3 title: MIDI Binding Maps
8 <a href="/using-control-surfaces/midi-learn"><dfn>MIDI learning</dfn></a>
9 for more or less any control. This was a nice feature that quite a few other
10 DAWs are providing by now, but it didn't allow Ardour to work "out of the
11 box" with sensible defaults for existing commercial MIDI
12 controllers. In Ardour 3 and later versions, we have augmented the
13 MIDI learn feature with the ability to load a <dfn>MIDI binding map</dfn>
14 for a given controller, which can set up an arbitrary number of physical
15 controls with anything inside Ardour that can be controlled.
18 Currently (August 2016), we have presets for the following devices/modes:
24 <li>Behringer BCF2000</li>
25 <li>Behringer BCF2000 (Mackie Emulation mode; better to use
26 Ardour's actual Mackie Control Protocol support)</li>
27 <li>Behringer DDX3216</li>
28 <li>Korg nanoKONTROL (2 layouts)</li>
29 <li>Korg nanoKONTROL 2 (2 layouts)</li>
31 <li>M-Audio Axiom 25 (2 layouts)</li>
32 <li>M-Audio Axiom 61</li>
33 <li>M-Audio Oxygen 49</li>
34 <li>M-Audio Oxygen 61v3</li>
35 <li>M-Audio Oxygen 25</li>
36 <li>M-Audio Oxygen 8v2</li>
37 <li>Novation Impulse 49</li>
38 <li>Novation Impulse 61</li>
39 <li>Novation LaunchControl XL</li>
40 <li>Novation LaunchKey 25</li>
42 <li>Roland V Studio 20</li>
45 At this time, new binding maps need to be created with a text editor.
47 MIDI binding maps are accessible by double-clicking <kbd class="menu">Edit
48 > Preferences > Control Surfaces > Generic MIDI</kbd>. Ardour will
49 retain your selection after you choose one.
52 <h2>Creating new MIDI maps</h2>
53 <h3>The Basic Concept</h3>
55 Since the beginning of time (well, sometime early in the 2.X series),
56 Ardour has had the concept of identifying each track and bus with a
57 <dfn>remote control ID</dfn>. This ID uniquely identifies a track or bus
58 so that when messages arrive from elsewhere via MIDI or OSC , we can determine
59 which track or bus they are intended to control. Ardour has a
61 href="/working-with-tracks/controlling-track-ordering/track-ordering-and-remote-control-ids/">number
62 of ways of assigning remote control IDs</a>, but they don't really matter
63 very much when creating MIDI binding maps, so we won't discuss that here.
64 You just need to know that there is a "first track" and its remote control
67 <h3>Getting Started</h3>
69 MIDI bindings are stored in files with the suffix ".map" attached to their
70 name. The minimal content looks like this:
73 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
74 <ArdourMIDIBindings version="1.0.0" name="The name of this set of
76 </ArdourMIDIBindings>
79 So, to start, create a file with that as the initial contents.
82 On OS X, Ardour loads midi maps from its binary-bundle folder in
83 <code>Ardour-<version>/midi_maps/</code> and checks
84 various other locations as well (defined by the ARDOUR_MIDIMAPS_PATH
85 environment variable). On GNU/Linux the easiest is to save the file to
86 <code>~/.config/ardour3/midi_maps/</code>.
89 <h3>Finding out what your MIDI control surface sends</h3>
91 This is the most complex part of the job, but its still not very hard.
92 You need to connect the control surface to an application that will show
93 you the information that the device sends each time you modify a knob,
94 slider, button etc. There are a variety of such applications (notably
95 <code>gmidimon</code> and <code>kmidimon</code>, but you can actually use
96 Ardour for this if you want. Start Ardour in a terminal window, connect
97 MIDI ports up, and in the Preferences window, enable "Trace Input" on the
98 relevant MIDI port. A full trace of the MIDI data received will show up in
99 the terminal window. (Note: in Ardour3, you get a dedicated, custom dialog
100 for this kind of tracing.)
102 <h3>Types of Bindings</h3>
104 There are two basic kinds of bindings you can make between a MIDI message
105 and something inside Ardour. The first is a binding to a specific parameter
106 of a track or bus. The second is a binding to a function that will change
107 Ardour's state in some way.
109 <h4>Binding to Track/Bus controls</h4>
111 A track/bus binding has one of two basic structures
114 <Binding <em>msg specification</em> uri="<em>... control address ...</em>"/>
115 <Binding <em>msg specification</em> function="<em>... function name ...</em>"/>
118 <h4>Message specifications</h4>
120 You can create a binding for either 3 types of channel messages, or for a
121 system exclusive ("sysex") message. A channel message specification looks
125 <Binding channel="1" ctl="13" ....
128 This defines a binding for a MIDI Continuous Controller message involving
129 controller 13, arriving on channel 1. There are 16 MIDI channels, numbered
130 1 to 16. Where the example above says <code>ctl</code>, you can alternatively
131 use <code>note</code> (to create binding for a Note On message) or
132 <code>pgm</code> (to create a binding for a Program Change message).
135 As of Ardour 4.2, <code>enc-r</code>, <code>enc-l</code>, <code>enc-2</code> and
136 <code>enc-b</code> may be used for surfaces that have encoders that send
137 offsets rather than values. These accept Continuous Controller messages
138 but treat them as offsets. These are good for banked controls as they are
139 always at the right spot to start adjusting. (
140 <a href="/using-control-surfaces/midi-binding-maps/working-with-encoders/">
141 Learn more about working with encoders
145 You can also bind sysex messages:
148 <Binding sysex="f0 0 0 e 9 0 5b f7" ....
149 <Binding sysex="f0 7f 0 6 7 f7" ....
152 The string after the <code>sysex=</code> part is the sequence of MIDI bytes,
153 as hexadecimal values, that make up the sysex message.
156 Finally, you can bind a totally arbitrary MIDI message:</p>
158 <Binding msg="f0 0 0 e 9 0 5b f7" ....
159 <Binding msg="80 60 40" ....
162 The string after the <code>msg=</code> part is the sequence of MIDI bytes, as
163 hexadecimal values, that make up the message you want to bind. Using this is
164 slightly less efficient than the other variants shown above, but is useful for
165 some oddly designed control devices.
169 As of Ardour 4.6 it is possible to use multi-event MIDI strings such as
170 two event CC messages, RPN or NRPN.
174 The <code>sysex=</code> and <code>msg=</code> bindings will only work with
175 <code>function=</code> or <code>action=</code> control addresses. They
176 will <em>not</em> work with the <code>uri=</code> control addresses.
179 <h4>Control address</h4>
181 A <dfn>control address</dfn> defines what the binding will actually control.
182 There are quite a few different things that can be specified here:
184 <dl class="wide-table">
186 <dd>the gain control ("fader") for the track/bus</dd>
188 <dd>the trim control for the track/bus (new in 4.1)</dd>
190 <dd>a toggleable control for solo (and listen) of the track/bus</dd>
192 <dd>a toggleable control to mute/unmute the track/bus</dd>
193 <dt>/route/recenable</dt>
194 <dd>a toggleable control to record-enable the track</dd>
195 <dt>/route/panwidth</dt>
196 <dd>interpreted by the track/bus panner, should control image "width"</dd>
197 <dt>/route/pandirection</dt>
198 <dd>interpreted by the track/bus panner, should control image "direction"</dd>
199 <dt>/route/plugin/parameter</dt>
200 <dd>the Mth parameter of the Nth plugin of a track/bus
202 <dt>/route/send/gain</dt>
203 <dd>the gain control ("fader") of the Nth send of a track/bus</dd>
205 <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>
206 <dl class="wide-table">
207 <dt>a number, eg. "1"
209 <dd>identifies a track or bus by its remote control ID
211 <dt>B, followed by a number
213 <dd>identifies a track or bus by its remote control ID within the current bank (see below for more on banks)
215 <dt>one or more words
217 <dd>identifies a track or bus by its name
221 For send/insert/plugin controls, the address consists of a track/bus
222 address (as just described) followed by a number identifying the plugin/send
223 (starting from 1). For plugin parameters, there is an additional third
224 component: a number identifying the plugin parameter number (starting from
228 One additional feature: for solo and mute bindings, you can also add
229 <code>momentary="yes"</code> after the control address. This is useful
230 primarily for NoteOn bindings — when Ardour gets the NoteOn it
231 will solo or mute the targetted track or bus, but then when a NoteOff
232 arrives, it will un-solo or un-mute it.
235 <h4>Bindings to Ardour "functions"</h4>
237 Rather than binding to a specific track/bus control, it may be useful to
238 have a MIDI controller able to alter some part of Ardour's state. A
239 binding definition that does this looks like this:
242 <Binding channel="1" note="13" function="transport-roll"/>
245 In this case, a NoteOn message for note number 13 (on channel 1) will
246 start the transport rolling. The following function names are available:
248 <dl class="narrower-table">
250 <code>transport-stop</code>
252 <dd>stop the transport
255 <code>transport-roll</code>
257 <dd>start the transport "rolling"
260 <code>transport-zero</code>
262 <dd>move the playhead to the zero position
265 <code>transport-start</code>
267 <dd>move the playhead to the start marker
270 <code>transport-end</code>
272 <dd>move the playhead to the end marker
275 <code>loop-toggle</code>
277 <dd>turn on loop playback
280 <code>rec-enable</code>
282 <dd>enable the global record button
285 <code>rec-disable</code>
287 <dd>disable the global record button
290 <code>next-bank</code>
292 <dd>Move track/bus mapping to the next bank (see Banks below)
295 <code>prev-bank</code>
297 <dd>Move track/bus mapping to the previous bank (see Banks below)
301 <h4>Binding to Ardour "actions"</h4>
303 You can also bind a sysex or arbitrary message to any of the items
304 that occur in Ardour's main menu (and its submenus). The best place
305 to look for the (long) list of how to address each item is in your
306 keybindings file, which will contain lines that look like this:
309 (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/Editor/temporal-zoom-in" "equal")
312 To create a binding between an arbitrary MIDI message (we'll use a
313 note-off on channel 1 of MIDI note 60 (hex) with release velocity
314 40 (hex)), the binding file would contain:
317 <Binding msg="80 60 40" action="Editor/temporal-zoom-in"/>
320 The general rule, when taken an item from the keybindings file and
321 using it in a MIDI binding is to simply strip the
322 <code><Action></code> prefix of the second field in the
323 keybinding definition.
326 <h3>Banks and Banking</h3>
328 Because many modern control surfaces offer per-track/bus controls
329 for far fewer tracks & busses than many users want to control,
330 Ardour offers the relatively common place concept of <dfn>banks</dfn>. Banks
331 allow you to control any number of tracks and/or busses easily,
332 regardless of how many faders/knobs etc. your control surface has.<br />
333 To use banking, the control addresses must be specified using the
334 <dfn>bank relative</dfn> format mentioned above ("B1" to identify
335 the first track of a bank of tracks, rather than "1" to identify
339 One very important extra piece of information is required to use
340 banking: an extra line near the start of the list of bindings
341 that specifies how many tracks/busses to use per bank. If the
342 device has 8 faders, then 8 would be a sensible value to use for
343 this. The line looks like this:</p>
345 <DeviceInfo bank-size="8"/>
348 In addition, you probably want to ensure that you bind something
349 on the control surface to the <code>next-bank</code> and
350 <code>prev-bank</code> functions, otherwise you and other users
351 will have to use the mouse and the GUI to change banks, which
352 rather defeats the purpose of the bindings.
354 <h2>A Complete (though muddled) Example</h2>
356 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
357 <ArdourMIDIBindings version="1.0.0" name="pc1600x transport controls">
358 <DeviceInfo bank-size="16"/>
359 <Binding channel="1" ctl="1" uri="/route/gain B1"/>
360 <Binding channel="1" ctl="2" uri="/route/gain B2"/>
361 <Binding channel="1" ctl="3" uri="/route/send/gain B1 1"/>
362 <Binding channel="1" ctl="4" uri="/route/plugin/parameter B1 1 1"/>
363 <Binding channel="1" ctl="6" uri="/bus/gain master"/>
365 <Binding channel="1" note="1" uri="/route/solo B1"/>
366 <Binding channel="1" note="2" uri="/route/solo B2" momentary="yes"/>
368 <Binding channel="1" note="15" uri="/route/mute B1" momentary="yes"/>
369 <Binding channel="1" note="16" uri="/route/mute B2" momentary="yes"/>
371 <Binding sysex="f0 0 0 e 9 0 5b f7" function="transport-start"/>
372 <Binding sysex="f0 7f 0 6 7 f7" function="rec-disable"/>
373 <Binding sysex="f0 7f 0 6 6 f7" function="rec-enable"/>
374 <Binding sysex="f0 0 0 e 9 0 53 0 0 f7" function="loop-toggle"/>
376 <Binding channel="1" note="13" function="transport-roll"/>
377 <Binding channel="1" note="14" function="transport-stop"/>
378 <Binding channel="1" note="12" function="transport-start"/>
379 <Binding channel="1" note="11" function="transport-zero"/>
380 <Binding channel="1" note="10" function="transport-end"/>
381 </ArdourMIDIBindings>
384 Please note that channel, controller and note numbers are specified as
385 decimal numbers in the ranges 1-16, 0-127 and 0-127 respectively
386 (the channel range may change at some point).