APC40 clone in Lemur possible?

[drain]

Hello everybody,

Im using apc40 in live 9 (OSX mavericks) and want to clone some functions in Lemur.

As an example i want to do some knobs for the device controls.
Was trying to find out what the APC40 is sending via Midimonitor resulting:

From Akai APC40 Control 1 General Purpose 1 (coarse)

but setting a knob in Lemur with these Parameters won't do anything.

What i want to do:

if i change them in ableton with my mouse it updates on Lemur and APC40.
if i turn the knob in Lemur it updates in ableton and APC40
if i turn the knob on the APC40 it updates in ableton and Lemur

Im asking myself if the APC40 isn't communicating via midi but over something else?

Ableton sends data to the APC40 and viceversa for bidirectional control so there must be a way to emulate these exact same Parameters in Lemur or am i missing something?

[Softcore]

The reason most dedicated Ableton Live controllers won't work when emulated is because they have a "secret" handshake programmed in - once connected to Ableton Live, Live sends a midi message to them (usually sysex) and the controller "responds" with a "reply" (also sysex). Live, then checks the "reply" and if it fits, it recognises the controller.

Now, I have managed to "read" such a secret handshake for Mackie when used with Cakewalk's Sonar - all I had to do, was interconnect the controller and the software with virtual midi cables, and in between the connection insert a software that will provide midi thru and at the same time "record" the midi messages. You can try something similar if you already have an APC40 to see what "reply" your APC40 sends to Live - with a little luck, you can emulate that reply with Lemur and make Live "believe" that your Lemur is yet another APC40.

[drain]

So i tried a lot of stuff and got now this info out of Midi Monitor:

sysx1.jpg (47.37 KiB) Viewed 3557 times

With this information can my project be done ?

im just a musician not a programmer, is this getting very complicated?

[drain]

maybe i got a workaround,
i just need Lemur to change interface page according to selected track in Ableton.

I already found out this can be done with selectinterface(x);
but now i need ableton to send values for selected track, so a midi remote script or some max4live could be the solution.

unfortunatly i can't program that stuff myself.....
Or is there another way to do this ?

where can i get these from ? im willing to pay for it.

[Traxus]

The reason most dedicated Ableton Live controllers won't work when emulated is because they have a "secret" handshake programmed in

I think that it is our responsibility as paying users to re brand this as ' "secret" circle jerk'.

[Softcore]

The reason most dedicated Ableton Live controllers won't work when emulated is because they have a "secret" handshake programmed in

I think that it is our responsibility as paying users to re brand this as ' "secret" circle jerk'.

Oh yes! Most definitely!!!

[Softcore]

You 'd need to have the actual SYSEX message drain

Something like 00 0B 01 8B ....... actually, hexademical code

......but yeah generally speaking it is sort of complicated. I also suspect by reading the Python files related to Push, that for the APC 40, Live MIGHT send a different message each time (generated randomely) thus the reply from the APC 40 MIGHT also be different each time...

[Macciza]

Hi
You could do stuff with by Midi mapping, ie not using the scripts . . .

Otherwise you need to crack the handshake protocol which does involve random number generation
Or you could edit the script to vary its handshake procedure make it send same code every time
There are a few Apc resources scattered atound the net that may help you .....

Cheers
Mm

[wul]

I looked at the handshake before I did L'Pad n shove , the handshake is similar to shove except there is no timer. The actual handshake code appears to use some internal algorithm that answers the possibly very large random number then compares it with the same algorithm in live . One way I thought to do it was to reduce the random number generator parameters to 0-1 and then monitor the response from a real unit , and adjust the handshake script accordingly , I didn't have a real unit so I gave up trying , and concentrated on the other 2instead.
another method could be to see how clyphx achieves push emulation that bypasses the whole handshake ....
Also I noticed in the latest live release notes they have done something that will affect 3 party scripts so some could stop working . Shove should always work though using the non clyphx method though.
Looking forward to seeing what to emulate from namm 14 .........

[nick_liine]

Also I noticed in the latest live release notes they have done something that will affect 3 party scripts so some could stop working

As far as I can tell, LiveControl 2.1.2 is working fine in Live 9.1.1, so no issues there. Can't say for ClyphX / Shove / etc...