I spent a little time tweaking everything with Ableton and my new KeyLab 88 mkII. First off, the Ableton DAW configuration seems to work pretty well, with one glaring problem: the encoder knobs! I want them to auto-map to the current effect or instrument, not be balance knobs.
In addition, I wanted to be able to use the pads to knock out some drums with a drum rack. Clip launch is nice, but it's not the only use case. So here is a custom user template I created in addition to the UserConfiguration.txt file (as a custom control surface script.. see:
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/206240184-Creating-your-own-Control-Surface-script)
With this, I can switch quickly between DAW mode and my Custom control surface from the keyboard when I want the knobs and pads to work with the instant mapping. The one problem with the Ableton custom script is that the transport controls expect MIDI CC values, but the KeyLab seems to be hardwired to send NOTE data on the MIDIIN2 interface, and can't be changed. Sad. Anyway, this helps when working with instruments and synths. The encoders actually become useful!
Maybe a future firmware update will allow for more customization on all the buttons, such as the transport controls, or even allow for more customization of the DAW templates (that would be ideal).
Also, the MIDI configuration would be as follows. There would be two mappings, one for the "DAW" mode as controller, and the other for all notes and the custom CC mappings.
Control Surface: KeyLab 88 mkII Custom (or whatever you name the custom control surface)
Input: KeyLab mkII 88
Output: None
Control Surface: KeyLab mkII
Input: KeyLab mkII 88 (Port 2)
Output: KeyLab mkII 88 (Port 2)
The ports would be set for:
KeyLab 88 mkII Custom: Track + Remote (Used for notes and custom CC)
KeyLab_mkII Input (KeyLab mkII 88): Remote ONLY (this port doesn't send any notes, as far as I can tell)
