APC40 mkII
This is a guided tour of the APC40 mkII demo configuration.
Make sure to also see the hardware reference to find out important information regarding your controller.
Overview¶
Modes¶
This config comes with five main modes pre-configured.
These are shift, select, pan, sends, and user.
They are mapped to controls of the same name, except select, which is on the bank_lock button (next to shift).
pan, sends, and user are set up exclusively, so that enabling one will disable the other two.
shift and select will only be active while they are held.
There are two other groups of exclusive modes; bank_1 and bank_2, and also send_1 through send_8.
We will cover these modes later.
Pages¶
This config comes with five pages pre-configured.
By looking at pages.yaml, we can see these pages are named home_page, alt_page, session_view_page, ring_devices_page, and blank_page.
The top row the matrix has been set up as a page changer.
This is defined in the matrix section page_changer, which appears on every page.
As some buttons are unassigned, if you add a new page it will automatically be assigned to one of the free buttons.
Named controls¶
Most of the controls on APC40 are set up to replicate their factory script functionality.
Above the faders are the mute, cross, solo, arm, select, and stop buttons, each set up as groups of param controls, controlling the eight tracks inside the session ring.
Four controls, play, record, session_record, and metronome are transport controls, and they control the functions you'd expect.
The buttons device_left and device_right move the device selection left or right on a short press, or to the first or last device on a long press.
device_on is another param control, toggling the selected device's bypass.
The bottom four scene buttons launch their associated scene.
With shift held, they launch scenes below the session ring.
The top button, scene_1, functions as a redundant shift button.
This control — like any zcx control — can be reassigned to a function of your choice.
The directional buttons labelled "bank select" move the session ring.
By holding shift you can move the ring by a whole bank.
By holding select you can move the highlighted clip.
In zcx, these buttons are called dpad_up, dpad_right, dpad_down, and dpad_left.
Matrix pages¶
home_page¶
actions¶
Enter the first page by pressing the top-left matrix button.
The left half is the section actions_left.
Opposite actions_left is actions_right.
These two sections have been left mostly unconfigured.
alt_page¶
This page features the section actions_double, which is also unconfigured.
session_view_page¶
The bottom four rows are occupied by zcx's session view.
This works much the same as the APC's native session view.
Pressing a pad will launch the respective clip slot.
Pressing a pad with select held will select the slot.
See the session view lesson for more detail on configuring this section.
ring_devices_page¶
This page features the section ring_devices.
This section deals with the eight ring tracks.
Each column has four param controls to affect the first four parameters of the first device of the relevant track.
Press a pad to toggle the parameter between its minimum and maximum.
Release a pad after a hold to toggle the parameter again.
Hold shift to access the next four parameters on each track.
blank_page¶
This page contains blank_section, a 4x8 unconfigured grid.
It's a great place to start experimenting with zcx's capabilities.
Encoders¶
Faders¶
fader_1 through fader_8 control the volume of the tracks inside the session ring, while fader_9 controls the Main track's volume.
Track encoders¶
Like with the factory script, the eight track encoders are linked to the pan, sends, and user modes.
In pan mode, they control the pan of the eight session ring tracks.
In sends mode, they control one send for each of these tracks.
By holding down the sends button, you will activate the sends overlay.
With this overlay, you can use the buttons select_1 through select_8 to activate modes send_1 through send_8.
The encoders will now control that send.
In user mode, the encoders have been left unconfigured, making it easy to start binding them to arbitrary parameters of your choice.
There is also a blank binding for __user__shift, giving you easy access to another eight custom parameters.
Of course, all of these encoder modes can be reassigned to a parameter of your choice.
Device encoders¶
These eight encoders control the first eight parameters of the selected device.
By using bank_left and bank_right you can switch between the modes bank_1 and bank_2.
With bank_2 enabled, you can control the next eight parameters of the device.
Miscellaneous encoders¶
cue and crossfader control their default functions.
tempo has been left unbound.
Controlling tempo with zcx
Unfortunately, the current version of zcx cannot natively bind to Live's tempo. If you have Max for Live, you can add this free device to your set, and bind a zcx encoder to it.