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Hi,
Great to see 2.6 out of beta, thanks for keeping up the development!
Now with the new reactions working, is it possible to send the color of the track in Ableton to a controller RGB pad? I mean, pick up the color from Ableton, not write down manually a matching velocity value.
What I want to do is lay out all the tracks on my controller pads with their colors and then hit the pad to select the track. It is MUCH easier to select the right track when I can see the color. Counting tracks to find the right one from a bunch of identically colored ones is not really useful.
If it is possible now, I'd really appreciate some direction on how to do it... I've tried finding the functionality myself, but failed :-/
Cheers!
Comments
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...
Awesome! So, I guess the color index is Ableton's own way of referring to the colors? I have no clue how to do the mapping, so a tutorial or instructions of any kind (doesn't have to be anything fancy) would be much appreciated indeed! Thank you :-)
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:
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.
You will notice that the last action block in this Reaction doesn’t have a condition. This is used to set the pad to a default color. If processing reaches this action block then it means there have been no matches, so this final action block acts as a fallback/default and will set the m2 modifier to the default value of 127.
The ‘set pad color’ reactions
In the example script is a reaction named ‘set pad 1 color’. You will need to copy/duplicate this reaction for each pad that you want to send LED feedback to.
Rename it (i.e. set pad 2 color) and then set the ‘path menu’ to the correct track number in:
You will also notice that the listeners section contains 2 other events, ‘script is initialised’ and ‘song’s tracks value has changed’. These are used to ensure that…
And that’s all there is to it, if you also want to use your pad to select the track in Ableton, this can be done using the ‘track navigation’ mapping type or with reactions by using the action: script > set selected track.
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!
Awesome! Thank you so much John, I appreciate the very detailed instructions.
Now I can finally put the Akai Fire that I bought specifically for this purpose to use :-)
Looks like Akai Fire uses Sysex to change the RGB pads... I'm guessing Remotify doesn't send Sysex ATM?
But I did verify that the script works by making it do other things, so that is excellent :-)
I might try setting it up on my Launchpad (in two rows to get more than 8 tracks). Or make it change my MIDI Fighter Twister RGB LED colors (selected track macros), if that is actually possible with the Twister.
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.
Ahh nice! I found somebody had decoded the Akai Fire MIDI implementation (here: https://blog.segger.com/decoding-the-akai-fire-part-2/), so I actually tried that "send raw data" option, but didn't get it to work... I'll give it another shot, maybe I just had something wrong there. I tried sending "F0 47 7F 43 65 00 04 23 00 00 7F F7", as written the article.
Hmm, try also wrapping it in brackets like this (F0 47 7F 43 65 00 04 23 00 00 7F F7)
Ok, I'll ry that, but hmm... I noticed at some point that I had an older version of Live in the CSS settings. After changing it to the current one (11.0.11), the installed scripts are not visible in the Ableton Preferences / Control Surface pull-down anymore. I checked that they are actually installed into the right folder, but for some reason Ableton doesn't see them?
Do you have any errors in the CSS log?
Yeah I do get plenty when I start up the app — attached.
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)
Nice thinking Robstaaaaa! This actually worked, I turned an Akai Fire pad blue \:-D/ Thank you both.
So I can now color the pads in a static color, which is useful. However, in order to make the pad match the track color, I need to write the RGB values into that sysex command. Probably can't do direct conversion (?), but I'll have to investigate if there's a way to maybe do a couple of manual if-then sysex commands for the track colors I actually use. Or something like that :-)
Since Akai Fire is a bit difficult, I turned my attention back to my trusty Midi Fighter Twister. Thanks to John's examples, I can grab the color from the selected track and translate it to velocity and send it to a knob LED to indicate which track is selected.
However, the MFT LEDs listen for color input on MIDI channel 2... Is it possible to change the channel where I send the velocity CC for this purpose?
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.
Thanks John!
I can't add a new controller though, because the knob button actually also uses channel 2 (which creates a clash). But I believe it will work if I just change the button controller into a knob controller. Then I can send it velocity data and CC 0 and 127 should still let it function as a button. (The MFT manual seems to confirm this.)
However, I haven't figured out how to make a listener that activates when a new track is selected... I tried a listener that listens to the selected track's color index being changed (self.song().view.selected_track.add_color_index_listener), but it doesn't run the action block when I select a new track. (I verified it with a debug message action, so there's no error in the action block.)
I'm guessing there is a way to make a listener listen to this?
Maybe you're looking in the wrong place, it's actually in the 'song' category.
live object model > song > selected track has changed
It actually works! \:-D/
This is awesome - now I can see which track is selected from the color of the MFT leds without looking at the screen. A bit of work to add all the track colors there, but that's a small price to pay to get this killer controller setup working :-)
Thank you so much for the help and happy holidays!
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'm not sure I fully understand what you mean, but you can have 8 knobs always automatically control the 8 macros of the selected track, if that is what you need? (Or more than 8 in Ableton 11 now.) That's one of the things my script does.
About assigning pads to certain tracks... I THINK you can only refer to tracks by their number, so if you change the track order, the numbers change. But not sure about that.
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 ? :-)
Well, this script is for the Midi Fighter Twister (and still under construction), but feel free to check it out if you can learn something useful from it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ulzekdffs1vzhc/stakkertwister_trackcolor.json...
"Selected Track -> Device 1 -> Parameter Bank 1" is the macro mapping part.
I'm not sure if I've even ever used the blue hand functionality, can't really say much about that :-)
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.