Assign FLStudio Transport Controls to M-Audio Axiom 25 Transport Control Buttons [As of 03272006. Information and methods may have changed.]


The M-Audio Axiom 25 is a portable, 25-key controller keyboard with loads of features for a relatively cheap price. FLStudio is a professional audio and MIDI composition tool. Bring the two together and you have a comprehensive portable solution for creating, mixing, and mastering complete tracks. The problem lies in fully integrating the Axiom into the FLStudio environment.

If you expect to just plug in the Axiom and use those wonderful transport buttons with Fruity, right out of the box, you'll be slightly disappointed. The Axiom's default CC# mappings for the buttons do not correlate to anything within FLS. For instance, if you press the "play" button, FLS simply sees that as MIDI CC# 22, value: 127 (or however it's set up on your keyboard).
Perhaps you thought that you'd be able to find the Axiom controller profile in FLS's MIDI settings, but that's not the case either; the Axiom is too new and those profiles are "hard-coded" (i.e., one is not able to simply write his own controller script in .xml or whatever).

Thanks to a couple people on the FLS board, we now have a method to assign the transport controls to the buttons on the Axiom.

If you are a registered user of FLS, take a look at this thread for the full conversation.

Here's the short version:

1. Activate the desired transport button by pressing it once
2. Hit the "Advanced" button
3. On the keyboard, press the "Ctrl Assign" key (low "C")
4. Using the numbered keys (or keypad if you have a 49 or 61), type in "146" --this puts the button into "MIDI CC (on/off)" mode--and then hit "Enter".
5. Hit "Advanced" again and press the "Data 1" key
6. Type in the CC# number that corresponds to the desired FLStudio transport function, listed below:

REWIND (19)
FORWARD (20)
STOP (21)
PLAY (22)
RECORD (23)

Hit enter when finished.
Data 2 (minimum value) should be 0 and Data 3 (maximum) should be 127, already.

Don't forget to store your settings.

IMPORTANT: the last step is to enable the Axiom as a "Tascam US-428" in FLS.

Please note that The Enigma editor doesn't exactly follow what you see on the Axiom itself. ("Value 1" on the Enigma editor is the high value and "Value 2" is the low value.) When setting up the control from the keyboard, make sure that 146 is the controller number (puts the control into note on/off mode), Data 1 is the CC# that corresponds to the FL function, Data 2 is the low value (zero), and Data 3 is the high value (127). Remember to hit enter when finished.

If you did it right, when you hit one of the transport controls, the Axiom's screen will flash the high value (127) for a brief moment (or however long you hold the button), and will return to zero.