MIDI device(s) with an MA3 Desk

How to connect any MIDI controller to an MA Lighting grandMA3 system (console or OnPC)

1. Know your IP addresses

Before you start, we need to settle up the IP addresses of both the MA3 system and ShowCockpit.

In this tutorial we will assume these IPs:

• MA3 IP: 2.0.0.3

• ShowCockpit IP: 2.0.0.2

If you are setting up MA3 OnPC running in the same computer as ShowCockpit, please refer to this page: Connecting to MA3 OnPC on the same PC

2. Enable OSC In/Out in MA3

In MA3, press the gear-box button to show the Menu and click the In & Out button.

Select the OSC tab and on the top, select the Interface you want to use and enable both Input and Output.

If the list is empty, add a new OSCData line and set the destination IP address to the ShowCockpit IP

Finally enable all send and receive items by clicking on the "ReceiveAll", "SendAll", "ReceiveCmdAll" and "SendCmdAll" buttons.

3. Add an MA3 - OSC element in ShowCockpit

On the Elements section, click the Add button to add an MA3 - OSC element to the project:

• Lighting > MA Lighting > MA3 - OSC

Enable the Element

Click the toggle buttons on the element to enable it.

4. Add MIDI device element

Use the Add button again to add your MIDI device element through External Control > MIDI. Currently, RD/ShowCockpit has out-of-the-box support for multiple MIDI devices - check out the complete compatibility list here.

If your device is not listed, you will need to use the Generic MIDI driver and map your device controls manually.

When using a specific MIDI device driver, you can skip to Step 4.

Set Element Options

After adding the element, make sure that the correct device is selected under both Input Device and Output Device options.

Enable the Element

Finally, click the toggle button on the MIDI device element to enable it.

5. Learn MIDI Controls (Generic MIDI only)

In case you selected the Generic MIDI driver, now you need to "teach" this driver what controls (faders, buttons and encoders) your device has. For the officially supported MIDI devices, controls are automatically mapped, so you can skip to the next step.

Double-click the Generic MIDI element to open its window - you will start by mapping the Faders. Click on Enable Learn on the top-right to start listening to MIDI input.

• Move, one-by-one, all Faders on your MIDI device. They will be added to the Faders list.

• To map the Buttons, click on Buttons (above the table) and repeat the procedure now for all your device buttons.

• Finally, map your Encoders by clicking on Encoders and repeat the procedure for all the encoders.

You can now close the Generic MIDI window by clicking Back to Elements or clicking on any menu button.

6. Mapping

Open the Mapping section on the Main Menu.

This section is divided into 3 columns, from left to right:

• Functions

• Parameters

• Controls

Select the MA3 - OSC element on the Functions column and select a function (for example, "Executor Fader"). When you select the function, the button will be highlighted and the second column will have the parameters for the function. In this case, you can select which playback fader you want to control.

Select the Generic MIDI element on the Controls column, open the Faders list and click on one of the faders to assign the function.

If you now move your fader, the mapped Executor Fader on MA3 should act accordingly.

Repeat the process for all desired controls.