface can only handle 8 sliders - that leaves 1 slider unused at present. It could be used in a number of ways. For example:
1. As a regular MIDI controller, generating MIDI controller data to be recorded into tracks along with pitchbend and mod wheel data.
2. As a GCS controller (assigned to a host or plug-in parameter that's not assigned using the ACT surface)
3. As a single-purpose 'MIDI Remote Control' (assigned using MIDI Learn directly on the Sonar or P5 parameter that I want to control).

HTH

Jim, still figuring out ACT himself....

Update 6/11/07 - Okay. Starting to get it. Using Sonar to test. Much easier since Sonar has a mixing surface graphical representation. One thing I didn't realize - ACT is for plug-ins, not parameters having to do with the DAW software itself, such as track, bus, transport parameters and the like. And Sonar has this cool WAI (Where Am I) thing that lets you see where it is being controlled by your control surface.

So using the F1 help accesible from the ControlSurface dialog, I'm seeing how this works. You can sort of either control your DAW software or your plug-ins, or a mixture of both depending on how you set it up (although by default there are still some controls that continue to map to (non-ACT) DAW software functions, even as you use ACT to control a plug-in.

A very powerful and flexible system, which, by that same definition, involves a relatively steep learning curve.

If I am misunderstanding how this works, please advise.

A very powerful and flexible system, which, by that same definition, involves a relatively steep learning curve.

That seems to be the nature of the beast with anything DAW related.
Thanks for this. There don't seem to be as many people diving into ACT in the HS forum, and this is helping to wrap my head around the whole idea.
One question I have, is that if the controller (in my case an Edirol PCR-M50) is mapped to a particular plug-in, say Dim, while using SHS6, will I have to remap it if I open the same plug-in in P5, or do the settings follow the plug-in?

One thing I just noticed: The same Control Surface dialog is presented in both P5 and Sonar. However it appears some of the features do not work in P5. For example the Dynamic Mapping button to the left of the keyboard can control Now Time, Jump To Marker, Horizontal Zoom, and Vertical Zoom in Sonar. In P5 it seems that the Horizontal and Vertical Zoom choices do nothing.

Little more light being shed after today's session. I studied Stuart's video (starting at around 10:00). One thing I noticed today. He uses the Emu X-Board as an example. So he uses the ACT controller surface template as an example, whereas I (and now Stuart as I understand he owns an Edirol PCR300) use the PCR300 template. The latter has a few more specific parameters exclusive to the Edirol, so that's the one you want to use. And as we discussed, ACT, being for plug-ins, is actually a subset of that.

Another thing: If you press F1 (help) while viewing the Edirol property page (the one with the green cells), you will get the same 6 page document you get when doing this in Sonar. There is no separate help file for Project 5. And, as I have already discovered, some of the functions designed for Sonar are not operative in Project 5, such as horizontal and vertical zoom.

So if you have Sonar 6, it may be a better idea from a learning standpoint to use Sonar instead of P5 to study all of this.

Whew, what a trip.

More to follow!

Nick,
How big are your bare screenshot files? If you want, you could email them to me as an attachment, and I can post them.
It may be helpful to others reading this.
I'm way behind you, but taking notes.

Thanks guys. I may pick up one of those screen capture programs. I had one for Windows 98. Then I could edit and size the pictures to just the part of the screen I want to show - I think you can even print an active window - in this case the Controller Surfaces window.

Robert B - Don't take notes yet. I'm sort of thinking out loud. I will organize my findings and create a new thread, as well as the aforementioned post to the Wiki. Give me a couple of days.

Cool, Thanks!