I would like to use the selected deck routing of midi commands. Maybe this has it’s limitations, for instance if you do mach-ups with 2 decks producing audio, but lets pretend it can be useful to create simple mappings. Than the question arises what the terms selected and active means. And later add the sync master to it.
- Active: this is in settings → appearance → waveforms → dim inactive deck
- Selected: this is in the midi mapping, you can select a deck in general and you can route midi to ‘selected deck’, like in deckX, but it accepts less midi controls.
I assume that if you select a deck using midi and right after that for instance set the tempo of the selected deck this should work. But this appears to be a complex mechanism, like discussed here. And why the sync master needs to be involved if we go that far here …
If I set the option to dim the inactive deck and select a deck using midi, this does not reflect in waveform dimming.
What am I missing in my knowledge about active / selected? My searches did not produce the answer and even ChatGPT is reflecting the question back to me … 
Edit:
Maybe the better question is if it is endorsed to use the selected deck in midi mappings …
Hi @Brainbox, good question. These are three separate mechanisms that don’t all talk to each other, which is exactly why the dimming doesn’t follow your MIDI selection.
Active deck is playback/mixer state that djay works out on its own. It’s what Settings > Appearance > Waveforms > Dim inactive deck follows, and what Settings > General > Protect active deck keys off. You can’t set it directly, and nothing in MIDI mapping sets it either.
Selected Deck is only a MIDI mapping target. It routes a control to whichever deck currently has MIDI focus, with a shorter action list than Deck 1–4, and its mappings live in their own menu in the editor. It has no bearing on what the UI considers “active”, so no dimming change — that part is expected behaviour, not a bug.
Sync master is also normally determined automatically by djay. There is a MIDI command in the Tempo Section called Set Sync Master which allows you to manually set this to Deck 1-4.
On your second question — yes, Selected Deck is fine to use. It ships in the mapping editor and works as intended. Personally, I never use this option in my custom MIDI mappings and instead duplicate my MIDI commands for each Deck. I hope that helps!
Thanks, I understand now.
Yes, but now I know the deck selection is done by midi control, and does not follow active or sync master, you need to press a button, an extra user action, just like changing a pad layer. That makes its use less attractive. Furthermore I think tempo change should be removed from the selected deck routing because it does not work reliably due to dependency on the other two deck states?
You’re welcome @Brainbox. Thanks for the additional input.
