How do i connect MIDI CCs to parameters ?

Hello,

i’m completely new to TD, have spend a couple of days going through the tutorials and learning the basics. I’m getting great results already using Audio IN but i’m a bit lost with MIDI.

What i want to do is use MIDI note and CC data coming into my MIDI interface (Called MIDI Port 1 on my system) and map the different data streams to various parameters of Movie objects i created. I can see everything is hooked up correctly in the MIDI device mapper, when i select IN EVENTS i see everything coming in like it should. Now how do i get this data into a parameter.

I have tried understanding how the Midi IN, Trigger, MIDI In Map etc works but i just don’t get it. What do i need to create/connect so i can export from an active viewer like i managed to do with the audio IN. Could someone point me in the right direction ? Haven’t found any tutorials or posts about this here … the Ableton MDI tutorial didn’t really help a lot …

When i create a MIDI In CHOP i have a warning icon with the yellow triangle and exclamation mark, even when i set the MIDI source to my midi port.

thx for any help

Since you are using the MIDI Devcie Mapper Dialog, you can use a MIDI In Map CHOP. By default, you will see the CHOPs is looking for slider channels s[1-16] and button channels b[1-16].

Go into the MIDI Device Mapper, and go to the sliders page. You will see s[1-128]. With your MIDI device connected and In events properly coming in, press the Learn button beside the slider channel you want to map (s1 for example), then wiggle your MIDI controller, you will see the s1 will be assigned the to that midi event. Press Learn again to exit the learning mode for s1. Do the same for your other sliders, then move onto the buttons page.

Once you have all the mappings programmed the way you want them, name your MIDI preset down in the “Name:” field close to the botom of the dialog. Then press the “Save” button. You will then be able to restore this MIDI mapping using the “Restore” button later. If you want this mapping to startup as the default mapping each time you open TOuchDeisgner, then rename your mapping to “Default”. Default is always loaded on startup.

hello, thx for the quick reply … in the meantime i have had some success with the Midi IN module, but not with the Device Mapper.

Maybe i should explain exactly what i want to achieve. What i don’t want to do is to control parameters with physical hardware controllers. I am using a step sequencer for my drums and this step sequencer outputs MIDI notes and/or CCs for each instrument. The notes have velocity and the CCs values. I want to use the velocity and CC values to drive parameters in Touchdesigner. So that in the end some paramters will move automatically in sync with the drum pattern. So for example:

Hi-hat velocity (note 30) → x-rotation of some image
Hi-hat CC value (CC 80) → y rotation of some image
Conga velocity (note 31) → hue of some image
Conga CC value (CC 81) → saturation of some image

and so on …

so i create a MIDI In CHOP,

go to the Note tab and set the Note Scope to 30-35, Separate Channels with Note Amplitudes …

then i click on the Control tab and set the controller type to General Purpose 1-4 (Controller Index 80-85)

this does not work, i cannot get more than one signal at a time from one MIDI In CHOP … i can create several and map each one to a different note or CC and this works great … i don’t understand why i can’t just get all the incoming data displayed in a single MIDI IN CHOP …

even with using just one note in a MIDI In CHOP i’m having problems adressing some values … i have created a 3d-object for example and when i export the CHOP into x-rotation … all the rotation values xy and z are triggered with the CHOP now, it’s a bit random, sometimes when i drop on the paramter and select ‘Export CHOP’ only the parameter i droped on gets connected but most of the times another parameter wil be linked as well … is this normal ? am i doing sth wrong here ?

We recommend using the MIDI Mapper Dialog, it is much easier to use and manage channels with. I’ll explain how to use the MIDI In CHOP, but first you must open the MIDI Mapper Dialog so you can see the incoming MIDI events. Select your step sequencer as the Input device and turn on the “In Events” tab at the top of the dialog so you will be monitoring in events.

Now you should be able to see both your CC and notes coming in.

If the CC and notes are being send in on separate MIDI channel numbers, then I’d recommend using separate MIDI In CHOPs for each channel.

Let go over the setup for Notes first.

Source tab
1- Set MIDI Source to your device.
2- Set MIDI Channels to whatever MIDI channel you see the notes coming into TouchDesigner on. In my case this was channel 1 (ch1).

Note tab
1- Determine the note range you need, lets say it is 30-40, put that in the Note Scope parameter. You will see these notes created as channels in the CHOP, you should now see channels ch1n30 thru to ch1n40.
2- In this default, you will only see 0 and 1 values as the notes go on and off. Change the Velocity parameter to Note Amplitude, now the channels will be a floating point number indicating the velocity, the range will be 0.0-1.0

That’s it for setting up notes. If CC values are on another MIDI channelm, create an new MIDI In CHOP to do just CC in events.

Control Change (CC)
Source tab
1- Set MIDI Source to your device.
2- Set MIDI Channels parameter to whatever MIDI channel you see the CC values coming into TouchDesigner on. In my case this was channel 3 (ch3).

Control tab
1- Leave Controller Type set to “by Index Only”
2- Determine the range of controllers that you need, lets say it is 80-100, put that in the Controller Index parameter. You see 20 channels created in the MIDI In CHOP named ch3c80 thru to ch3c100.
3- Moving your controllers will control the values of the channels you created, their range will be 0.0-1.0

Regarding exporting channels to triplet parameters such as transforms and rotates. If you want to export a channel to all 3 parameters in the triplet, drop the channel name on the parameter’s actual ‘name’ (ie, the label word “translate”). If you would like to export the channel to just one of the three, make sure the mouse is over the value field of just one of them when you release the mouse to drop.
To edit exports that you’ve created, go to the originalting CHOP, right0click and select CHOP Exporter from the menu. This dialog lets you inspect, add, remove, and swap exports.

Hope that helps. Give the MIDI Mapper Dialog another try if the MIDI In CHOP is still troublesome.