Akai apc mini driver windows
Akai APCmini Launchpad
The launchpad sends a 40 byte payload over USB on each event. These payloads are MIDI messages.
The first two bytes determine the event type:
- 09 90 button press
- 08 80 button release
- 0b b0 slider move
The third byte identifies the button or the slider causing the event.
The fourth byte represents the value of the button or slider:
- Button press or release: always 7f
- Slider move: 00 through 7f with an increment of 1
The remaining 36 bytes is always all zeroes. When received as MIDI messages (e.g. WebMIDI), the zeroes are trimmed.
Someone already discovered what I document in the rest of this document. Credit goes to David Morrill over at getsatisfaction.com.
| Row / Column | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 38 | 39 | 3a | 3b | 3c | 3d | 3e | 3f |
| 2 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 |
| 3 | 28 | 29 | 2a | 2b | 2c | 2d | 2e | 2f |
| 4 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 5 | 18 | 19 | 1a | 1b | 1c | 1d | 1e | 1f |
| 6 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 7 | 08 | 09 | 0a | 0b | 0c | 0d | 0e | 0f |
| 8 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 |
| Byte | Button |
|---|---|
| 52 | Clip Stop |
| 53 | Solo |
| 54 | Rec arm |
| 55 | Mute |
| 56 | Select |
| 57 | |
| 58 | |
| 59 | Stop All Clips |
Horizontal Buttons & Sliders
| Function | ⯅ | ⯆ | ⯇ | ⯈ | Volume | Pan | Send | Device | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Button | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 62 |
| Slider | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 |
Ableton seems to be able to instrument the launchpad to give the button a wider range of values.
When it starts, it sends the following to the launchpad:
- 04 F0 7E 7F 07 06 01 F7
- 0b b0 xx 6c for some of the sliders
- Is this perhaps a new range/increment for the slider?
- 09 90 xx 00 to reset all of the launchpad buttons
- I open a set in Ableton Live
- 04 F0 7E 7F 07 06 01 F7 again
- The launchpad responds with:
- 0b b0 of random values to some/all? of the sliders
- Resets slider buttons again
- Sends 09 90 xx 05 to light buttons yellow or 00 for black
- 04 F0 7E 7F 07 06 01 F7 again
- The response above again
- Some more lighting buttons
- I press a yellow lit launchpad button to play the set
- 02 might be blinky green and 01 might be still green
- For horizontal buttons 01 would be still red
So for each unlit grid button press:
- Launchpad sends 09 90 xx 7f to indicate button press
- Ableton sends 09 90 xx 02 to blink until playing
- Launchpad sends 08 80 xx 7f to indicate button release
- Ableton sends 09 90 yy 01 to light the corresponding column button
- Ableton sends 09 90 xx 01 to light the button when it is playing
When the button in the grid column is already on when pressed:
- Launchpad sends «pressed»
- Ableton sends «be blinky»
- Launchpad sends «released»
- Ableton sends «be lit»
When a button is already on in the grid column and another is pressed:
- Launchpad: X is pressed
- Ableton: Blink X
- Launchpad: X is released
- Ableton: Light X
- Ableton: Dim Y (to 05 — yellow not black because if black would not be pressable)
When a button is pressed which is not part of the set:
- Launchpad: pressed
- Launchpad: released
- Ableton doesn’t care or respond
When column button pressed with lit button:
- Akai: column button pressed
- Ableton: blink it
- Akai: it was released
- Ableton: dim it
- Ableton: dim (to yellow) the button that was on
When column button has no lit buttons and gets pressed:
- Akai: column button pressed
- Ableton: keep it off
- Akai: it was released
When a slider is moved:
- Akai: spams move messages
- Ableton: «confirms» last value
When a grid row button is pressed:
- Keeps existing row buttons lit green where they were
- Blinks new row buttons green
- Dims existing row buttons to yellow when switched
- Handles changes to the column buttons depending on if they have buttons
Row buttons can able be lit but they are only ever blunk, never lit continuously.
The shift button is never blunk by Ableton but might be blinkable/litable using libusb .
Build a driver to make the launchpad show graphics on the buttons
The marketing photos show even grid buttons glowing red:
Perhaps all buttons have multiple and all the same color states.
Play around with this to see what all colors are possible and animate some graphics.
libusb-rs seems abandoned, but has a maintained fork: https://github.com/a1ien/rusb
Maybe also use a C# wrapper.
It seems as though there are two options: first make the device recognizable to the OS so that it can select a generic driver for it. This is done using «descriptors» and there is a general HID framework which is cross-OS and then there is WinUSB which is Windows specific, but more capable. Perhaps the Akai launchpad’s string descriptions already make it qualify for one such generic driver. Ableton doesn’t make me install a driver for it and can use it from the get-go and I have not had to install a driver for it manually either, so this might be the case. The other option is to develop a kernel USB driver, which is much more involved but might not be needed since Ableton can use the launchpad without it, so it must be possible. Or, and this is also something to check, perhaps the launchpad, despite using USB, is actually a serial over USB kind of a device like many other are. I don’t know how to validate if this is the case or not, but if it is serial over USB, I might want to look in ways of determining the serial port name and other serial parameters (mainly the baud rate) and then use C# APIs for serial communication which can work straight from user space.
When connected to a Windows machine, the Akai launchpad has its driver installed automatically by the OS. This tells me that the device is HID/WinUSB compatible and thus does not need its own driver.
When inspected in Device Manager, the device appears in a group called Software Devices. It exposes two entries there: APC MINI [0] and APC MINI [1] .
It also appears in a group called Sound, video and game controllers. There, it has one entry named APC MINI .
I have scraped the USB device properties data in akai.csv .
The next steps are:
- Trace OP-1 USB calls to see if they rememble these ones, if so, it is generic MIDI comms
- Compae a mobile USB properties to see if they resemble these ones, if so, RS-232 maybe
- Check BusDog again to see what device ID it was that I was connected to anyway
About
Akai APCmini launchpad USB/MIDI communication protocol
Q Light Controller+
Official forums of the QLC+ project
Akaii APC Mini
Akaii APC Mini
Post by 3li » Thu Jul 07, 2016 1:18 pm
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by janosvitok » Thu Jul 07, 2016 3:51 pm
What you need to do is:
1. check feedback channel in input/output manager (the MIDI out to akai)
2. use proper profile for akai
3. either set in the profile feedback values (color values for on and off) or set them in the virtual console button properties
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by 3li » Thu Jul 07, 2016 4:31 pm
This works. aaaaaaawww, thank You very very much.
P.s. i forgot to check box feedback in QLC+ .. silly me!
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by 3li » Thu Jul 07, 2016 4:36 pm
It’s interesting to notice that you don’t necessarily need to keep 0 as lower value. For example with lower = 6 and upper = 2 the result will be: Function Off -> red LED, Function On -> green LED.
I cannot change color, nor I can shut down green light.
Any hlep with that?
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by janosvitok » Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:58 pm
What do you mean by that?
Please attach here your qxw file and any custom qxf files needed to open the qxw and give as exact step by step recipe to reproduce the problem.
I.e. push ____ button, the led on apc is ___ color, than do ___ and color is ___ while it should be ___.
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by enbyted2 » Sat Dec 24, 2016 9:31 pm
I have the same issue.
So:
— Given you have connected Akai APC mini
— Given that you have set it as input and feedback
— Given that you set the proper profile for it
Case 1:
— Create a simple console with 1 button in toggle blackout mode (I used button 1-1)
— It will work as expected (light green/off then blackouut is on/off)
Case 2:
— Create 30 buttons or more each with different function
— Buttons won’t light up
Case 3: (different issue but might be related)
— Create 30 buttons or more all with toggle blackout
— Only first 8 or 9 butons will be working as expected, others will either not work at all or light up and never turn off.
My machine:
— Ubuntu 16.10
— Kernel 4.8.0-30-generic
— QLC+ current GIT version (c18bc5fe7d4dafdbf88d2e44b7b153944ff72c26)
I attach my workspace and required fixture. It may have missing input profile — just select the default for Akai APC mini (i was messing around trying different values and such). Programmed buttons are 1-1 through 8-3 for functions + 1-8 for moving head testing. Slider 1 is submaster and 2 is moving head tilt offset.
I don’t really understand Qt and QLC’s architecture. I would love to help debug it but I won’t have enough time this year to learn it. I have a show for New Years Eve and I would love to use QLC+ then. If somebody has any idea what might be causing this please let me know.
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by enbyted2 » Sun Dec 25, 2016 12:44 pm
I’ve been debugging it a little and it seems to be not a problem with QLC+ itself.
Using midisnoop I see that QLC is properly sending feedback values, APC mini is just not reacting to them.
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by siegmund » Mon Dec 26, 2016 1:07 pm
enbyted2 wrote: I’ve been debugging it a little and it seems to be not a problem with QLC+ itself.
Using midisnoop I see that QLC is properly sending feedback values, APC mini is just not reacting to them.
Maybe this is related to this issue: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6900&p=29106&hilit= . ack#p29106
I also experienced the issue described in the thread above on my BCF 2000:
When using the mouse in vc to enable the scene by dragging the slider or clicking the button, everything is fine: The button on the BCF lights up red. But if I use the button on the BCF itself to activate the scene, I need to be very «fast»: If the tapping of the button happens _really_ fast then it lights up (as expected), but if you push it a bit longer (respectively with a typical duration) the button does not light up (not as expected).
I guess this has to do with timing and some sort of internal feedback of the BCF. When releasing the button on the external control this forces to override the feedback given by QLC+. Maybe the following diagram illustrates the timing a bit. As you can see, on a normal duration of pressing the button, the button is released after QLC+ had send the feedback so the status of the LED gets overridden.
Button press . . . . . |+++++++++|
Internal feedback . . |+++++++++ |
QLC MIDI IN . . . . . . |+++++++++|
QLC MIDI OUT (feedback) . ||
____________________________________ time >
I did not investigate the exact timing at all but it seems likely for me because as far as I know QLC+ always sends feedback only once after a change.
So if I got everything right there would be a few possibilities (if you are willing to fix this at all):
1) Send feedback continuously/periodically to external devices.
2) Delay sending of feedback a bit.
3) Send feedback twice (one as it is done now, one with a delay)
Don’t know what would be best since 2+3 are a bit «hacky» and 1 will be a lot of work (and processing load).
Re: Akaii APC Mini
Post by Mehovoric » Mon Dec 26, 2016 7:20 pm
Holy crap! This explanation just helped me figure out whats wrong with my APC40 mk2!! Its the exact same issue. Little back story on my controller:
APC40 mk2 has 3 modes. I can get normal feedback to work fine on modes 1 and 2. I set a dim blue color for the lower value and a bright blue color for the upper value. The downside is these modes don’t support «paged» knobs like Mode 0 does. In Mode 0, I have 9 different pages that control 8 physical knobs. In other words, I can actually control 72 different knobs natively. Super useful!
ANYWAYS: In Mode 0 is where I run into feedback issues on the pads. The lower feedback number works fine. However, when I toggle a button, it displays the upper value feedback only as long as I hold the button, and shuts off as soon as I release it. Like you said, if I use the mouse in VC it works as expected. And then I read your post and tried hitting it really fast like you suggested and it worked normally!! So this seems to be a definite issue. The interesting thing is that it only happens on toggle buttons. «Flash function» doesn’t have an issue.
I have noticed with my APC40 Mk2 that in Mode 0, if I press any pad button, it flashes it’s own feedback (even when not connected to QLC+). As long as I’m holding the button down, its always green (so long as i don’t have QLC feedback assigned to it. If I do, that feedback works normally). So I’m wondering if like you pointed out, that is somehow overriding what QLC sends, or it’s just bad timing and QLC sends its feedback message before the APC finishes it’s own internal note-off message? And I wonder if there is some sort of timing difference on feedback for the Flash vs Toggle?
