Anyone use an X-Y surface controller with Massive X Play (or any other NI product with an X-Y pad)?

I purchased a ROLI Songmaker Kit, which comes with the ROLI Lightpad Block, Seaboard Block, and a Loop Block. I mainly purchased this to use the Lightpad as an X-Y controller. Is there a way setup Massive X so that the X-Y Play surface is controllable for a surface MIDI controller, like the ROLI Lightpad? There's also a thousand Reaktor ensembles that also use an X-Y pad for macros. If anyone has cracked the code on this, a Master Class tutorial would be awesome.

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Kymeia

What DAW are you using? Some are easier to set this up in than others. Using Ableton Live as an example obviously first make sure it is receiving the MIDI from the Block.

Remember that Massive X itself doesn't have the ability for MIDI learn but the DAW does. In Live all you need to do is open Massive X in the DAW then open the configure panel and right click on the X and then the Y and move your finger over the XY pad (I have X setup for 113 and Y 114). If you find the DAW is not good at differentiating between the X and the Y (this can get fiddly with XY pads as your finger is always to some extent moving in both directions) then open Roli dashboard and manually set up the CCs one at a time (ie I gave them both 113, learnt that to the one I wanted, then gave them both 114 and learnt the other, then switched them back to 113 and 114). It would be so much easier if Live let you edit the cc manually but I have yet to find a host that allows that - Bitwig doesn’t either.

The other annoyance about Massive X is the XY grid is upside down! God knows why! We need to pressure NI into fixing that

oobe79

I'm in Logic Pro. I can't even get Logic to recognize the ROLI Blocks as a controller. A message from 2 years ago on ROLI's website says "Due to recent updates in Logic Pro, ROLI Dashboard's Logic Control app is no longer compatible with recent versions of the DAW. " Basically, ROLI stopped making Blocks a few years ago and then completely abandoned compatibility updates for Blocks owners. Completely horrible. If you know of a way to get Blocks to work with Logic Pro, I would be in your debt.

Kymeia

I'll have a look but Logic is a nightmare for this sort of thing - normally I would suggest using the Massive X Smart Control but Logic only seems to pickup the macros, not the XY

I don't really get what they are saying about ROLI dashboard though as it is there to setup the Lightpad/keyboard devices, it doesn't interface itself with the DAW, the device is what does that (and the Lightpad block works fine if I am controlling Sculpture and Alchemy's XY for example)

Kymeia

OK so the way I would do it is using a custom Smart Control, not the automatic one, which as I said only picks up the macros - something like this. I used the custom 10 param template to map the morphers and 8 macros

Map the X and Y Morphers using the parameter mapping section, then learn each of these to a separate Lightpad CC

However for some reason only one of them is working for me, Logic has always been a pain in the ass with this stuff. It is beyond me why no host seems to allow the user to simply enter CC numbers manually instead of having to use learn which is a very blunt instrument, especially when it comes to touchpads. However you might have more luck.

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