I’m wondering if anyone has experimented with triggering djay Pro AI’s loops and custom samples with a separate multi-pad MIDI trigger device.
An example trigger is this tiny Korg nanoPAD2 (https://www.amazon.com/Korg-nanoPAD2-Slim-Line-MIDI-Pads/dp/B004M8YPKM/ or see attached image below). With this tucked into my rig I could hopefully map the top row of 8 pads to djay’s currently loaded Looper Pack profile (such as Deep Jazz or Analog Techno, etc.) while mapping the bottom row of 8 pads to my loaded custom (or default) Sampler Pack.
Of course, this pads trigger has to work in tandem with my Pioneer MIDI DJ controller so that djay is able to deal with MIDI output from both devices simultaneously without latency or other problems.
Main reason to do this is I often record remix tracks or play live sets with vintage tracks that I like to enhance with looped beats and percussive sounds or risers and more. When I use limited screen space of iPad, there’s way too much switching back and forth between effects controls or loops or sampling. I can’t do it fast enough. On my Mac, I can load the interface with more stuff at once, but I have to either point at tiny controls with a trackpad cursor or map to the keyboard where the keys are too tiny and finicky for fast-paced, music-synced performance.
With large dedicated pads, I could slam on samples and loops in time with abandon! Has anyone tried this or know if it’s NOT POSSIBLE on MacOS djay Pro AI?
I see it’s possible to map all 48 loops in Mac Djay Pro AI and all 16 samples under the MIDI menu. But is it possible to activate and deactivate lights on a MIDI pad trigger for loops?
It would be difficult to activate a loop but not have its associated button light up as feedback (and the light turn off when loop has been deactivated). Otherwise, you only have the sound to tell you what’s playing and must remember which buttons are attached to which loops to turn off and on.
This MIDI generic controller (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WU6FDNG/) could be used to map all loop and sample slots to its many buttons, but djay needs to be able to control the buttons’ lights too. I can’t tell if that’s possible or not in djay MIDI settings. Anyone know?
The top six rows map perfectly to every djay Looper slot and LEDs give proper feedback for loops that are playing or not (colors can be picked for both playback states or LEDs off if you like). The bottom 2 rows map perfectly to the number of samples available in djay. I just have to load loops and samples in djay and start punching pads to play.
Of course, I had to manually map it and it’s less useful than I’d hoped without knobs which I could map to a number of interesting controls in djay.
NOTE: the other MIDIPLUS unit I referenced above has lots of knobs and the same number of pads but was too buggy with djay unfortunately plus the manufacturers were clueless and uncaring.
First, do you have the Novation Launchpad Mini? Next, what would you like the launchpad to do with it? Are you trying to control the loops and samples or something else?
Regardless, it requires a dive into the MIDI Mapping feature in djay under Settings > MIDI Devices (be sure to have your device attached first so djay can see it). See Algoriddim’s help on MIDI Mapping.
