Reply to Akai APC40 and TPro (MISA basic setup)

DJ TechTools Community:

I was asked to post my basic setup of the Akai APC40. It should provide a decent starting template for anyone creating their own mappings. I created the tsi file section by section according to the hardware, so it should be fairly easy to figure out how to disable or change commands.

PLEASE NOTE: I use the APC in conjunction with a VCI-100. As such, I didn't map out many basic mixing functions for the APC40.
WARNING: If you try to use this tsi in conjunction with a VCI-100, many MIDI notes and CC values will be repeated and conflict. For things to jive using both, I used MIDI Patchbay (for OS X) to take all MIDI from APC40 channel 1 to channel 10 on Traktor Virtual Input and then output all MIDI from Traktor Virtual Output channel 10 to channel 1 on APC40. I will post that tsi and the directions to create that setup in a future thread.
UPDATE: The problem with the APC40 and the VCI-100 using the same MIDI channel is resolved with the new way TPro 1.2 handles MIDI mappings.

MISA APC40 1.0 TSI OVERVIEW

Every deck on Traktor has 2 columns dedicated to it on the APC. Column 1 and 2 control Deck A. Column 3 and 4 control Deck B. Column 5 and 6 control Deck C. Column 7 and 8 control Deck D. Column 9 has different functionality to be explained later. I will explain column 1 and 2 in detail, but its functionality is repeated for the other 3 decks.

CLIP LAUNCH MATRIX
The first four buttons on each column select HotCues. Buttons 1-4 in Column 1 select HotCues 1-4. Buttons 1-4 in Column 2 select HotCues 5-8. These buttons are lit green [the next 2 columns are lit red, the next 2 are lit green, and the last 2 are lit red]. Button 5 in Column 1 toggles Play/Pause. Button 5 in Column 2 activates/deactivates looping. These two buttons will blink green when a song approaches the end [the next 2 will blink red, the next 2 blink green, the last 2 blink red].

CLIP STOP ROW
There is nothing currently assigned to this row.

TRACK SELECTION ROW
You must press the MASTER button on this row for the mapping to work correctly. This really only affects the DEVICE CONTROL BANK of knobs and buttons, which are currently mapped to control FX2. If you need more controls for EQs and such in your own mapping, this section can easily be exploited.

ACTIVATION ROW
There is nothing currently assigned to this row.

SOLO/CUE ROW
The button in Column 1 turns on FX1 for Deck A. The button in Column 2 turns on FX2 for Deck A.

RECORD ARM ROW
There is nothing currently assigned to this row. I would suggest to leave this row as a placeholder for when TPro update 1.2 comes out and provides 4 banks of effects.

FADER BANK
The fader in Column 1 pans Deck A left to right. There is nothing currently assigned to the fader in Column 2.

SCENE LAUNCH BUTTONS
This column of 5 buttons outputs LEDs showing Master Level. The top button lights when clipping occurs. The lower 4 buttons create something like a VU meter.

CUE LEVEL KNOB
The knob changes the CLOCK MASTER BPM when Tempo Mode is set to Internal. Sensitivity can be adjusted in MIDI mapping to scroll faster through BPM range.

MASTER FADER
The fader changes the Tempo Mode from Man/Auto/Ext/Int. All the way down is Manual. All the way up is Internal.

TRACK CONTROL BANK
The top four knobs select the effects in FX1. Knob 1 selects effect in Advanced Mode. Knob 2 selects Effect 1 in Chained Mode. Knob 3 selects Effect 2 in Chained Mode. Knob 4 selects Effect 3 in Chained Mode.
The lower four knobs correlate to the GUI for both Advanced and Chained mode of FX1.
The buttons correlate to the GUI for the Advanced mode. The SEND A, SEND B, and SEND C buttons correlate to the GUI in the Chained mode.

SHIFT BUTTON
Pressing down the shift button activated MOD1. It also sets Browser View to default.

BANK SELECT
The left arrow loads selected track to Deck A by default/loads selected track to Deck C when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to default.
The right arrow loads selected track to Deck B by default/loads selected track to Deck D when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to default.
The up arrow scrolls up in the browser by default/scrolls up by a page when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to Browser Only.
The down arrow scrolls down in the browser by default/scrolls down by a page when SHIFT is pressed/always sets Browser View to Browser Only.

TAP TEMPO BUTTON
Sets MOD2 and MOD3 to 0 value. The potential need for this will be explained in next section.

NUDGE- BUTTON
This button switches FX1 from Advanced to Chained mode. Advanced mode is MOD2 = 0. Chained mode is MOD2 = 1. If for some reason TRACK CONTROL bank appears to not function, this may be due to a desynchronization of MOD2. Simply press NUDGE- until FX1 is in Advanced mode. Then press TAP TEMPO to set MOD2 = 0. This will synchronize the settings and everything will function properly afterwards. It would be wise to set default view of Traktor GUI at startup to have Advanced FX panels.

NUDGE+ BUTTON
This button switches FX2 from Advanced to Chained mode. Advanced mode is MOD3 = 0. Chained mode is MOD3 = 1. If for some reason DEVICE CONTROL bank appears to not function, this may be due to a desynchronization of MOD3. Simply press NUDGE+ until FX2 is in Advanced mode. Then press TAP TEMPO to set MOD3 = 0. This will synchronize the settings and everything will function properly afterwards. It would be wise to set default view of Traktor GUI at startup to have Advanced FX panels.

DEVICE CONTROL BANK
This bank functions to control FX2 in a way identical to how TRACK CONTROL BANK controls FX1.
PLEASE NOTE: For this mapping to function correctly, MASTER must be selected in TRACK SELECTION ROW.

DETAIL VIEW, REC QUANTIZATION, MIDI OVERDUB, METRONOME, PLAY, STOP, and REC BUTTONS
There is nothing currently assigned to these buttons.

CROSSFADER
The crossfader is assigned to the crossfader.

FOOTSWITCH 1 and 2
There is nothing currently assigned to these potential controls.




I hope this tsi proves useful for some people and gets them started on their own personalized mappings. I will be providing tsi files of my own settings including simultaneous use of the Akai APC40 and MPK25, Vestax VCI-100, Korg nanoKontrol and nanoPad, and iPod Touch running TouchOSC in the future.