Let’s briefly walk through the different components of Lumatone Editor. At the very top of the interface, you’ll see a master visualization of your mapping on a Lumatone:

By default, Lumatone Editor will present the current mapping on your Lumatone when you open the application. The filename of the current mapping appears above it all. In the case of the above example, an asterisk denotes that the mapping has yet to be saved. 

Loading and Saving Mappings

To save the current mapping, click SAVE FILE and select a location on your computer.

To load a mapping from a file, click LOAD FILE and browse your computer for the mapping you’d like to load. This file will replace whatever you’re working on, and in Live Mode, will also display on your Lumatone in place of whatever was there previously.

To load a mapping from your Lumatone into Lumatone Editor, click the IMPORT FROM LUMATONE button. You will be asked if you’d like to save your existing mapping, after which the mapping visible on your Lumatone will be loaded into Lumatone Editor for editing or saving. This is most useful if you’d like to load a preset that is already saved to your Lumatone. You can switch between preset buttons on your Lumatone to find a mapping you’d like to load before clicking the IMPORT FROM LUMATONE button.

Assign Keys

The Assign Keys section is the heart of it all, this is where you’ll assign colours and MIDI note numbers to your Lumatone’s keys. To manage the sheer number of keys on Lumatone, we’ve divided Lumatone into five sections of 56 keys each. While you can visualize the entire mapping using the Lumatone image at the top, or on your physical Lumatone, the Assign Keys section lets you focus in on one 56-key section at a time to make your key assignments. It’s in this section of Lumatone Editor that you’ll assign colours and MIDI channels/notes to your keys. Let’s walk through this process now.

Choosing Which Section to Work On

To select which of the five sections of Lumatone you’d like to edit, you can either:

• Click a section on the Lumatone image at the top of the app
• Select a section from the menu at the top of Assign Keys

In both cases, your current section will be denoted by highlighting the active section in white in the menu, as well as a white line underneath the image of Lumatone denoting the active section.

How to Assign Values to Keys

The most important thing to remember when defining key values is that you must select which settings you’d like to edit first, along with a chosen value. Then, whenever you click a key in the Assign Keys section, those values are immediately applied to that key.

This allows you to use Auto-Increment functions to rapidly apply values to multiple keys in sequence.

You can also decide which values you’d like to assign when clicking keys. If the checkbox next to a value (ie. Key type or Key Colour) is checked, that value will be assigned when clicking a key. If you uncheck a box, that value will not be applied.

For example, you may want to define the patterns of colour on your entire Lumatone, along with the key’s type, before assigning MIDI channels or notes. To accomplish this, You would check only the “Key Colour” and “Key Type” attributes, select a colour and type, and then click all the keys you wish to give those values. Then, you can do another pass focusing on assigning the right MIDI notes to your keys.

Each key’s MIDI Channel (1-16) and Note # (0-127) will appear as text on each key, with the channel on top, and the note number underneath it.

Now, let’s review each attribute you can assign to a key, and walk through how you can use auto-increment to assign MIDI notes quickly and easily.

The Attributes of a Key

Each key has four attributes you can define: key type, key colour, MIDI note, and MIDI channel. 

Key Type allows you to specify what the key’s behaviour is. You have three key types to choose from: Note On/Off, Continuous Controller, and Lumatouch.

Key Colour is the LED colour you’d like the key to be, selected from a colour picker or user defined colour palettes.

Note # is a value (0 to 127) that represents the MIDI note number you’d like the key to send.

Channel is a value (1 to 16) that represents the MIDI channel you’d like the key to send. 

When assigning MIDI channels and notes to Lumatone’s keys, you can achieve quick results by using the auto-increment tools, pictured above.

Notes-Per-Click: Check this option if you’d like to increment the MIDI note number by one with every key you click. For example, if your note value is set to 1, this value will be assigned to the first key you click, 2 will be assigned to the next key, 3 the next, and so on.

Channels: Check this option if you’d like to auto-increment to the next channel after a certain note has been assigned. For example, if you’re assigning to MIDI channel 1, but you’d like to switch to channel 2 every 56 keys, input “56” in the After Note # field, and your the MIDI channel you assign will increment by one, every 56 keys. (Tip: Incrementing the channel based on the size of your tuning, as opposed to using a channel’s full 128 note range, might make tuning and mapping coordination easier for some tunings.)

Key Types

When assigning attributes to keys, each key can be independently set to behave in one of three ways. Let’s review the three different key types that can be assigned to keys on Lumatone.

1. Note On/Off -- Keys set to this type function as a regular keyboard key. Pressing down on a key sends a “note on” signal over MIDI with the chosen channel and note information, along with velocity sensitivity. Velocity curves can be defined in software (we’ll discuss this a bit later) and keys have a familiar responsive action.
2. Continuous Controller -- Keys set to act as continuous controllers will continuously read the position of the key. This allows the key to act like a bidirectional fader, sending a value of 1 at it’s topmost position, and sending a value of 127 when the key is fully depressed. By “fading” this key up and down, you’re able to control any number of MIDI CC parameters available in many virtual instruments and sound modules such as volume, filter cutoff, expression, and countless others. With many sound-generating devices you can also set a CC to control a custom parameter via your chosen MIDI channel and note.
3. Lumatouch -- Lumatouch is a mode developed specifically for Lumatone. Any key can be set to act as a Lumatouch key. The key behaves like any other note on/off key, but to engage Lumatouch, you press to the bottom of the aftertouch region. This converts the key to a continuous controller, allowing the performer to control their chosen aftertouch parameter across the full range of key travel. Polyphonic aftertouch must be enabled in your mapping for these keys to work properly, and if it isn’t, keys set to Lumatouch will revert to being Note On/Off keys.

Altogether, the Assign Keys section is where the magic happens. For further information about getting around Lumatone Editor, you may want to read about using colour palettes, or about mapping-specific settings -- both of which are also editable from the main screen of Lumatone Editor.