Akai MDP26 Will Not Control EZD2 Transport

[Kenneth Isenberg]

I have a new Akai MPD26. Everything is set up and working well with EZD2 except the transport controls. If I do the learn command (normal and reverse) in EZD2 nothing happens. The Midi activity light flashes but no control. I have tried setting the AKAI to MMC, MMC/Midi Clock and Midi Start/Stop with no success. I am able to control other functions. For example, I can operate faders and knobs. Everything but the transport. Any ideas? I am using EZD2 Standalone on Windows 7 x64. Thanks very much.

Topic

[John]

Hi,

which version number is displayed in the in the interface?

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Kenneth Isenberg]

The Akai MPD26 is on firmware 1.00. EZD2 is 2.0.2 (build 9590).

[Olof Westman]

I have an idea. I have access to an Akai MPK49. It suffers from the
same problem. My guess is that the reason is the same for your Akai.

The transport controlling buttons on my Akai send MIDI CC 115 – 118,
117 for Stop and 118 for Play. When these are pressed they send
the value 127 and when released they do nothing. That means that
they never change their value. That is a problem for the MIDI learn
algorithm which requires a fairly substantial change of the value
before accepting a CC. This is because it is very common that MIDI
controllers send a more or less continuous stream of CC events for
some CC:s. Although not exactly good behavior this is still
understandable since a knob or slider may physically sit just in between
two digital values leading to a continuous alternation between them.
Such CC:s have to be filtered out since they would otherwise
be immediately learned as soon as MIDI learn was attempted.

For now the workaround that I use myself is to MIDI learn Start
and Stop to some other CC and then save a MIDI learn preset.
The next step is to use ‘Manage in Explorer/Browser’ to go to
the folder where the preset is saved and then open it up in a
text editor and change the relevant CC numbers. This is fairly
simple as long as the CC numbers for Start and Stop are known.

Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder

[Kenneth Isenberg]

Thanks very much. That sounds interesting but I am not sure how to accomplish it. Would it be too much trouble for you to post a step by step instruction on what I need to do? I would very much appreciate it.

[Olof Westman]

>. Would it be too much trouble for you to post a step by step instruction…

Errr, no, but that’s what I thought I did.
So, what step do you need clarification on?

Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder

[Kenneth Isenberg]

Actually, now that I have re-read it, I think I understand. I will try at home tonight and if I run into problems I will ask again. Thanks again for your suggestion and prompt replies.

Edit: Ollie do you remember what CC numbers you successfully used?

[Olof Westman]

Well, I know my Akai sends 117 and 118 so that’s what I used.

Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder

[Kenneth Isenberg]

Success! Thanks very much, Ollie! Hopefully, Toontrack will implement a more elegant solution for this popular line of controllers but your method does work. Thanks again!

[Author]

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