Re: Macworld readers, I need a solid.

[Andrew Chaikin <andrew@biggerbread.com>]

Chris Sewell wrote:
 >>>>>
Since the guys Ableton still have not provided midi control
of keystrokes, this might allow me to switch live sets remotely.
Bome has yet to make good on its promise of a Mac version of
Midi Translator and the Midistroke doesnt really work well.
<<<<<

Chris,

If by "remotely" you mean using a midi device as opposed
to the keyboard, switching live sets is indeed possible,
without a remote control.

I'm a former Bome fanatic who switched to Mac.
The solution I whipped up involves MidiPipe and
QuicKeys.

MidiPipe lets you assign AppleScripts to Midi events.
QuicKeys is a macro program for Mac. It's not cheap,
but it's super-powerful.

So in QuicKeys, you can write a macro to open a
specific file when a certain key is pressed. Let's say
you assign Ctrl-A to Song 1, and Ctrl-B to Song 2.
(Not Command-A and B -- Ableton uses those already.)

Let's assume your Midi device has two buttons that
send out 192,1 and 192,2.

Then in MidiPipe, we run the following script when
a Midi event comes in:

    on runme(message)
      tell application "System Events"
        if (item 1 of message = 192) and (item 2 of message ³ 1) and  
(item 2 of message ² 2) then
          tell process "Live"
            set frontmost to true
            keystroke "P"
            if (item 2 of message = 1) then keystroke "a" using  
control down
            if (item 2 of message = 2) then keystroke "b" using  
control down
          end tell
        end if
      end tell
    end runme

... which says:
If a Midi event of 192,1 or 192,2 comes in, then
  - make Live the frontmost window
  - type "P" into Live (more on this in a sec)
  - type Ctrl-A or Ctrl-B

Voila. Hit one of your buttons, and the file opens.

- - - - -

Unless of course Ableton puts up some dialog
boxes.

- If the Ableton set is currently playing, you'd get
a "This action will stop audio. Proceed?" dialog box,
which you don't want. So if you assign "P" (or
whatever key you want) to Live's stop button, the
script above will stop Live playing before closing
the file. (That's what the "keystroke P" line is for
in the script above.)

- If your current Live set has changed, you'll get
a "Save changes to ____ before closing?" dialog
box, which we have to handle. So in Quickeys,
my file-opening macro looks like this:

    1. Open file "Song X"
    2. Check for menu item "About..." in menu Live
    3. Type Keystroke "Command-D"

... which basically says: if, after trying to open
a new file, Live puts up the "Save changes?"
dialog box, hit Command-D for "Don't Save."

- - - - -

QuicKeys is super-easy to work with; with MidiPipe
you're sort of on your own. But the above system
does work, and has been bulletproof for me onstage
for 2 years now.

Hope this helps...


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