APC mini mkII
This is a guided tour of the APC mini 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, volume, pan, send, and device.
volume, pan, send, and device are set up exclusively, so that enabling one will disable the others.
These modes determine the functionality of eight of the faders.
Pages¶
This config comes with six pages pre-configured.
By looking at pages.yaml, we can see these pages are named home_page, alt_page, session_view_page, keyboard_page, ring_devices_page, and blank_page.
Named controls¶
The eight buttons below the matrix are configured as a page changer; pressing each button will take you to a different matrix page. The eight buttons to the right of the matrix are scene launch buttons.
shift_overlay¶
When holding shift, the overlay shift_overlay is enabled, changing the function of these sixteen buttons.
The buttons volume, pan, send, and device will activate their associated mode, which affects the faders.
The directional buttons will move the session ring.
The scene launch buttons will control their alternate function; the top four buttons are now param controls, bound to the functions indicated by their label. The buttons drum and select have been left unassigned.
The button labelled "stop all clips" will do just that on a short press, and with a long press will stop all clips without quantization.
Matrix pages¶
home_page¶
actions¶
Enter the first page by pressing the volume button.
The top-left quadrant is the section actions_top_left.
Opposite actions_top_left is actions_top_right.
Taking up the bottom half of the matrix is actions_bottom_double.
These three sections have been left mostly unconfigured.
alt_page¶
The top half of the matrix still features actions_top_left and actions_top_right.
This demonstrates how we can have sections appear on multiple pages.
select_control¶
In the bottom-left is the section select_control.
It's full of param controls that show dynamic feedback.
In this case, every control is mapped to the currently selected track.
The top row controls the track's mute, solo, arm, and input monitoring state.
The second row is mapped to the first four devices on the selected track.
If the track has less than four devices, you will see that one or more controls are off.
Note that these controls are configured for top-level devices, i.e. not devices nested in racks.
By pressing a control, we can select the corresponding device.
By holding shift, these controls map to the bypass state of the devices.
The third and fourth rows are mapped to the first eight parameters of the currently selected device.
Pressing a control will toggle its parameter between its minimum and maximum.
While shift is held, the next eight parameters will be controlled.
track_control¶
In the bottom-right is the section track_control.
It features 16 ring_track controls that are bound to tracks rightward of the session ring.
These dynamic controls give feedback about the playing, arm, and selection state of their bound track.
A short press will select the track, and a long press will arm it.
If your Live set has less than 24 tracks, one or more of these controls might appear off.
__session_view¶
The top six rows are occupied by zcx's session view. This works much the same as APC's native session view. Pressing a pad will launch the respective clip slot. See the session view lesson for more detail on configuring this section.
session_controls¶
The bottom two rows feature the section session_controls.
The top row are param controls, bound to those track's selection status.
The bottom row will set its respective track to a random color, which isn't particularly useful, but it's there to demonstrate how we can target ring tracks with action lists.
keyboard_page¶
This page features a full-size keyboard view for playing notes. See the keyboard view lesson to learn more about how it works.
keyboard_notes overlay¶
By long-pressing the device button, you can enable the keyboard_notes overlay, which occupies the top two rows of the matrix.
The first three buttons of the top row set the scale of Live's Scale Mode, which is reflected on the keyboard. The next two buttons decrease or increase the keyboard's octave. The next two buttons decrease or increase the tonic of Scale mode by one semitone. The last button toggles the keyboard's in key status.
In the second row, the first seven buttons set the keyboard's note repeat status, while the final button toggle's full velocity mode.
ring_devices_page¶
This page features only one section ring_devices, which fills the whole page.
Again, this section deals with the eight ring tracks.
Each column has eight param controls to affect the first eight 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.
blank_page¶
This page contains one section — blank_section — an 8x8 unconfigured grid.
It's a great place to start experimenting with zcx's capabilities.
Encoders¶
fader_9 controls the Main track's volume.
fader_1 through fader_8 have four bindings preconfigured, which can be set via the shift overlay.
In volume mode, they control the volume of the eight tracks in the session ring.
In pan mode, they control the pan of those tracks.
In send mode, they control the first eight sends of the selected track.
In device mode, they control the first eight parameters of the selected device.