WARNING-can't control LED color via midi-only SYSEX. buyer beware

[mccrabney]

this issue is likely unclear until someone buys the unit, but to answer future questions, NO, the user cannot use midi notes to control the LEDs on this product, and NO, it's not obvious until you buy and actually use it.

this is akin to having headlights on a car, but only for show - not for function.

hello, i've seen several questions on this forum about whether you can control the Minilab MKii LEDs via midi signal, the way you can with the QUNEO, Launchpad (og, mkii, mini, and pro), APC, monome, and every other controller that uses LEDs.

https://forum.arturia.com/index.php?topic=92480.0

i have not seen a clear answer, only references to the Midi Control Center Software, which doesn't do the same thing. we want the pad LEDs to be controlled by midi, not merely light up with the color specified in the Control Center Software.

i see that people using Ableton have 2 way midi feedback using the pads. what signal is Ableton sending to the MiniLab in order to do this? where is this information missing from the manual?

SO, can we get a real response as to what midi notes make the Arturia Minilab MKii pad LEDs light up?

i'm afraid that i'll have to return the device if this feature has been overlooked.

[Matt Arturia]

Hi,

You can't lit up the pads of the MiniLab MK2 from midi notes. However there is a way to do it via SysEx but I don't think Ableton Live can send SysEx messages.

Regards,

Matthieu

[mccrabney]

this is such a dumb oversight. i returned the unit.

there's no information to be found about what sysex messages control the LEDs, nor any provided when asked

step up your game, arturia

[cvb]

You can change the Pad color by sending this SysEx message to "Arturia MiniLab mkII" MIDI output port (you may want to buy back the Minilab):
 F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 10 7n cc F7
where:
  n is the pad number, 0 to F, corresponding to Pad1 to Pad16
  cc is the color:
    00 - black
    01 - red
    04 - green
    05 - yellow
    10 - blue
    11 - magenta
    14 - cyan
    7F - white

[mccrabney]

thanks for the information, i'm curious as to where you found it.

however, this is in no way useful for midi feedback from DAW. i'm not going to write a sysex translator just to get basic LED functionality that comes out of the box in practically every Novation product

i'll be watching (without much hope) for a firmware update that brings this keyboard up to speed so i can stop cautioning others about its limitations when i see it recommended

[aerdman]

thanks for the information, i'm curious as to where you found it.

MIDI Control Center can show MIDI event tracing, so I guess this is the way to work it out.
Nevertheless, it's a shame this is not clearly documented anywhere and that a user has to go through SYSEX hassle to do a simple task.

[gregorius]

I tried this out and indeed I can change the colour of the pad but what does not change is the internal state of the pad in the controller. That is, I can take a pad which is "off" give it a colour to make it appear to be "on". When I then hit the pad, the controllers sends the midi command that the pad just came "on", i.e. going from off to on instead of going from on to off.

So is there a second sysex command to activate a pad in addition to setting it's colour?

UPDATE: to answer my own question it's the following sysex command:

  F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 00 7n vv F7

where
  n is the pad number, 0 to F, corresponding to Pad1 to Pad16
  vv is the value - for me this is 0x00 or 0x7F as my value range is 0 to 127

(The parameter/slot for the colour is 0x10 while for the current value of the pad it is 0x00, hence the 10 has been replaced by 00)

I got this by querying the controller using the sysex command and also the midi logger in the midi control center. Details on the sysex query command can be found here https://www.untergeek.de/2014/11/taming-arturias-beatstep-sysex-codes-for-programming-via-ipad/

basically it query values becomes:

 F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 01 00 pp cc F7

where
   pp is the parameter number or slot number - because each control has a bunch of settings stored in slots
   cc is the control number (for the pads that is 0x70 to 0x7F)