If you have ever tried to use the Forward or Reverse transport buttons on an M-Audio Oxygen MIDI controller in Ableton Live, you will have had the unpleasant experience of losing control of the play-head. When this happens, the play-head continuously jumps forward and back in an uncontrolled and unstoppable manner. The only way to get back to normal is to quit Live and restart. Below I describe the setup of an Oxygen 49 so that Forward and Reverse can take on a more useful and logical function. This also applies for the Oxygen 8 v2 and the Oxygen 61.
Oxygen 49 transport controls
The Oxygen 49 is a natively supported control surface in Ableton Live. To setup the controller go to Preferences->MIDI/Sync and select your device from the Control Surface dropdown list at the top left. Then select your MIDI input and output ports from the next two adjacent dropdown lists. If you are using an Oxygen 49 via USB then the ports will be something like “USB Oxygen 49”. You should now be able to use all of the transport buttons on the controller except for Forward and Reverse which will cause the crazy play-head problem.
A common use of Forward and Reverse transport buttons is to move the play-head through an arrangement window, usually by some user defined length; 1-bar, 8th notes, 16th notes etc, and sometimes to navigate through user defined locators. As far as I know the former is not possible in Ableton Live as of version 7, at least not with an Oxygen controller. What we can do though is setup locator navigation by assigning the Forward and Reverse keys to the Previous and Next Locator buttons using MIDI Map Mode. Settings in MIDI Map Mode override control surface defaults.
To enter MIDI Map Mode click the MIDI button at the top right of the Live window. Click on the Previous Locator arrow and press the Reverse button on your controller. Click on the Next Locator arrow and press the Forward button on your controller. Press the MIDI button to exit MIDI Map Mode. Now you can create locators in the arrangement window using the Set Locator button and move through them using the Forward and Reverse transport buttons.
It would be nice to be able to assign these buttons to increment or decrement the play head location by the global quantize amount. Hopefully this will be a MIDI assignable option in future versions of Live. In the meantime this is a much better use for the Forward and Reverse transport buttons than locking up the program.
