I just got an APC20 for Ableton Live, and it works like a charm... However, I was quite upset about a particular point in its functionnalities. You can switch between eight modes for the 8 sliders, for controlling either Volume, Send A, B or C, or 3 User banks for assigning to whichever parameter you want. This is great, but to switch between a mode, you have to press the Shift button and then the corresponding button on the "Record Arm" row.
This is not perfect when you use the APC for a live set, where you're not likely to use the Record Arm buttons, but you're much more likely to have to switch a lot between parameters. Plus, you have to press Shift to see in what mode you are. That's not great at all.
I tried searching on the net if someone had already thought the same thing, and if solutions existed, but there was none. I then thought it would never be possible, since this was probably handled hardware-side... Until a nice guy at the Ableton forums replied and said that it was handled software side, by the MIDI Remote Script. This same guy runs a great blog about that subject, and he provided the sources for the Ableton Live 8.1.3 APC remote scripts.
I then changed a couple of lines in the corresponding python source file, and voilà !
You can download that version here :
http://www.mediafire.com/?b4i6o6ipk9lbb22
You have to put the APC20 folder in Ressources/MIDI Remote Scripts in your Ableton Live instalation folder. I'm using Ableton 8.2 and it's working, I didn't test it on any other version.
Thanks a lot to Hanz Petrov for putting me on the right path.
http://remotescripts.blogspot.com/
As for Midi Control DS, I'm not working on it anymore at the moment, since I don't have a DS anymore, and I don't have enough free time. But if I had time, I'd be glad to work on it again, on more advanced features, such as controlling Ableton Live...
