Akai APC Mini mk2

Limitations

Animated colors

Support for animated colors is limited with this hardware. See issues on GitHub for details.

Dim LEDs

For some reason, in the APC's default mode the LEDs are quite dim. If the default brightness is acceptable, then no action is required.

There is a workaround, but it requires the use of external software such as Bome MIDI Translator, MidiPipe, MidiFire, or others.

First, you will need to edit a hardware-specific file in your installation. The file is _zcx_apc_mini_mk2/hardware/specs.yaml.

hardware_name: Akai APC Mini mk2

global_midi_channel: 0

button_matrix:
  msg_type: note
  id_start: 0
  id_end: 63
  feedback: rgb
  momentary: true
  width: 8
  playable: false
  channel: 6

By adding channel: 6 to button_matrix, zcx will send LED feedback on channel 7, which the APC displays at full brightness. Unfortunately, zcx will also listen for MIDI on channel 7, while your hardware will still send on channel 1. This means your matrix controls won't work.

Warning

When upgrading your zcx installation to a new version, your changes to any files in hardware/ will be lost. You will have to edit this file with every upgrade.

To work around this, using your aforementioned MIDI software, create a virtual port that takes input from your APC. Then you will need to filter the matrix controls, and change their channel to 7 (or 6 if your software deals in zero-indexed MIDI channels). The matrix controls are notes 0-63 (inclusive) on channel 1. You should then output this modified MIDI data on a virtual output port.

You should consult the documentation of your chosen software for instructions on achieving the above.

Once you have a virtual port, set this port as the Input of your script in Live's MIDI preferences. zcx should now function as normal.