Chapter 13. MIDI Controllers
MIDI controllers — or simply controllers — can be a critical part of any production environment or performance setup. Bitwig Studio supports MIDI controllers in general, whether you are playing in notes or you are mapping physical knobs and sliders to the program's parameters. Bitwig Studio comes with various controller scripts. Each script is programmed for a specific MIDI controller, with a few scripts forGeneric controllers of any make. For the generic controllers, functionality is basic. If the controller has keys, you can send note messages. And if it has assignable knobs, you can map those knobs to any mappable control in Bitwig Studio. For the controllers that are specifically supported, more functions are allowed. This can include control of track mixer functions, device remote controls and parameters, the transport, clip launching, and more. As each controller can vary greatly in size, shape, and functionality, the built-in mappings supported by Bitwig Studio also vary from controller to controller. Note Anyone with knowledge of JavaScript and the MIDI specification can customize any of the included controller scripts or even write their own. For full details on Bitwig Studio's controller API, go to theDashboard, click on the Help tab, and then click on theDocumentation page. Various Developer Resources can be found here. This chapter covers how to use both the default mappings for your controller (if supported), and how to manually assign and manage MIDI mappings. It also shows how to achieve simple parameter and controller (or computer keyboard) pairings via theMappings Browser Panel.