Supported plug & play MIDI controllers

Zynthian can be connected to almost any existing MIDI device and you can use the MIDI learning mechanism, as described in the [Zynthian_UI_User_Guide_-_V1/V4|UI user's guide], to assign parameters to faders and knobs in your MIDI controller, for instance. You could also assign pad trigger to notes, etc. But MIDI learning process takes time, it's limiting and you can't get feedback easily. Sometimes it's a lot better to plug a well-known (supported) MIDI controller and get everything mapped automatically. For having this, zynthian implements a controller driver API that allows developers to create specific drivers for specific devices.

This section contain documentation for some of this controller drivers.

Note:

This documentation is valid for the "chain_manager" development branch. It's only partially valid for the current testing branch so you could find some differences.

1 Akai APC Key25 MK2

This device supports two operation modes:

The default mode (called "Mixpad" in this section), which controls the ZynMixer and the ZynPad.
The "Device" mode, which handles the Zynthian UI.

1.1 Key notation

1.2 The Mixpad mode

This is the default mode, selected automatically on start. You can also change to it pressing SHIFT + VOLUME or SHIFT + PAN. In this mode you can perform the following actions:

Change controllers' bank. There are two banks (1 and 2), which are used to handle up to 16 chains (with the eight track buttons/knobs). Bank 1 is for chains 1 to 8 and bank 2 manage chains 9 to 16. To show current selected bank, press and hold SHIFT, and then one of the track buttons LEFT arrow or RIGHT arrow will light up in red. LEFT arrow is bank 1 and RIGHT arrow is bank 2. You also can press one of these buttons while holding SHIFT to change the bank.

Use track buttons to perform a function on chains. The function is chosen by pressing SHIFT + one of SELECT, MUTE or SOLO scene buttons. Press and hold SHIFT to see current selected function on scene buttons (in green). Functions are:
- SELECT, used to change the selected chain. The keybed (black and white keys) will play on that chain.
- MUTE, used to mute the corresponding chain.
- SOLO, used to enable solo in the corresponding chain.