Ableton Hack: Midi Routing with Ableton

cotec · Joined: Sep 26, 2011 Posts: 7 Location: Seattle

I wrote an article on Midi Routing and some midi tricks. I have been using these tricks for a while and updated them and anted to share.

One thing that is SUPPER annoying in Ableton live for PC users is that when you start up Live you can't plug in new Midi devices with out restarting. I ended up hacking a way that I can plug midi devices in and out and wanted to share that. Also using this MIDI routing you can do some really cool tricks.

Midi Yoke and Miditrixs
To do this hack you will need to download Midi Yoke and Miditrixs. Below is a little description of both pieces of software.

Midi Yoke for Multiple Midi
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MIDI YOKE is a MIDI Patch Cable driver. This allows you to connect the MIDI output from one program to the MIDI input of a different program or even device. MIDI Yoke can be configured to provide a varying number of MIDI Ports (from 1 to 16). In addition, each port allows multiple opens of both input and outputs: up to 4 openings per port. This flexibility provides for almost any configuration imaginable.

Midi Trix for Midi Re Routing
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Miditrix is basically the front end program for organizing your patching. As you can see above you can make midi routing from devices or other virtual midi to other virtual mid and so on.

Now with both of these programs when you start ableton live it will always see the midi yoke. Then with Miditrix just patch you, lets say LPD8 or Nano, to the midi yoke in. Then if it gets unplugged just go back to miditrixs and select it again. Some times you have to "reset all midi" with miditrix to see the change, but you never have to close down live.

Tricks with Midi Routing

The above was just one thing you can do with midi routing. It opens up worlds of possibilities though. You can send all your MIDI data to multiple programs. So for instance every note you play can also go to a visuals program and change live visuals. Or you can send the midi to different midi channels. You can also send your mid data from one midi device to the other. In other words when you hit a button here it lights up the button on your other controller as well.

Using these two programs is supper easy and will open up worlds of possibilities.

Extra Ableton Live Trick and Tips

If you are using any of these midi routing programs that need to be loaded before you loud up ableton then you can use Automator or Actions(s). What you can do is start one .exe file or program file that you set up. That one file can then open up programs in a certain order. For me I open Midi Trix, then I shut down my wireless card, open ableton, and open my live set. All done by pressing one button. Useful when you are setting up.

These are some rad tricks to play with that the midi routing can be fun for different effects as well and hacks. On my website I also have lots of other Music Production Articles so feel free to check them out.

jksuperstar · Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:06 pm Post subject:

Yes. And no. The MIDI tools from Tobias Erichsen located here:

http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software.html

LoopMIDI (like MIDIYoke, but allows renaming and dynamic creation/destruction)

rtpMIDI (allows MIDI over ethernet, compatible with the same protocol OSX uses)

virtualMIDI (the SDK for your own programming)

Each allows you to rename MIDI ports. This does NOT allow renaming MIDI ports of normal MIDI devices that do not go through these programs.

In my experience, they are great tools. rtpMIDI seems to loose it's shit (using 100% CPU), AFTER my system goes into sleep or hibernation a couple of times. So I kill the process and restart (my system will be very slow out of wake-up, and using the task manager, I see rtpMIDI using 100% of a CPU). This only happens coming out of sleep/hibernation However, I haven't had any issues with it if it is running ok.

Also, AlactrityPC is a much better tool for starting multiple programs. Because it also allows you to shutdown system services or other programs that are not needed, but use resources (like Windows Explorer, internet stuff, special mouse drivers, laptop special buttons, modems, etc). Also allows delays between those programs. After you close the main program, it'll restart all those services back to normal.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/alacritypc/