MIDI Mapping

RENDERWAVE ships with no fixed MIDI map. You teach it what you want: hit MIDI Learn somewhere in the interface, then press a pad, hit a key, or move a knob on your controller. You can do this in four places: shaders, performance presets, bookmark pads, and shader parameters.

RENDERWAVE saves every mapping you make and reloads it the next time you open the app.

The general pattern

MIDI Learn always works the same way:

1. Start learn mode from the relevant part of the interface.
2. Send the MIDI message you want to bind: press a pad, hit a key, or move a control.
3. RENDERWAVE captures that note or CC number and stores the binding.

CC learn, preset learn, and bookmark learn all have a matching Cancel so you can back out without binding anything. Shader-to-pad learn is the exception: once you start it, the only way out without binding is to hit a pad on your controller (or clear the binding afterward), there’s no on-screen cancel for it.

Mapping a shader to a pad or key

This binds a single note to a shader, so hitting that pad jumps straight to that visual from anywhere in the app, with no preset in between.

1. Find the shader you want to map, either in the Creator view’s shader scroller or the shader browser.
2. Right-click (or two-finger tap) the shader’s card.
3. Choose MIDI Learn: Note → Select.
4. Hit the pad or key on your controller.

The shader card now shows its bound note. Right-click the card again and choose Clear MIDI to remove the binding.

Note

If the same physical pad is bound to both a shader and a performance preset or bookmark, the shader mapping takes priority. Hitting that pad always selects the shader, and the preset or bookmark binding on that same note never fires.

Mapping performance presets to pads

Performance presets are the tiles in the Performance grid. Each one can be bound to a MIDI note or a CC, so triggering it from your controller loads that preset the same as tapping it onscreen.

Learn a single preset

Right-click a preset tile and choose Learn MIDI. The tile shows “Press MIDI…” while it waits. Send the note or CC you want, and it’s bound.

To remove a binding, right-click the tile and choose Clear MIDI.

Learn several presets in sequence

The MIDI group at the top of the Performance grid has a Learn button. Click it and RENDERWAVE walks you through every preset that has no binding yet. It advances to the next unbound preset each time you send a MIDI message, so you can map a whole bank of pads in one pass without clicking between presets. Click Cancel to stop early, or Clear to wipe every preset binding and start over.

Give a preset its own pad color

Right-click a preset tile, open Button Color, and pick a color. That color becomes the pad’s idle color on any connected controller with LED feedback (see MIDI controllers), so you can color-code a bank of pads by section, energy, or however you organize a set.

Mapping bookmark pads

Bookmarks are the pads in the Performance view’s bookmark grid, the 8x5 grid that mirrors the APC40 mkII layout. Binding one to a MIDI note lets you trigger it from your controller.

1. Open the bookmark overlay and click MIDI Learn in the header.
2. Click the bookmark pad you want to map.
3. Hit the pad or key on your controller you want bound to it.

Learn mode stays on so you can map several bookmarks back to back: click a different pad in the grid, then send its MIDI note, and repeat. Click MIDI Learn again to turn learn mode off.

To clear a bookmark’s binding, use the pad’s own clear-MIDI option in the bookmark overlay. You set idle and active colors for each bookmark pad separately, in Settings → MIDI (see MIDI controllers).

Mapping CC to a parameter

You can bind any fader, knob, or ribbon on your controller that sends MIDI CC to a shader parameter in the Creator view’s parameter panel.

1. Right-click the parameter card you want to control.
2. Choose MIDI CC Learn. The card highlights and shows “Move CC…”.
3. Move the physical control on your controller.

The card now shows a CC badge with the bound CC number, and moving that control drives the parameter across its full range in real time. Right-click the card again and choose Clear MIDI CC to remove the binding, or Cancel MIDI CC Learn if you want to back out of learn mode without binding anything.

Note

CC mapping binds the parameter to the full 0 to 127 range of the CC, so the control sets the parameter’s value to match wherever you leave the knob or fader. It does not do relative “nudge” style increments.

How the mapping types interact

RENDERWAVE stores shader mappings, preset mappings, and bookmark mappings independently, so mapping a pad to a preset leaves alone anything you have mapped to a shader or a bookmark. That independence lets the same physical note appear in more than one mapping type at once, and the priority rule above is why that matters.

Next steps

• MIDI controllers: supported hardware, connecting a controller, and pad-LED feedback.
• Parameter presets: what a performance preset actually saves and restores.
• Parameters and controls: the shader parameters you can map a CC to.
• Troubleshooting: if a mapping isn’t sticking or a control isn’t responding.