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Automap Server

Novation’s Automap protocol has been out for a while, and as most Ableton users will tell you, its solid.  For their different Midi controllers, you can map automatically to the various plugins, mixer settings and instruments that you open in real time.

One of the seemingly more gimmick-aimed versions of their automap software resides on your iphone or ipod touch.  If you’ve got this $3 app and your device on the same wifi network as your workstation – then you’ve got DAW control on your phone.  I say it “seems” gimmicky because I had assumed any iphone app for so little money couldn’t possibly be practical and useful.  Automap on the iPhone, however, immediately became one of my new favorite tools.

Short Review:

Automap Controlling Pro Tools from an iPhone.

Automap on the iPhone/iPod Touch is cheap, easy to setup, relatively quick to learn and functional. It works great with any DAW that will accept MIDI based controls – Automap lets you use CC messages OR HUI protocol to control DAWs.  I used Logic Pro 9 and Pro Tools 8 LE with great results.

There are other apps like TrixMix or ProRemote on the iPhone that claim to have better UI/feature sets, but their also more expensive.

I had trouble getting panning control to work on my DAW Mixers, but considering what I’m using this control for (basic level setting and solo/mute/arm control when away from the computer – that’s not a big drawback.  Note: I got in touch with Novation’s customer support and they explained that DAW’s like Logic and Pro Tools require a kind of feedback for pan controls that Automap for the iPhone isn’t yet equipped to handle.  They assured me that they were aware of the issue and looking to fix it with an upcoming update.

On last quick note – all the links i followed to try to purchase automap 3.3 pro led me to a message saying I couldn’t purchase it in my country (U.S.) However the Novation Support team sent me this link to where automap pro is available for purchase. http://www.focusrite-estore.com/novation/software/automappro/

Hopefully none of you had this problem, and it’s just my own stupidity, but I figured I’d post it just in case.

More Details:

After downloading the app to my phone, I had to go to Novation’s Website to download the Automap Server Application.  It’s a relatively lightweight app that needs to be installed on any machine you wish to control with any automap controller (so if you’ve already got a Novation controller with automap features, then you probably already have this.)

Once that’s installed and running, you’ll have to do a bit of setup within your DAW to make sure everything’s communicating.  The User setup guides – available from within the Automap Server application are DAW specific and bare bones simple (in a good way).  In Pro Tools you’ll have to configure some Midi Settings by navigating to Setup>Midi>Input Devices…

Midi Input Settings for Pro Tools

Then just make sure “Automap HUI” and “Automap MIDI” are selected and “OK” it.

Then to configure the Pro Tools Mixer to accept Automap Mixer messages – navigate to Setup>Peripherals>Midi Controllers tab.

Automap Midi Controller Settings in Pro Tools

Set row #1 to read

• Type = HUI
• Receive From = Automap HUI
• Send To = Automap HUI
• #Ch’s = 8
  

Setting up Automap for Logic is quite different. First navigate in Logic to Logic pro>Preferences>Control Surfaces>Setup…

Then Select New>Install… from the menu of the window that pops up.  This will open another window with a list of potential control surfaces.  Choose the one labeled “Mackie Designs” and “HUI” and “HUI”

then click “Add”.

Then back in the Control Surfaces Window you can click on the little control surface icon that should have appeared.

Control Surface Icon

Then in the top left of that window, you can set the Output Port and Input Settings both to “Automap HUI.’

Output Port and Input Settings

Once you’ve taken care of that you can open up the Automap app on the iphone which takes you to the Server Page.

Automap Server Page

Here you should see all of the computers that have Automap Server running and are on the same wifi network as your phone.  (Oh yeah, your iPhone or iPod have to be on the same wifi network as your computer, so this won’t work with computers that are connected to a modem via ethernet cable.)

Choose which computer you want to control and the app opens the Groups View, which is where you choose which kind of mapping you want to load.  There are User Customizable, FX, Instrument, and Mixer mappings to choose from. User offers a mapping full of ready-to-assign CC controls, FX syncs to FX plugins you have open and Instrument allows you to take over instances of instrument plugins.  The Mixer mappings relate to the mixer and transport functions of your Daw.

Groups View

You might also have noticed the little “View” button. Tapping it toggles the Automap Server application running on your computer on and off.  Green means it’s visible on your computer screen and grey means it’s hidden.

Once you Select a Group, you get the “Browse View” which shows you a matrix of all the available mappings.  Depending on which group you selected and what you have running in your current session, you’ll see different things here.  For example, n one session I had 3 synths and an ultrabeat in the Instruments group.  While in another session I had 4 EXS24  sampler instruments listed.

Browser View

The Mixer Group took me to the Browser View you see above – only one option.  HUI is the protocol designed by Mackie and accepted by many DAWs for control surfaces to control mixer functions.  Well it does more than that, but that’s the short answer.  Choose this option and you’ll be shown the Control View of the DAW’s mixer.

Automap Controlling Pro Tools from an iPhone.

As you can see, in this view I have two sliders and 8 buttons.  (No matter what you’re controlling, this is the layout you’ll see.  Unfortunately, Automap on the iPhone is not customizable in this respect.) This Layout works for channel strips with volume and pan on sliders – record arm, mute and solo, on buttons.  Two other buttons are bank left and right, which allow you to move your control from faders 1-8 to 9-16 to 17-24, etc.

The two Page buttons marked “<” and “>” allow you to move from fader 1 to 2 to 3, etc. within each bank of 8.

A simple workflow where this would come in handy would be to throw up a session with enough tracks to handle all your inputs.  Then you can arm and solo tracks from your phone to hear them as you do mic placements without having to run back and forth to your computer.  That’s just one scenario,  but I’m sure I’ll come up with more.

I haven’t had a chance to try using Automap to do automation – although I’m guessing there might be some gnarly lag trying to make that work.  Stay tuned, and I’ll post and update about that.

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