Lesson 12. MIDI controllers

For eleven lessons we ran the show with a mouse and a keyboard. Professionals usually work with their hands — on faders and buttons. Today we connect a MIDI controller to SvetoMaster and teach it to drive the light. You will not need to know any clever words: the program listens to the desk itself and remembers what you moved.

First — what MIDI is, in plain words

MIDI is the language musical devices use to talk to a computer. Neither sound nor light travels down the cable — short messages do: “fader number 3 is at 80%”, “button number 7 was pressed”, “button number 7 was released”.

The computer does not care who sent those messages or what happens to them next. A music program turns them into sound, and SvetoMaster turns them into light. That is exactly why any ordinary MIDI controller will do as a lighting desk: it already has what we need — faders, knobs and buttons.

There are a few kinds of message, and it is enough to know them by ear:

Kind of message	Where it comes from	What it is good for in lighting
Note	keys, pads, some buttons	a button: pressed — released
CC	faders, knobs, also some buttons	a smooth value, 0…100%
Pitch Bend	the wheel on a keyboard	a smooth value, usually springing back to the centre
Program Change	“bank” buttons, DJ software	picking a number: a bank or a scene

💡 The good news: you do not have to remember any numbers. SvetoMaster has MIDI Learn — you tell the program which function you want to assign and then simply move the fader you want. The program hears for itself that it was “CC number 14 on channel 1” and writes it down.

Which controller can drive light

Practically any that Windows sees as a MIDI device. The difference is in convenience.

Type of device	Examples	What it is comfortable for
A small fader desk	Korg nanoKONTROL, L-Audio EasyControl, Behringer X-Touch Mini	the most comfortable option: group submasters, overall brightness, the crossfader, flashes
A pad controller (a grid of buttons)	Launchpad, APC mini, any “grid of squares”	firing scenes and chases with buttons; many have colour-lit cells
A MIDI keyboard	any USB keyboard with notes	the keys as scene buttons, the wheel as a smooth control
A DJ controller or a mixer with USB	Pioneer DDJ, Hercules and the like	light from the very desk you mix the music on
A foot switch	MIDI pedals for musicians	GO and blackout with your foot, when your hands are busy with a guitar or a microphone
Software, not hardware	OBS Studio with Advanced Scene Switcher, a virtual MIDI port	the light switches together with the broadcast scenes

💡 What really matters when choosing: faders (without them there is no smooth brightness), the number of buttons and whether there are memory banks. A small desk with 8–9 faders costs very little; for most rooms that is plenty.

⚠️ What the desk will not get from us: motorised faders will not move by themselves, and on many models the lamps under the buttons only light up from a physical press — MIDI cannot drive them. That is a feature of the hardware, not of the program.

🎧 For the DJ: if the controller is already taken by your DJ software, you will not get light out of it — Windows normally does not let two programs open the same MIDI port. The most reliable solution is a second desk, dedicated to light.

Step 1. Connecting the controller

Plug the controller into USB and wait for Windows to recognise it (the overwhelming majority of models need no drivers).
Open Live.
In the top panel, next to the “Colour” and “Fade” blocks, find the MIDI label and the button with the faders on it. Press it.

📍 Where: Live → the top panel → the MIDI block (the fader icon). The colour of the button is the status: green — the controller is connected, yellow — no device selected or none found, red — an access error.

Fig. 2 — The MIDI button in the top panel of Live

The “MIDI controllers” window opens. If there are no mappings yet, the program immediately offers the shortest route — “Quick setup”. That is where we start.

Step 2. Quick setup — a desk in a couple of minutes

This is the main thing the lesson was worth opening for. Press the green “Quick setup” button, choose your desk from the list and press “Start setup”.

The rest is simple: the program names a function and you move the control on the desk you want to drive it with.

Wizard step	What you have to do
Overall brightness	move the fader you will dim all the light with
The blackout button	press the “emergency” button
Smooth transition	move the fader that will become the crossfader
The transition button (GO)	press a button — PLAY will do
Track faders	move the group faders one after another — as many as you need
Flash buttons	press the buttons, usually the ones under the faders
Tapping the tempo (TAP)	press the button you will tap in time with
Switching banks	press two buttons: back and forward
Playlist control	press three buttons: back, forward, stop

Fig. 3 — The quick setup wizard: “Listening to the controller…”

In the wizard:

any step can be “Skipped”, and the “Finish” button is available from the very start — the wizard is useful even if you assign a single function;
everything assigned is saved immediately, so leaving halfway loses nothing;
if the desk stayed silent, the wizard says so and offers to “Try again”;
if you touched the wrong sort of control (pressed a button where a fader was wanted), it explains why and asks for another;
if you nudged several controls at once, it asks which one you meant;
on a second run it does not wipe what you set up but offers to “Keep” or to “Teach again”.

💡 A desk with memory banks (1–4 or A/B/C/D)? Choose one bank and do not switch it: in different banks the desk sends different numbers, and the program will see completely “different” faders and buttons.

Fig. 4 — The setup wizard for any MIDI controller in SvetoMaster — Fig. 4 — The controller setup wizard is built into SvetoMaster

Step 3. Checking, and not being alarmed by “pickup”

Close the window and move the overall brightness fader — the light responds. Press the blackout button and the room goes dark; press it again and it comes back.

One thing almost always raises a question: at first the fader “does not work”. That is not a fault but a safeguard called “Pickup”. A hardware fader only starts driving the light once it reaches the value currently set in the program. Otherwise, when the show started, the light would jump to wherever the physical fader happens to be — a flash at the worst possible moment. If an instant reaction matters more, the binding settings offer the “Immediate (Jump)” mode.

⚠️ If the controller has no effect at all — check the main “MIDI control” switch in the MIDI window. Functions can be taught with it off, but light cannot be driven; the program warns about that with a bar carrying a “Turn on” button.

Step 4. Teaching by hand: the full list of functions

The wizard covers the essentials, but far more can be driven. In the MIDI window open the “LIVE functions” section — there is the list of everything that can obey the desk, plus a search field.

📍 If you decide to do without the wizard, you have to create the mapping yourself: “Add mapping” → choose the controller’s MIDI input → switch on “MIDI control” and “Mapping enabled”.

The order of actions on any row: press “Learn” → move a fader (or press and be sure to release a button) → the binding is saved. The whole thing has a 15-second window.

Category	What can be assigned
Master	Grand Master, Blackout, Freeze
Submasters	16 track faders and the 16 Flash buttons that go with them
Crossfader	the A/B position, GO, cancelling the transition
Tempo	TAP, the BPM tempo, the Fade Time, the speed multiplier
Banks	the previous and next bank, banks 1–10, the scenes and chases of the current bank
Playlist	the previous and next cue, stop

💡 If a control on the desk is already taken by another function, the program asks honestly: “This control is already in use — replace the previous binding?”. Nothing is silently overwritten.

💡 There can be several controllers. Each mapping is tied to one MIDI input: add a second one and both desks work at once. The fader desk can look after the brightnesses, for example, while the pad desk fires the scenes.

Step 5. Fine-tuning a binding

Open the “Settings” of an assigned function — that is where the answers to the common problems live.

Setting	When it is needed
Pickup / Immediate (Jump)	“Immediate” — when an instant reaction matters more than protection from a jump in brightness
Invert	the fader works the other way round: up is darker
In/out min–max, deadzone	limiting the range: so that the fader never takes the light down to zero, for instance
“Latching key on the desk”	the function fires every other time — which means the button latches
Control mode: relative	an endless encoder knob with no end stops
“Pad force controls Flash”	the brightness of the flash depends on how hard you hit the pad

⚠️ More about “every other time”: some desks send “on” with the first press and “off” with the next, instead of an honest press and release. The program treats the second message as a release, and the function fires on alternate presses. The “Latching key on the desk” checkbox cures it. For Flash buttons that mode is no good: a flash needs a real hold.

Step 6. Pads: scenes and chases under your fingers

If you have a controller with a grid of buttons, every Live bank can have its own pad grid (4×4 or 8×8) with scenes, chases and Flashes laid out in the cells — in the same order as the buttons physically sit on the desk.

📍 Where: the MIDI window → the “Physical pad grid” block: the MIDI channel, the first note, walking by rows or by columns, the directions and the “snake”. That is how the grid is fitted to the numbering of your particular model. What goes into the cells is set in the bank’s pad editor.

If the controller accepts messages back, switch on the feedback: an empty cell, an available one, an active scene, an active chase, a held Flash and blackout each get their own lighting value. The ready profiles (single-colour pads, Launchpad-like, APC-like) simply fill the table of numbers — the colours depend on the model, and the numbers can always be corrected by hand.

Step 7. If something will not obey

The MIDI window has two diagnostic tools.

“Check controller” — a wizard that shows step by step exactly what each control on your desk sends: the number, the channel, the range, whether there is a release, whether it looks like a button or like a knob. It also checks the lighting and USB reconnection, and at the end produces a ready report for support that can be copied and attached to an email.

The MIDI monitor — a live stream of the latest messages with filters. The fastest way to check whether the signal arrives at all.

Fig. 5 — The “Check controller” wizard: what each control sends

Common reasons for “no reaction”:

Symptom	Cause and cure
The monitor is empty	the controller is taken by another program — close it; or no MIDI input is selected
Taught it, but the light does not change	the “MIDI control” switch is off
It worked, now “different” buttons respond	the memory bank was switched on the desk — go back to the previous one
In the monitor a button is marked “MMC”	the transport buttons (PLAY, STOP) send MMC commands — switch them to CC or Note mode with the desk’s own editor
Program Change is visible but will not be learned	switch on “Accept Program Change” in the mapping — it is off by default so that somebody else’s music program cannot start the light by accident
There is no MIDI button in Live	“Password protection” is on — leave operator mode

Step 8. The mapping is your property

The mapping is stored on the computer, not in the .smp project: set it up once and it works with all your projects. The “Export current map” button writes it out to a file, and “Import mapping” brings it onto another computer. An imported one arrives switched off — so that you check it first and only then turn it on.

💡 Before a big reconfiguration, save the current mapping to a file. It takes ten seconds, and being able to go back is priceless.

A separate story: MIDI Clock

MIDI Learn is driving light with buttons and faders. MIDI Clock is the precise tempo that DJ software or a drum machine sends continuously, so that chases run exactly in time without tapping TAP. It is set up separately, in the sound sources, and works perfectly well at the same time as the control.

Let’s sum up

Today we:

worked out that MIDI is a language of short messages, and that almost any music controller can become a lighting desk;
looked at what you can drive it with — from a small fader desk to a foot pedal and a grid of pads;
set the desk up in a couple of minutes with the quick setup wizard, without once looking at channel numbers;
learned about pickup, so as not to be alarmed by a “broken” fader;
went through the full list of functions — master, submasters, crossfader, tempo, banks, playlist;
learned to cure the usual awkwardness with the monitor and the “Check controller” wizard;
saved the mapping to a file so as not to build it again.

A mouse is excellent for preparing a show. But a show is better played with your hands — and now you have a real desk for that.

Still have not installed SvetoMaster? Download it right now and start from the first lesson!