How to display Ableton track colors on MIDI controller pads?

Yes you can grab a track's color using the 'color index' value (which go from 0 - 69)
You can send this directly to your pad as the velocity value, but it would make more sense to map/convert it to the correct velocity value - which you setup in a Reaction.

If this would work for you, I can put a tutorial together on how to do it...

Attached to this post is a script (named: custom track colors) containing the completed reaction mappings which I’m going to explain in this tutorial.

Download and import it into Control Surface Studio, then you can drag and drop / duplicate them in your own script.

Overview of how this works:

1. The Reaction ‘set pad 1 color’ listens for the color to be changed in track 1. When this happens, it saves the ‘color index’ value to modifier ‘m1’.
2. The Reaction ‘Convert Track Color to Velocity Value’ listens for modifier m1 to be updated. Whenever m1 is updated, it checks the value of m1, and based on this value it sets modifier ‘m2’ to a certain velocity value.
3. Reaction ‘set pad 1 color’ then sets the pad’s velocity value to the value of modifier ‘m2’

The track color index

Each option in Ableton Live’s track color selector has an assigned number from 0 to 69 (see the below image). These values are accessed using the track’s ‘color index’ (Live Object Model > Track > color index)

How pad LEDs work

To light up a pad’s LED, a MIDI velocity value is sent to it. The MIDI velocity range goes from 0 to 127. Each value in this range is used to display a specific color, for example, sending a velocity value of 50 to the pad will light the LED red. 

Keep in mind that every midi controller is different, the range of colors it’s LEDs can display and the velocity value used to display each color are specific to only that controller. 

So you will need a way to ‘map’ each color index value to a specific MIDI velocity value.

The ’Convert Track Color to Velocity Value’ reaction

Each Action block uses a condition to check the value of the m1 modifier, if the condition is met (for example: if ‘m1’ is equal to 14)  it saves the velocity value we want to send to the pad to modifier ‘m2’ (i.e. save 50 to modifier ‘m2’) and immediately exits the reaction at that point.

If the condition doesn’t find a match then it skips the action section and continues on to the next action block. This process continues until either a match is found or there are no more action blocks remaining to process in the reaction.

Abit of extra info about using conditions

You can of course set up the contents of your action blocks however you need.
The most simple way would be to have 69 action blocks, one for each ‘color index’ value. The chances are though, your pads aren’t capable of displaying 69 different colors, so you probably don’t need 69 Action blocks in the reaction.

Conditions are very versatile, allowing you to run your checks in many different ways. You can use multiple ‘and / or’ conditions in order to filter out exactly what you need.

In this case, adding to an action block multiple conditions which match many different color index values would result in the same pad color being displayed for various ‘color index’ values. If your pad can’t display all 69 colors then this would be a good solution.

Here's another way you can do it, check for a range of color index values such as if the value of ‘m1’ is greater than 10 and less than 20.

Excellent. Thank you for the tutorial John.

Now how would you go about changing the color of each clip contained within the session box?

I've created a listener for "session box position changed" and I am able to retrieve the track offset and scene offset.
Now with this data, can I create a list of all the clips within the box and store their color index? The idea would be to then send it to the controller...
Or perhaps there's a better solution? How can I go about it?

I am using an APC40 MK2 and would like to emulate the same behavior as the original script and have the pads light up with the right color as I move the session box.

Thank you for your help!

Yes Control Surface Studio now has the ability to send Sysex using the action 'script > send raw MIDI data to controller'

In this option you can enter sysex. It will require abit of investigation but another user was able to send track names to their controller's LED display 
using the following code:
tuple([240, 126, 0] + [ord(c) for c in self.song().view.selected_track.name] + [247])

The example code in my previous comment is for doing something abit more dynamic.
If you want to send a specific sysex message to your controller, you should be able to simply enter it similar to this...
F0 41 10 42 12 40007F 00 41 F7

You would just need to find out what the sysex messages are for your controller.

Hmm, try also wrapping it in brackets like this (F0 47 7F 43 65 00 04 23 00 00 7F F7)

Do you have any errors in the CSS log?

Same here, just posted in another thread here in the forum, but as it seems related I also update it here in this thread:

I have a similar midi command here and get the same syntax errors. Wrapping it in additional brackets does not solve it either.

Any advise on how to fix the syntax?

Found a cumbersome solution, but it works:

Just translate each individual element from HEX to DEC and it will work.

In my case what I want to send is: (F0,00,20,6B,7F,42,05,01,F7)
Instead I now send the same in Decimal: (240,0,32,107,127,66,5,1,247) and this works.

Thanks Robstaaaa,
Stakker - if you look at Robstaaa's comment, he has a comma between each i.e. 240,0,32,...
Where as the errors in the log file which you provided show that the commas are missing - self._send_midi(F0 47 7F 43 65 00 04 23 00 00 7F F7)

So try adding them in to match like this - self._send_midi(F0,47,7F,43,65,00,04,23,00,00,7F,F7)

... oh but you will need to convert it to decimal (as mentioned above)

You would need to add separate controls in the controller template which have the correct midi data (maybe use 'LED Display' controls) , then you can select it and send MIDI velocity to it.

Maybe you're looking in the wrong place, it's actually in the 'song' category.
live object model > song > selected track has changed

Helllo everyone

I have a question

I hope that just you can tell me if what I want to do is possible

I've learned a little about how the program works now

And I can manage with the midi fighter twister

But I also have an apc 40 mkII and I have a question because i try with the manual and the videos but i dont find the solution to my problem.

I use the lighted pad's of the grid to mute and demute all kind of bus and tracks and it works very well

But the pads only have a choice of colour orange when on and no light when off

I would like to be able to choose the colour of the pad when the track that corresponds to it is muted or not

But I don't understand how I can do it

Can you please tell me how to do this?

Maybe with the reaction thing i imagine. .... i ve try but no succes

That would be great

And if it's not possible I'd rather know so as not to lose too much time

Thanks to you all

Nico

Hey

I finally found how to change the pad colour ..... but its attach to the number of the track. ... right ??? But if i add after some track evrerything change and its not possible to manage. .... is there a way to block those assignations ?? Or maybe another way to do what i need .... thanks for your help ;-). Nico

Finally i think its not going possible to lock the thing on certain tracks ..... anyway ;-) .... i change the way im gonna work Im gonna use fixed track to apply color and it looks to work but i ve got one last problem. it look there is a conflict with the original session box. .... i mean led pad comportement follow nicely my mouse click but when i push the pad they no react ... and if again i click with the mouse it work. ... it work perfectly also when i deactivate the apc in midi preference but i need it for the 8 button followin the blue hand
Am i clear ?? Can someone have the solution ???
Again Thanks

Nico

i confirm only by numbers. !!!!! I m gonna check you script. ..... then you find a way to reproduce the blue hand thing ?? cool

Hey stakker Have you share your script. ..?? I Yes where. plz ??? If not can your share Blue hand tips ? :-)

If you want to select / control track parameters by name (or anything other than the position number)
You will need to use reactions to find the correct track and then save its position number to a modifier.
It requires using a loops and modifiers in reactions.
These 2 tutorials cover both subjects:
Loops and lists: https://youtu.be/ZYzkH1_ZL6U
Modifiers: https://youtu.be/qXUmpnl1wps

You can also very easily refer to tracks (I'm here because I'm looking for a fast way to color all the clips in a track) within the session box using their offset, like

self.song().tracks[self.get_sessbox_track_offset()]
self.song().tracks[self.get_sessbox_track_offset()+1]

for tracks 1 & 2 all the way through '+7' for the 8th track in a 8 track session box.