Controller assignments (MIDI Learn)

A knob, fader or button on a MIDI controller can drive a mixer control, a plug-in parameter or a transport button, as with Logic’s Control Surfaces › Learn Assignment.

Learning an assignment

1. Move the control in Marbble: a fader, pan knob, send knob, Mute, Solo or Record button, a Channel EQ setting, a built-in effect’s knob, or a parameter in a plug-in’s own window.
2. Press Ctrl+L (Marbble › Control Surfaces › Learn Assignment for Last Touched Parameter). A banner says “Move a controller to assign it to …”.
3. Move a knob or fader (or press a button) on your controller. The banner closes and a message names the assignment. Cancel or Esc stops learning without assigning anything; Ctrl+L again does too.

Or right-click the control and choose Learn MIDI Assignment. That works on the channel strip’s fader, pan knob and send knobs (for Mute, Solo and Record, click the button and press Ctrl+L), on the Channel EQ editor’s band buttons, frequency, gain, Q and Output fields, and on every control of a built-in effect. For a VST3 plug-in, show the parameter on an automation lane and right-click the lane’s parameter pop-up in the track header, or move it in the plug-in’s window and press Ctrl+L.

Control changes (CC 0–119) and pitch bend can be learned, on any MIDI input and channel. A controller drives one parameter: learning it again moves it to the new one.

How assignments behave

• A controller moves its parameter as the mouse would. Levels follow the fader’s taper, so the controller’s travel matches the fader’s. Each move is an undo step (consecutive moves of one control make one step), except VST3 parameters, whose own edits aren’t undo steps either.
• While playing in Touch, Latch or Write, controller moves are written as automation. The controller holds the parameter while it moves and lets go half a second after it stops, which ends a Touch pass.
• Mute, Solo, Record Enable, a Channel EQ band’s on/off and the transport buttons are buttons: a press (a value above 63) toggles them and the release does nothing, so momentary buttons work.
• Messages from an assigned controller are taken: they don’t also play the selected instrument or get recorded, as in Logic. They still show in Settings › MIDI › Monitor.
• Assignments are global settings, kept when you quit and used in every project. They refer to tracks and plug-ins by their position in the project’s numbering, so an assignment learned in one project acts on the same-numbered track in another.

The Controller Assignments window

Marbble › Control Surfaces › Controller Assignments… (Ctrl+Shift+L) lists every assignment: the controller (CC number or Pitch Bend, channel and input port) and the parameter. For each one:

• Mode: Jump (default) moves the parameter to the controller’s value at once. Pickup ignores the controller until it reaches or passes the parameter’s current value, so the value doesn’t jump; once caught, it follows. Moving the parameter some other way (the mouse, automation, undo) lets go of it again.
• Min % and Max %: the stretch of the parameter’s travel the controller sweeps. Min above Max turns the controller round.
• Delete removes it; that controller plays the instrument again.

An assignment whose track or plug-in isn’t in the open project is greyed and does nothing. Learn Transport Button… assigns a button to Play / Stop, Record or Cycle. Learn Assignment (Ctrl+L) and the transport keys work while the window is open; editing keys don’t.