[ardour-manual] / _manual / 22_using-control-surfaces / 03_midi-binding-maps.html

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layout: default
title: MIDI Binding Maps
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<p>
  Ardour 2.X supported 
  <a href="/using-control-surfaces/midi-learn"><dfn>MIDI learning</dfn></a> 
  for more or less any control. This was a nice feature that quite a few other
  DAWs are providing by now, but it didn't allow Ardour to work "out of the
  box" with sensible defaults for existing commercial MIDI
  controllers. In Ardour 3 and later versions, we have augmented the
  MIDI learn feature with the ability to load a <dfn>MIDI binding map</dfn> 
  for a given controller, which can set up an arbitrary number of physical
  controls with anything inside Ardour that can be controlled. 
</p>
<p>
  At this time, these binding maps need to be created with a text editor.
  Currently, we have presets for:
</p>
<ul>
  <li>Behringer BCF 2000</li>
  <li>Korg_nanoKONTROL</li>
  <li>M-Audio Oxygen 8 v2</li>
  <li>Roland SI-24</li>
  <li>Behringer DDX3216</li>
  <li>M-Audio Axiom 25</li>
</ul>
<p>
  MIDI binding maps are accessible by double-clicking <kbd class="menu">Edit
  &gt; Preferences &gt; Control Surfaces &gt; Generic MIDI</kbd>. Ardour will 
  retain your selection after you choose one.
</p>

<h2>Creating new MIDI maps</h2>
<h3>The Basic Concept</h3>
<p>
  Since the beginning of time (well, sometime early in the 2.X series), 
  Ardour has had the concept of identifying each track and bus with a 
  <dfn>remote control ID</dfn>. This ID uniquely identifies a track or bus 
  so that when messages arrive from elsewhere via MIDI or OSC , we can determine 
   which track or bus they are intended to control. Ardour has a 
   <a
  href="/working-with-tracks/controlling-track-ordering/track-ordering-and-remote-control-ids/">number 
   of ways of assigning remote control IDs</a>, but they don't really matter 
   very much when creating MIDI binding maps, so we won't discuss that here. 
   You just need to know that there is a "first track" and its remote control 
   ID is 1, and so on.
</p>
<h3>Getting Started</h3>
<p>
  MIDI bindings are stored in files with the suffix ".map" attached to their 
  name. The minimal content looks like this:
</p>
<pre>
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;ArdourMIDIBindings version="1.0.0" name="The name of this set of
bindings"&gt;
&lt;/ArdourMIDIBindings&gt;
</pre>
<p>
  So, to start, create a file with that as the initial contents.
</p>
<p>
  On OS X, Ardour loads midi maps from its binary-bundle folder in 
  <code>Ardour-&lt;version&gt;/midi_maps/</code> and checks 
  various other locations as well (defined by the ARDOUR_MIDIMAPS_PATH 
  environment variable). On GNU/Linux the easiest is to save the file to 
  <code>~/.config/ardour3/midi_maps/</code>.
</p>

<h3>Finding out what your MIDI control surface sends</h3>
<p>
  This is the most complex part of the job, but its still not very hard. 
  You need to connect the control surface to an application that will show 
  you the information that the device sends each time you modify a knob, 
  slider, button etc. There are a variety of such applications (notably 
  <code>gmidimon</code> and <code>kmidimon</code>, but you can actually use 
  Ardour for this if you want. Start Ardour in a terminal window, connect 
  MIDI ports up, and in the Preferences window, enable "Trace Input" on the 
  relevant MIDI port. A full trace of the MIDI data received will show up in 
  the terminal window. (Note: in Ardour3, you get a dedicated, custom dialog 
  for this kind of tracing.)
</p>
<h3>Types of Bindings</h3>
<p>
  There are two basic kinds of bindings you can make between a MIDI message 
  and something inside Ardour. The first is a binding to a specific parameter 
  of a track or bus. The second is a binding to a function that will change 
  Ardour's state in some way.
</p>
<h4>Binding to Track/Bus controls</h4>
<p>
  A track/bus binding has one of two basic structures
</p>
<code>
  &lt;Binding <em>msg specification</em>  uri="<em>... control address ...</em>"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding <em>msg specification</em>  function="<em>... function name ...</em>"/&gt;
</code>

<h4>Message specifications</h4>
<p>
  You can create a binding for either 3 types of channel messages, or for a
  system exclusive ("sysex") message.  A channel message specification looks 
  like this:
</p>
<code>
   &lt;Binding channel="1" ctl="13" ....
</code>
<p>
  This defines a binding for a MIDI Continuous Controller message involving 
  controller 13, arriving on channel 1. There are 16 MIDI channels, numbered 
  1 to 16. Where the example above says <code>ctl</code>, you can alternatively 
  use <code>note</code> (to create binding for a Note On message) or 
  <code>pgm</code>  (to create a binding for a Program Change message).
</p>
<p>
  You can also bind sysex messages:
</p>
<code>
  &lt;Binding sysex="f0 0 0 e 9 0 5b f7" ....
  &lt;Binding sysex="f0 7f 0 6 7 f7" ....
</code>
<p>
  The string after the <code>sysex=</code> part is the sequence of MIDI bytes, 
  as hexadecimal values, that make up the sysex message.
</p>
<p>
  Finally, you can bind a totally arbitrary MIDI message:</p>
<code>
  &lt;Binding msg="f0 0 0 e 9 0 5b f7" ....
  &lt;Binding msg="80 60 40" ....
</code>
<p>
  The string after the <code>msg=</code> part is the sequence of MIDI bytes, as 
  hexadecimal values, that make up the message you want to bind. Using this is 
  slightly less efficient than the other variants shown above, but is useful for 
  some oddly designed control devices.
</p>

<h5>Note:<h5>
<p>
  The <code>sysex=</code> and <code>msg=</code> bindings will only work with
  <code>function=</code> or <code>action=</code> control addresses. They
  will <em>not</em> work with the <code>uri=</code> control addresses.
</p>

<h4>Control address</h4>
<p>
  A <dfn>control address</dfn> defines what the binding will actually control. 
  There are quite a few different things that can be specified here:
</p>
<dl class="wide-table">
<dt>/route/gain</dt>
<dd>the gain control ("fader") for the track/bus</dd>
<dt>/route/trim</dt>
<dd>the trim control for the track/bus (new in 4.1)</dd>
<dt>/route/solo</dt>
<dd>a toggleable control for solo (and listen) of the track/bus</dd>
<dt>/route/mute</dt>
<dd>a toggleable control to mute/unmute the track/bus</dd>
<dt>/route/recenable</dt>
<dd>a toggleable control to record-enable the track</dd>
<dt>/route/panwidth</dt>
<dd>interpreted by the track/bus panner, should control image "width"</dd>
<dt>/route/pandirection</dt>
<dd>interpreted by the track/bus panner, should control image "direction"</dd>
<dt>/route/plugin/parameter</dt>
<dd>the Mth parameter of the Nth plugin of a track/bus
</dd>
<dt>/route/send/gain</dt>
<dd>the gain control ("fader") of the Nth send of a track/bus</dd>
</dl>
<p>Each of the specifications needs an address, which takes various forms too. For track-level controls (solo/gain/mute/recenable), the address is one the following:</p>
<dl class="wide-table">
<dt>a number, eg. "1"
</dt>
<dd>identifies a track or bus by its remote control ID
</dd>
<dt>B, followed by a number
</dt>
<dd>identifies a track or bus by its remote control ID within the current bank (see below for more on banks)
</dd>
<dt>one or more words
</dt>
<dd>identifies a track or bus by its name
</dd>
</dl>
<p>
  For send/insert/plugin controls, the address consists of a track/bus 
  address (as just described) followed by a number identifying the plugin/send 
  (starting from 1). For plugin parameters, there is an additional third 
  component: a number identifying the plugin parameter number (starting from
  1).
</p>
<p>
  One additional feature: for solo and mute bindings, you can also add 
  <code>momentary="yes"</code> after the control address. This is useful 
  primarily for NoteOn bindings &mdash; when Ardour gets the NoteOn it 
  will solo or mute the targetted track or bus, but then when a NoteOff 
  arrives, it will un-solo or un-mute it.
</p>

<h4>Bindings to Ardour "functions"</h4>
<p>
  Rather than binding to a specific track/bus control, it may be useful to 
  have a MIDI controller able to alter some part of Ardour's state. A 
  binding definition that does this looks like this:
</p>
<code>
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="13" function="transport-roll"/&gt;
</code>
<p>
  In this case, a NoteOn message for note number 13 (on channel 1) will 
  start the transport rolling. The following function names are available:
</p>
<dl class="narrower-table">
<dt>
<code>transport-stop</code>
</dt>
<dd>stop the transport
</dd>
<dt>
<code>transport-roll</code>
</dt>
<dd>start the transport "rolling"
</dd>
<dt>
<code>transport-zero</code>
</dt>
<dd>move the playhead to the zero position
</dd>
<dt>
<code>transport-start</code>
</dt>
<dd>move the playhead to the start marker
</dd>
<dt>
<code>transport-end</code>
</dt>
<dd>move the playhead to the end marker
</dd>
<dt>
<code>loop-toggle</code>
</dt>
<dd>turn on loop playback
</dd>
<dt>
<code>rec-enable</code>
</dt>
<dd>enable the global record button
</dd>
<dt>
<code>rec-disable</code>
</dt>
<dd>disable the global record button
</dd>
<dt>
<code>next-bank</code>
</dt>
<dd>Move track/bus mapping to the next bank (see Banks below)
</dd>
<dt>
<code>prev-bank</code>
</dt>
<dd>Move track/bus mapping to the previous bank (see Banks below)
</dd>
</dl>

<h4>Binding to Ardour "actions"</h4>
<p>
  You can also bind a sysex or arbitrary message to any of the items
  that occur in Ardour's main menu (and its submenus).  The best place 
  to look for the (long) list of how to address each item is in your 
  keybindings file, which will contain lines that look like this:
</p>
<code>
(gtk_accel_path "&lt;Actions&gt;/Editor/temporal-zoom-in" "equal")
</code>
<p>
  To create a binding between an arbitrary MIDI message (we'll use a 
  note-off on channel 1 of MIDI note 60 (hex) with release velocity 
  40 (hex)), the binding file would contain:
</p>
<code>
   &lt;Binding msg="80 60 40" action="Editor/temporal-zoom-in"/&gt;
</code>
<p>
  The general rule, when taken an item from the keybindings file and 
  using it in a MIDI binding is to simply strip the 
  <code>&lt;Action&gt;</code> prefix of the second field in the 
  keybinding definition.
</p>

<h3>Banks and Banking</h3>
<p>
  Because many modern control surfaces offer per-track/bus controls 
  for far fewer tracks &amp; busses than many users want to control, 
  Ardour offers the relatively common place concept of <dfn>banks</dfn>. Banks 
  allow you to control any number of tracks and/or busses easily, 
  regardless of how many faders/knobs etc. your control surface has.<br /> 
  To use banking, the control addresses must be specified using the 
  <dfn>bank relative</dfn> format mentioned above ("B1" to identify 
  the first track of a bank of tracks, rather than "1" to identify 
  the first track).
</p>
<p>
  One very important extra piece of information is required to use 
  banking: an extra line near the start of the list of bindings 
  that specifies how many tracks/busses to use per bank. If the 
  device has 8 faders, then 8 would be a sensible value to use for 
  this. The line looks like this:</p>
<code>
   &lt;DeviceInfo bank-size="8"/&gt;
</code>
<p>
  In addition, you probably want to ensure that you bind something
  on the control surface to the <code>next-bank</code> and 
  <code>prev-bank</code> functions, otherwise you and other users 
  will have to use the mouse and the GUI to change banks, which 
  rather defeats the purpose of the bindings.
</p>
<h2>A Complete (though muddled) Example</h2>
<pre>
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;ArdourMIDIBindings version="1.0.0" name="pc1600x transport controls"&gt;
  &lt;DeviceInfo bank-size="16"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" ctl="1"   uri="/route/gain B1"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" ctl="2"   uri="/route/gain B2"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" ctl="3"   uri="/route/send/gain B1 1"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" ctl="4"   uri="/route/plugin/parameter B1 1 1"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" ctl="6"   uri="/bus/gain master"/&gt;

  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="1"  uri="/route/solo B1"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="2"  uri="/route/solo B2" momentary="yes"/&gt;

  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="15"  uri="/route/mute B1" momentary="yes"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="16"  uri="/route/mute B2" momentary="yes"/&gt;

  &lt;Binding sysex="f0 0 0 e 9 0 5b f7" function="transport-start"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding sysex="f0 7f 0 6 7 f7" function="rec-disable"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding sysex="f0 7f 0 6 6 f7" function="rec-enable"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding sysex="f0 0 0 e 9 0 53 0 0 f7" function="loop-toggle"/&gt;

  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="13" function="transport-roll"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="14" function="transport-stop"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="12" function="transport-start"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="11" function="transport-zero"/&gt;
  &lt;Binding channel="1" note="10" function="transport-end"/&gt;
&lt;/ArdourMIDIBindings&gt;
</pre>
<p>
  Please note that channel, controller and note numbers are specified as 
  decimal numbers in the ranges 1-16, 0-127 and 0-127 respectively 
  (the channel range may change at some point).
</p>