Had Some spare time, so I made myself the ARTURIA MINILAB 3 Template

I thought I’ll share this. Since my iPad is broken and I had some spare time, I decided to take out my MiniLab3 out of storage and dusted it off lol.
So I can Learn CSS & make myself my own Arturia MINILAB 3 template to play around with different implementations.

The Template has all the Arturia Factory Default Presets MIDI CC and Note values according to the MiniLab3 manual as well as double checked and used TouchOSC’s Protocol & Arturia’s own MIDI Control Centre to make sure that they are correct.

I tried my hardest but there might and/or will be errors “WARNING Use at your own risk & discretion” and modify accordingly towards your own needs.

I just put whatever MIDI CC & NOTE_On/Off value what was outputted from TouchOSC’s-Protocol and Arturias MIDI Control Centre, as I wasn’t able to find much Information on it online except the factory manual which has some of the values wrong, and Im sure an expert like JohnC on here might be able to help us out with the hard stuff.

It’s bare bones for now, and only has the Midi CC and NOTE values.
I have created a simple “Script with simple mappings” but still needs further implementation.
As well as the Keyboard MIDI channels switching.
If someone is willing to make the Reactions for the Script for it like Session View Clip/Device View? That would be amazing.

Please Note
That I’m a newbie when it comes to all things Midi. So there might and will be errors.

To clarify and things to keep in mind, the following below:
The Hold button is not active(Hold button has no Midi CC or Note value assigned, as it acts only as Hold On/Off toggle in MiniLabs3 factory hardware programming).
The Pitch Wheel & Modulation Wheel might have wrong Midi message values.
The Oct -/Oct+ (Octave up or down) buttons don’t need to be set, they function normally trough Minilab’s factory hardware SysEx they are just for visual candy.

The Shift Button does not need to be implemented as the MINILAB’s Internal controllers factory SysEx Modes takes care of that inside the actual controller, so all you need to do is Map and assign what ever you like in CSS script for Abelton and voila, it should work.

continued… Important things to Note!
Arturia MiniLab 3 controller uses (SysEx messages) to switch the Banked Modes (For example, to switch Banks from Bank A(Arturia mode) into Bank B(Daw mode) and back).

To keep things nice, simple and In order keep the pads free specifically the Drum or/Note Pads and to bypass the default factory SysEx Script settings, which uses SysEx for mode switching between Bank A & Bank B there is no need to set them anyway.
You can just leave them as they are, they will still functional normally in Arturia mode & Daw mode as per factory setting.
Little tip to make sure to invert the Pad’s – On/Off range and set them to the following:

• On value = 0
• Off value = 127
  
  “In Theory If you would like to assign the pads to specific parameters”
  Then I recommend you use the extra 5 factoryUser Banks available trough Arturia’s own MIDI_Control_Centre for eg, User 1, User 2, User 3, User 4, User 5 and make them available for use and set different Midi CC & Note values in Arturia’s midi_Control_Centre.

  Which will give you if my calculations are correct a total of 16 pad(split into two banks bank a & bank b) X 5 banks = 80 free slot spots for further transport, parameters and other Abelton controls, if you really want to go nutz ;). Keep in mind you will have to robin round to use the available User modes on the Mimilab3 contrller.

  But also Note, I recommend that you only change the CC & Note value’s in “Arturia’s – MIDI Control Centre” rather then programming them in the “CSS script Template“ but you can experiment with it. Just make sure you experiment in a copy of the template.In order to activate and use the Transport Controls, I just added extra buttons, and assigned the MiniLab’s factory Transport Control Midi CC values.
  So when using the Shift button they can be used for transport control.
  (Keep in mind that the Transport buttons have been programmed using Arturia mode in my CSS template) to be able to control the Transport controls.
  As you can see in my the (template layout) Until the SysEx messaging has been implemented. They Work, great!
  With the Shift button engaged/pressed you can access the transport controls below:

• Mute selected track – (done by pressing Shift + pad 1)
• Solo selected track – (done by pressing Shift + pad 2)
• Rec ARM- (done by pressing Shift + pad 3)
• Loop On/Off – (done by pressing Shift + pad 4)
• Stop – (done by pressing Shift + pad 5)
• Play – (done by pressing Shift + pad 6)
• Record – (done by pressing Shift + pad 7)…  Don’t forget to set “Not In Template” but only “IN CSS Script MAPPING ONLY” the Note value of On value = 0 and Off value = 127 for all pad programming.

Ps.
If you are up for the challenge and do some advance reaction implementations then you are in luck, I’ve included the SysEx values.

The Shift button option(Mode selector) MIDI values change, depending which Bank is currently active. The factory banks are (Bank A & Bank B) are also implemented as you can see in my css template, I have named the Modes accordingly Bank A & Bank B for easier overview and for Encoder/Button implementation.

As you can see in the template there are 2 modes:
Bank A refers to the factory Arturia mode for controlling Arturia’s Own AnalogLab V sampler, instruments and macros.
Bank B is DAW mode (Abelton in this case).

Info: Shift buttons secondary SysEx function
When in Bank A, SHIFT button is pressed and held pressed +Pad 2(Pad 2 button press for PAD’s bank change“Mode” to change into DAW mode), it outputs SysEx messages which I’ve included below.

——— While in Bank A ———
– For Pad 2 Button press (while in Arturia mode) Bank A’s Message output:
SHIFT button Bank A midi value – CC 9 (on shift press Midi cc is 9)
SysEx output value – F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 40 62 02 F7 (on pad 3 “Program” press sysex is F000206B7F420200406202F7)
SHIFT button Bank A midi value output – CC 27 (on shift release Midi cc is 27)

– For Pad 2 Button press (while in DAW mode) Bank B’s Message output:
SHIFT button Bank A midi value – CC 27 (on shift press Midi cc is 27)
SysEx output value – F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 40 62 01 F7 (on pad 3 “Program” press sysex is F000206B7F420200406201F7)
SHIFT button Bank A midi value output – CC 9 (on shift release Midi cc is 9)

——— While in Bank B ———
When in Bank B, SHIFT button is pressed and held pressed +Pad 3(Pad 3 button press for Program’s bank change “Mode” to change to Arturia mode), it outputs SysEx messages which I’ve included are below.
– For Pad 3 Button press (while in Arturia mode) Bank A’s Message output:
SHIFT button Bank B midi value output – CC 9 (on shift press Midi cc is 9)
SysEx output value – F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 40 62 02 F7 (on pad 3 “Program” press sysex is F000206B7F420200406202F7)
SHIFT button Bank B midi value output – CC 27 (on shift release Midi cc is 27)

– For Pad 3 Button press (while in DAW mode) Bank B’s Message output:
SHIFTbutton Bank B midi value output – CC 27 (on shift press Midi cc is 27)
SysEx output value – F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 40 62 01 F7 (on pad 3 “Program” press sysex is F000206B7F420200406201F7)
SHIFTbutton Bank B midi value output – CC 9 (on shift release Midi cc is 9)

Info continued… Shift buttons secondary function
When in any Bank A or Bank B, SHIFT button is pressed and held pressed +(Oct-/Oct+) button is supposed to change the octave and puts it in a state to act as a 1/2 half Semitones and Oct+/Oct- button changes it’s color to blue or /white.

I’ll keep the template & script updated as I go along doing small changes and implementations so keep an eye out.
The Template is named
H9-Arturia-MINILAB-3.json

The Script is named and has -s to state that it’s the script file:
H9-Arturia-MINILAB-3-s.json

Please feel free to download the below template and pay it forward and share your work with the CSS Community, please and thank you.

A little side note my plan for near future On the Horizon is, also me making a TouchOSC version for people who don’t have the actual controller but still want to use the digital MiniLab’s 3 features and layout will be slightly different but still give you that nostalgic feeling with limiting size of the digital controller either using their iPad, iPhone or Android phones, Tablets  ;).
So design choices have to be made.

Enjoy, have a great day scripting, mapping and reactioning everyone.
Chris

Resources

Arturia MINILAB’s Cheat Sheet from Arturia 


My Custom built ARTURIA MINILAB 3 Template

UPDATED!!!… Current CSS Script implementation