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Akai APC-40 midi controller mapped to DaVinci Resolve

Glenn Venghaus

Glenn Venghaus

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Edit : updated this first post in this long thread with always current latest info, so you don't have to read the hundreds of messages to find out what you need ;-)

Inspired by the many posts here and on Blackmagic forum i did a huge nerdy insane project and turned my AKAI APC-40 midi controller now finetuned over more then 2 years in "The Ultimate budged Davinci Resolve Controller on Steroids"
Check it out for yourselves in below videos and quickly scoop up one of the few remaining APC-40's (MK1 !!) before it is too late


Quick 1 minute impression:

Full (~46 minutes long) operations guide:
(skip to 23:00 for OFX control and custom user programmable controls or to 38:40 for Fairlight/Edit page mixer)

New HUD (heads up display) feature on ALL pages
apc40-davinci-resolve-controller-hud.jpg

How to get your hands at it :
http://posttools.tachyon-consulting.com/shop

FYI Current running 30% discounts Cybersales till Cybermonday on https://posttools.tachyon-consulting.com/shop (also valid for Beatstep Resolve Edition and APC40 MK2 Models)
 
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like i mentioned on the BMD forum, brilliant!

i would put one beside my Artist color to get access to RGB/LLG and have exposure/contrast/pivot/saturation on one page, that alone makes the minimilast price worthy..

i have alot of the functions already mapped to my Artist Tansport's softkeys and buttons, so the mapping is welcome in my case, but not the key thing...

and i would put a second one beside a Tangent baby wheels and balls at home... that would make a sweet very low cost surface that is truly functional...

i guess removeing the fader handles and covering the slots with a small piece of plexi or similar would be a good thing....
 
Dermot Shane said:
i guess removeing the fader handles and covering the slots with a small piece of plexi or similar would be a good thing....
Click to expand...



Yeah the fader handles i am still thinking about as of limited use . Some guys on audio forums have looked at replacing them by motorised faders, but space was an issue as well as getting the signal back requires some extra electronics. Had an old motorised board some time ago for some sound mixing gig, but sold it when i needed the money.
Also even with motorised you are still stuck with the 0-127 course midi range , which with the knob i can get around with trickery (as mention on BMD post).
Maybe covering and turn into some arm rest / mouse pad or something.

Still struggling with the simplest thing. I need to figure out a nice way to do the labeling as my dymo temp crap is letting go already with all the key pressed.
I mean i can design something in photoshop etc , but then i have to find some proper material to print it on and then still manualy cut it out (messy and never equaly shaped on those small sizes).
Looked on the net for some online printing shop that can do micro labels by design but no luck sofar.
The caps themselves are some nice tactile translucent rubber so do not want to replace them completeley. Just some super pro looking labeling instead of 4 year old's handyworks ;-)
 
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Glenn Venghaus said:
Still struggling with the simplest thing. I need to figure out a nice way to do the labeling as my dymo temp crap is letting go already with all the key pressed.
I mean i can design something in photoshop etc , but then i have to find some proper material to print it on and then still manualy cut it out (messy and never equaly shaped on those small sizes).
Click to expand...

my sute is inside a creative design collective, i'll ask someone who might know, we do branding for a largeish chain in Canada, and have access to many weird little things and services that are needed for that file, maybe there's an answer in that brain trust

for what it's worth, i have no markings on the buttons /softkeys on Transport, only tells me what it i did after i press it... i've got my muscle memory down to a point that as long as i don't change things i usualu press the right thing at the right time....

And both Tangent Elements + Color both do not have markings on the buttons (no room with color, the buttons are tiny)
 
Tnx man . Apreciated. Let me know if you find anything.
Yeah sure i can probably do with muscle memory, but as i am not grading every day (not my core business) it will slow things down. And it would just look cool to go the few extra miles ;-)
I enjoy probably more the proces of hacking . Also made a kick ass lightroom controll from scratch on the ipad using Lemur app and a midi to lightroom plugin. Massive control. Mouse feels clumsy.
Once you realise the power of dedicated controllers there is no stopping.
For my ableton its out of the box Touchable . The best there is so no need to build anything.
Protools is still on my todo list , but workable with what i have / Some remote daw ipad stuff as well together with the Shuttle pro , which i use for every program that has transport controls incl Resolve.
Thats the only thing that really sucks in resolve . The transport control. It is sending key commands (which are also buffered so you stop and it goes on for a while) and it just feels silly and stuttering compared to anything else on the market.
I want to see some smooth jog/shuttle action incorporated somehow. Maybe its the thing they hold back fr just the 30k controller ;-)
 
transport in the 30k controler sucks just every bit as baddly...

of the options i'm ok with the Artist Transport mapping the J/K/L ... it about as good as it gets, meaning as bad as every other option

maybe v13....
 
ps anyone knows the secret undocumented shortcuts for next node, prev node in node tree ?
That one drives me insane and is the only feature i realy want mapped since some versions ago. No way to do this with mouse actions as completely dynamic.
Saw some old post somewhere about a guy mentioning he was going to put the 'secret' shortcuts list online , but guess he was moved to a CIA blacksite before he came around to it as thread ends.
 
Glenn Venghaus said:
ps anyone knows the secret undocumented shortcuts for next node, prev node in node tree ?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, this only exists in external panels. They should put it in the Node menu -- Previous Node, Next Node, First Node, Last Node -- but it has not existed as keyboard commands or menu commands in any version of Resolve of which I'm aware.
 
I have my X-keys 68 keys and Jog/Shuttle control working pretty well with v12 now. (audio scrub still needs work from BMD) I've set up dedicated buttons for common mouse clicks but a recent private communication from X-Keys suggests it may be possible to set up a button to mouse click on say, the Saturation control then whilst holding that button down, use the Jog wheel to trim that slider. It would take some internal code programming but they say it could be done by anybody familiar with scripting in Visual Basic. I would prefer this approach rather than use a bank of individual knobs from a midi controller.
 
Maybe i do not understand what you mean but not sure why you would prefer a 2 hand action to just a single know for adjusting a value. Also not sure in the windows world but those combination actions are relatively easy to program with controllermate.
 
ControllerMate for the Mac and MacroWorks for the PC - they seem to achieve the same thing but appear work differently.

Actually, my solution would not be a two handed approach. I would allocate a group of my 'X-Keys 68' buttons which sit in the vicinity of the jog/shuttle wheel and whilst one finger selects the Resolve 'pot' to be adjusted (eg: Saturation pre-programmed with a 'mouse click') another finger would simply rotate the Jog wheel - a singe handed approach with no additional hardware needed to clutter up an already busy desk. Unless of course, you see a distinct advantage in being able to adjust two or more knobs simultaneously.
 
Ah now i see your point . Its that you just dont want extra hardware on your already existing multi hardware controller setup.got it. Edit: just checked your x-keys 68 jog on the net and see it has integrated jog wheel, so now your remark makes even more sense. Nice box !
In that case your solution would work perfect for you.
In my case my xkeys is an akai monster controller with enough keys and knobs to do it all in one with room to spare. so i just rotate one single knob for saturation.
 
Why dont you program a few of those buttons in latch style . So one for saturation on/off one for contrast on/off etc. And with some smart programing you can do it radio button style in a group. So lets say you switch sat on, then you jog away and decide you want now contrast. Then you press contrast which disables all other buttons in the same group and then enables contrast.
You press the function you want to control and then jog away. Then you are not limited to the keys in the vicinity of the jog. Also unless you have a super flexible thumb, your range would be limited for one handed double action.

I have no xkeys myself and also run on mac controllermate, otherwise i would have wipped one out for you. The software you use needs some way of setting a modifier/parameter , which can then be used to change the state of other objects. That way when you press one , others can react and change state (like disable themselves) The button 'on' action itself would be a simple , move to screen position x/y , micro delay, left mouse button down. For the 'off ' state a left mouse button up.
 
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