Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Walkthrough: Traktor Pro MPK25 Beginner Mapping

Before I get started with ANY of this, I'd like to give a shout to Ean Golden of DJ Tech Tools fame for just about leading the charge in the controllerism scene and revolutionizing everything we know with a few simple ideas and a soldering gun. I based my mapping directly off of his 2-Octave MIDI keyboard mapping for the Oxygen 8, so thank you Ean and keep kicking ass.

Also, The Freak Beat, my favorite dubstep and electro music blog. Check this guy out, he's always posting awesome stuff.


That being said, today my goal is to walk you through my custom Traktor Pro mapping for the Akai MPK25. Before we get started with the mapping, you need to know a little about modding your MPK series keyboard's MPC pads for better sensitivity.
When I first purchased the keyboard I honestly almost returned it. The pads almost felt broken, with the way that they were so unresponsive. I could go on and on here about what you need to do to correct this, but this post isn't about that. It's about my damn mapping.
The trick is to use cut up bicycle tire. The rubber doesn't stick. Be prepared to take your keyboard apart and put it back together a LOT. It took me about 2 dozen times before I got the sensitivity JUST right. The trick is how tight you leave the screws when you put the sensors over the pads.  Here's a few videos and/or links about the sensitivity issue.
NOTE: This can be done with ANY of Akai's "broken" MPC pad midi controllers, including any of the Nano/Mini series and anything in the MPK series.
See that grey box under the pads? That's where your sensors are.
Be mindful of how much pressure is going on in there, as the
pad inserts can and will stick, making your life hell.

Play around with it, mush the pads down, mess around with the thing until you get the sensitivity juuuust right. Once you've got your controller feeling just the way you want it to, it's time to bust out some tools.
Scissors/Razor (optional), Sharpies, Scotch tape and/or some sticky labels.
I've got a LOT going on with this keyboard, so labeling everything is pretty much mandatory.
PROTIP: Use scotch tape until you find a configuration that you're the most comfortable with, then re-do it at a later time with the labels for a more professional look.


Let's have a look at the keyboard, then.


Let's start with the MPC pads. Before you begin using the mapping, you need to change all of the pads to MIDI channel 2A. You can do this by pressing the "Edit" key under the LCD screen, tapping the pad you want to change, selecting the "Note" option on the screen, navigating to the left and changing the pad from its default 1A to 2A. This prevents any sort of double-assigning conflict you might experience.


KEY ASSIGNMENTS
Pads 7-12 control Deck A. 
Pad 10, Pad 11, Pad 12, and Pad 7 are cue points 1-4, and Pad 8 and 9 are Chain FX 1 and 2.
The mapping is exactly the same for the lower half of the MPC pad section of the keyboard, but for deck B.
The pitch bend wheel is used as sort of a quick fader, I guess. I use it to switch between A and B real fast and snap back to the middle by letting go. Pretty handy. Down is left deck, up is right deck.
All of the keys on the keyboard are set up with transfer controls. The labels in the picture are pretty self explanatory. If you'd like a walkthrough of that part of the keyboard, check out Ean Golden's 2-octave MIDI keyboard mapping. This mapping will make a LOT of problems for you if you do not have a footswitch. I do not have a footswitch, so this mapping is what I have come up with.
Loop - sets up an 8-count loop
Half - cuts the current loop time in half.
Dup - Duplicates the current track to the opposite deck and begins playback in time.

KNOB ASSIGNMENTS
The knobs are controlling mostly the mixer and a few of the effects parameters. Check the labels out in this picture, because I don't want to remove the stickers to give you a more precise definition of which knobs are what. If you have any troubles, just re-learn the assigned knob.

I want to point out the knobs labeled "FX 1+2" A and B. This knob is controlling both parameters for FX1 and FX2. I have my FX set to "Chained" mode and am using "Beatmasher 2," "Gater," and "Lofi" in succession. This makes grabbing a beat with Beatmasher and turning it into a large crescendo much MUCH easier. Try it out, you'll like it I promise.
If the soft takeover isn't your thing, feel free to uncheck the boxes. I just don't like surprises when I'm twisting knobs, nawmean?
FX 3 on A and B are toggles, sorry. It's the only way I could figure out how to make those buttons work.
The 3 buttons between the FX 3 ons are what I like to call a snapfader. Press left to snap left, right to snap right. Center to reset. The buttons above those are for muting deck A or B. Chuh!

Enjoy the mapping, let me know what you think. If you have any problems, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you within 24 hours. And if the link is down, let me know and I'll put it back up.

-Bread


4/10/2011 - UPDATE: I have changed a few things around with the mapping, check out this new picture. I added loop size inc/dec, an EQ low kill, browse button, browse pitch wheel, dry/wet on the mod wheel. Everything should be self explanatory in the picture. Hit the link below for the new .tsi file. Thanks for reading!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8HR4W42N

11 comments:

  1. Hey dude, I noticed you posted this last week. I am so pumped you made it I've been looking for a mapping like this for ages! The problem is I can't seem to get it working, I've got traktor scratch pro. Dude I wanna cry :'( This looks raw lol did you have to do anything special to load it in?

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  2. Sorry I suppose me whining that it's not working isn't really helpful as to why. Anyhoo, I've tried to load it up a million different times a million different ways and still nothing. Basically I load it into traktor and it says it's there but it loads up as a generic keyboard and it's just not doing anything. I loaded up oxygen 8 and that sort of worked with my keyboard but obviously not as well as yours would seeing as we both have mpk25's. I'm gonna try to mess around with it some more but if you get this before I can figure it out, any help would be appreciated. Thanx man.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Try the new mapping, I've just updated it a minute ago. Sorry it took me a few days to reply :(

    Let me know if this works for you, friend

    ReplyDelete
  4. nah it's all good dude. And thank I'm about to load it up right now. Hey man, I assume your on dj tech tools eh? I can send you one I found on there if you'd like. I'm also trying to work plooping into my own variation of the mpk25 mpaping. When I get all the bugs worked out I can send you a copy if you'd like. Us mpk controllerists gotta stick together lol

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah, I posted this same mapping on the DJ Tech Tools forums a little while ago. I plan on putting in some plooping controls in the future(Probably on the knobs, it seems most fitting, given the loop size inc/dec are already assigned to the keys)

    I'd love for you to post it, just let me know! I'm all about MPK controllerism right now :)

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  6. That looks sweet. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. i downloaded your tsi file a week ago and i am loving it so far.. just tweeking it to my needs. i am trying to switch this as my primary mixer so i am using the pitch bend wheel on the MPK ask my xfader. the only problem i am having is (1. i can not figure out how to delet hot cues or map just one button as a primary delete button for hot cues on deck A and B.)
    (2. i can not figure out how to map those MPK setting buttons that are located in the middle. are those even mapable in traktor? it looks like you were able to map them by the looks of your picutre but they do not do anything after i downloaded the file. if anybody has and helpfull info let me know

    ReplyDelete
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