1.1 GeoMIDI GeoMIDI MIDI mapping software provides an interface for changing the MIDI assignments of the ControlDAW s buttons, knobs, and sliders. Each slider, button or knob can send out a variety of combinations of control, note or pitch-bend data. An unlimited number of MIDI map presets can be created, saved and loaded for use. 1 P age
1.1.1 Introduction This manual explains how to use the GeoMIDI software with the ControlDAW MIDI controller. GeoMIDI provides an interface for changing the MIDI assignments of the ControlDAW buttons, knobs, encoders, and sliders. Sliders and knobs can send out a variety of combinations of control and pitchbend data Buttons send out note or controller messages. The lights behind all the buttons on the ControlDAW respond to either note or cc messages to turn them on and off. The LED indicators below the unit s encoders respond to the note or cc for the encoder's pushbutton. Types of Control Options in GeoMIDI MIDI CC Note Number Bend Default Control Types All buttons can be assigned to Note Number, MIDI CC. All Faders can be assigned to MIDI CC/Bend All Encoders can be assigned to MIDI CC/Bend o Rotary push button Note, MIDI CC All Knobs can be assigned to MIDI CC/Bend 2 P age
1.1.2 Getting Started 1. Make sure the StudioBLADE or ikeydock is powered on. For the ikeydock, make sure the USB cables are plugged into your computer. 2. Open the GeoMIDI software. The port menu in the lower left corner should read "MCLG (which stands for Music Computing Large). If a ControlDAW is not found, you will get a very obvious message at the base of the grid: Once properly connected, GeoMIDI retrieves the ControlDAW s current settings from the hardware. You can then click or use the ControlDAW itself to select a knob, slider, or button, and use the Inspector to change the values and types of messages. The next section will explain the various features of the inspector. 3 P age
1.1.3 Functions There are a number of features to the GeoMIDI software. All are described below. Inspector The Inspector displays some fields to change values and types of controls an element will send/receive, and also displays the name and ID of the element. The IDs of buttons range from 0-80, and from 128-153 for sliders/knobs. For example, to change the MIDI message the second slider on the left to send on controller 25, click on the slider, then click on the value number box. Enter "25". Then, make sure the type menu is selected as "controller". To send these values to the ControlDAW, press update, or just click on another control element. If you are warned that the note or cc number you chose is already assigned to something else, then chose a different value. The Inspector panel will follow your clicks, and let you reassign any button, knob, or slider to output and respond to different MIDI messages. If you change the inspector, press "update" to change the local setting on your computer (to change the ControlDAW, you need to press "Send"). The inspector for an encoder has the addition of "mode" setting. This determines if the encoder will output a range of 0-127, or provide increment/decrement values ("+/-"). In +/- mode, the encoder will output a stream of values of 0,1,0,1, etc. when turned to the left, and 0,127,0,127, etc. when turned to the right. Lock When the Lock button is set in the inspector (buttons only), this ensures that MIDI going to the ControlDAW to control LEDs is the same value that the button sends out. This is mostly for convenience, rather than necessity. If you press the Lock button, the inspector will expand to reveal settings for the LEDs, independent of the output messages. 4 P age
MIDI Spy The Midi Spy is a useful utility that shows a variety of MIDI values coming in on the port of your choice. You can confirm the ControlDAW, or any other controller, is sending the proper MIDI by clicking the MIDI Spy button to open a panel that displays incoming MIDI messages. Quick Assign In the Quick Assign window, you can enter ranges of numbers for controls and notes for fast programming. (Press the "?" button for more info) Quick Assign is a quick way to assign values to all the controls, just by typing in a few values. For example, you can make a list of numbers that will, in order of the ID number, assign notes to the buttons or slider/knobs. There is also the option for assigning a chord or scale to the button matrix, providing 8 octaves of a scale for harmonic experimentation. Simply select a scale and all buttons will be assigned the appropriate note numbers for that scale. 5 P age
Scales Chords 6 P age
Presets Presets are a convenient way of storing a variety of ControlDAW MIDI mappings on your computer, which can be quickly loaded onto the ControlDAW. You can select presets with the arrow buttons, or by choosing from the menu. Presets can be renamed by clicking on the name, then entering in a new name. Press Store to save the current settings to a file on your computer. If you want to store to a preset that is not currently selected, hold down the option key on your keyboard, click Store, (the button will turn grey) then select a preset from the menu. When you first start the GeoMIDI software, the menu will read "Current Settings" to indicate that you have not loaded a preset. If you press the "store" button while the menu is labeled with "Current Settings" your settings will be stored to Preset 1. The toggle button [Send on Change] will send all the settings to the ControlDAW when the preset is selected. If it's off, then you will need to press the [Send button] to put a preset s settings data onto the Ohm. The [MIDI ctl] button opens a panel where you can specify MIDI controls to change the settings and LED presets. For example, you may want the F1 and F2 buttons to do this, so just enter in the MIDI note assignments that F1 and F2 are assigned. The toggle button "use channel" will determine if the GeoMIDI Software pays attention to the channel setting when listening for MIDI messages to change presets. This is mostly for the situation when you have presets that change the ControlDAW's main channel. In this case, if the channel was not ignored, any buttons on the ControlDAW that are assigned to change presets would no longer work! These presets are saved with the software, not the ControlDAW hardware, so they are only accessible if the GeoMIDI software is running. 7 P age
Save/Open Settings to File Using the File menu, you can save the current settings to a file. This would be useful, for example, if you want to share your settings (including the current LED pattern) with another user. Just select "Save" or "Save As... enter a name, and save to a file. Similarly, "Open" will open a file. Of course, if you want these settings to save to the Control DAW, you will need to press the "Save To..." button. Save To ControlDAW Save to ControlDAW is very important. When the ControlDAW is connected to power, settings are recalled from Flash memory. If you want the current settings to load when you boot the system or plug in the USB, then you will have to press [Save to ControlDAW]. Show Assignments Show Assignments provides a spreadsheet-style overview for all the assignments for the controls. It is a convenient display for when you want a quick look at everything. 8 P age
More... "More..." has a few additional settings for the ControlDAW controller, including the send channel and backlighting brightness. Many of these are settings according to MIDI spec, and are controlled with specific CC messages. Local Control When Local Control is off, the ControlDAW s LEDs will only blink in response to incoming MIDI messages. When Local Control is on, the LED's will blink under the buttons that are pressed, and will ignore any incoming MIDI. Omni Omni Mode determines if the ControlDAW will listen for control data on all channels (Omni on) or just the specified channel (Omni off). All Notes Off All Notes Off is a standard MIDI message that will turn off all LEDs (excepting the backlights). It is necessary to have Omni Mode off for this to work. All Lights On All Lights On will send a sysex command to turn all LEDs on. Fetch Settings Fetch Settings will request all settings data from the ControlDAW and populate the GeoMIDI with those settings. Factory Reset Factory Reset will reset the ControlDAW to the standard settings it shipped with, as well as fetch the settings to populate the GeoMIDI. Snapshot Snapshot sends out all the button and knob values over MIDI, in the event you want your software values to match up with the hardware. Safe Assign Safe Assign is on by default. This protects you from assigning the same MIDI note or cc to multiple controls. For example, if you have button 64 assigned to note 96, and you try to assign button 0 note 96, you will get a warning and you will need to reassign button 0. However, this protection can be annoying when making a large number of changes to the MIDI assignments, in which case, you will want to turn off Safe Assign. 9 P age
Channel Channel displays and sets the current MIDI channel the ControlDAW will send data on. Additionally, this channel setting will be used for any controls with a channel value of "0". Store in preset When checked, the channel data will be stored and recalled in the presets, allowing for presets set to different channels. Pitch Bend, and MSB/LSB Sliders can be programmed to send Pitch Bend data. Select cc/bend as the type, and use values 96-111 to send Pitch Bend on channels 1-16. Values 1-31 will set the slider to send 14-bit style cc messages with MSB and LSB, however, it is important to note the data is really only 7 bit. 10 P age
Banking The ControlDAW has four banks available. This feature allows for the creation of four separate custom control layouts that can be easily recalled with the banking buttons of the ControlDAW. Banks are labeled A- B-C-D. Save to Bank: After making changes to the control layout, press a number in the Save to Bank option to commit the changes to this bank. Recall Bank: This is where you can manually recall a bank to edit. Bank Channel: Each bank channel can be set to a specific MIDI channel. One MIDI channel of the standard 16 MIDI channels can be used. 11 P age