Logic Pro 8 Drum mapping

cdub

Logician
Hello, I'm not sure if anyone has used an Akai Lpd8 before, but i am trying to figure out how to map it.

The controller has 8 pads, and four program banks for those pads. I plugged it in and it responds just fine, but i was a little confused with what happens next. I started to play the notes to see if they would play in order of the piano roll starting with the kick, and they do not.

what i am trying to do is map the drum sounds in order of the piano roll in ultrabeat until all four banks are full. maybe assign an octave per bank?

another goal is to make custom kits with the sounds from ultrabeat and the exs24/exs synths

Any help much appreciated.
 
I'd rather not do it in Logic. It requires some (IMO a little cumbersome) mapped instrument setup, which would automatically mean you'd lose direct channel strip control of the chosen instrument because you'd have to select the mapped instrument (an environment object) in your arrangement track list.
Another idea would be to cable a transformer into your input signal chain (again done in the environemt) and transpose all incoming notes until they're right - but in that case you'd also have to bring in a cable switcher so you could switch between "normal" keyboard and drum pad operation.

So, in the end it's probably the best idea to do it inside the LPD (it must be possible, no?). That way, your drum pad to Ultrabeat/EXS mapping will always stay consistent.

Fwiw, IMO it's a true oversight that an instrument such as Ultrabeat doesn't have a MIDI note learn function on its own. Once you worked with, say, NIs Battery, you'll instantly know how handy such a function is. Mapping incoming notes to pads is done in almost no time. Should be pretty much a no brainer (for a programmer) to add this functionality to Ultrabeat (the EXS might be quite another story as it's more like a "traditional" sampler, so a typical (fixed) chromatical note-to-zone layout is making sense).
The lack of this is defenitely one of the reasons why I'm using Ultrabeat less than I probably would if it was there...

- Sascha
 
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