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Hey. My name's Liam Lacey and I'm the software developer behind the AlphaSphere and its AlphaLive
software. In this tutorial video I'm going to show you how to use the AlphaSphere as
a multichannel MIDI instrument with Logic Pro. I have also made videos for a number
of other DAWs, so make sure you check out the ones that are relevant to the DAWs that
you use. Also please note that this is part two of the "Using the AlphaSphere as a Multichannel
MIDI Instrument" tutorial, so if you haven't done so yet, you may want to first check out
part one of the tutorial where I go over how to program the sphere to be a multichannel
MIDI instrument using it's AlphaLive software.
So here I have Apple's Logic Pro X running on, of course, Mac OS X. I've got a new empty
project open, which I set up by going to 'File -> New', but by default you have to have at
least one track in a Logic project, so that's what's here. The AlphaSphere is plugged into
the computer and we've got the AlphaLive application running, and I'm using the AlphaLive project
that we created in part one of this tutorial, which essentially set different MIDI channels
to the different rows of pads. First, lets go over how to connect the AlphaSphere
to Logic Pro and setting up its MIDI input. By default, Logic should automatically connect
to all MIDI devices that are currently connected to the computer. Therefore, as long as the
AlphaSphere is connected, and AlphaLive is open and running a MIDI project, Logic will
receive MIDI messages from the AlphaSphere straight away.
Next, I'm going to show you how we go about adding three software instruments to Logic Pro
and giving each one a different MIDI channel. So to add new tracks in Logic Pro, you can
go to 'Track->New Tracks', or an easier option is just to click this '+' button here.
We've already got one software instrument in our project, so we just need to create two more.
Make sure software instrument is selected, and lets select the number of tracks to '2',
and click 'Create'. And now we have three tracks in our project.
Next lets assign instruments to each of the tracks. Lets select track one (lets get rid of these views here),
go to the instrument slot, and I'm going to assign a 'Sculpture' instrument
to track one. Lets find a preset to use; choose this one here. And then when I play pads on
the AlphaSphere it should trigger this instrument. And remember from tutorial one that we set
this row of pads to send Modulation Wheel data with the pressure, so you will hear that
when I apply more pressure to a pad it will modulate the sound in some way,
bringing in a Tremolo. Now lets assign instruments to the other tracks. Lets select track two, go
to the instrument slot; I'm going to put an 'ES2' instrument on this one -- lets find a
pad sound. Ok, that's a good pad sound. And on the third track lets find a bass sound.
So lets put the 'ES2' instrument on again, go to the presets, play some pads on the 'sphere,
That'll do. So now we have three instruments on the tracks.
Next what we need to do is assign unique MIDI channels to each of the tracks. So to do this,
select a track, click on the tracks setting section here, and under the MIDI channels
option lets set track one to MIDI channel 1. Lets do this for the other tracks. So track
two to MIDI channel 2, and track three to MIDI channel 3. Now the next thing we need
to do is go to 'File-> Project Settings-> Recording', and under the MIDI section we need to tick
this box here -- 'Auto demix by channel if multitrack recording'. This allows the channels
to be split onto different tracks. Finally we need to record-enable each track and when
you play the different pads on the AlphaSphere it should trigger the different instruments.
Finally I'm going to give you an example of how we can map the MIDI CC pads from the AlphaSphere
to control software parameters within Logic Pro.
The most basic way to assign a CC message to software parameters is using Logic X's
new 'Smart Controls' feature. To access this first select a track (we've got track one
selected already), then click this button here which is the 'Smart Controls' feature. As you
can see this will show the Smart Controls section that groups together eight of the
most important parameters from the tracks instrument and any applied audio or MIDI effects.
However these eight slots can be mapped to any of the tracks parameters by going to the
Smart Controls inspector and using the parameters mapping section here. To assign a MIDI CC
message to these controls, first select a control here, click the 'learn' button under
the 'external assignments' section, and then press a MIDI CC pad on the AlphaSphere. So
I'm going to press a pad on the top row of the AlphaSphere. When I press it, it will
automatically link up to that control. So now I'm going to assign the rest of the 7
pads on the top row to the other 7 controls here. So click a control, press the pad,
and so on. When you've finished press the 'learn' button again, and when you press the pads
you'll notice it's controlling the software parameters.
You may find that the pad interaction with the software parameters isn't quite what you
want. To edit the assignments in more detail click the 'edit' button here, and this will
bring up the 'controller assignments' window, and it will show you all the assignments that
we've just made. You'll probably want to set the whole depth of a pad to control the entire
range of a software parameter, so to do that you'll want to set the following values: 'min'
and 'max' to '0' and '127', 'format' to 'unsigned', 'multiplied' to '1', and 'mode' to 'scaled'. So lets
go through all the assignments and make sure that all controls are set to those values.
As you can see we need to change a few values here. And now you should find that the interaction
is exactly what you want. However there is a lot more you can do with controller assignments
within Logic Pro, so I recommend checking out Logic's documentation for more details.
So that's how you use the AlphaSphere as a multichannel MIDI instrument with Logic Pro.
If you use any other DAWs make sure you check out the other relevant videos, and make sure
you look at our other tutorial videos too. Thanks for watching!