[Funkybot]

Don't worry about having to create different .mst's or having the devices send unique messages. You have have 5 different copies of the same controllers, doing 5 different things or working in tandem using the same .mst files. CSI keeps track of what's what.

Originally Posted by cjewellstudios

Hey Geoff!

Many thanks for your advice. Worked like a charm. As a quick aside, this isn't the first time I've prompted a rant but I hope it's the last My apologies

There's a couple bumps in the road ahead I see with the setup I have now.

1. Since I'm using the same mst and zon file for both twisters, when mapping fx parameters, is there a way I can call the 2nd surface?

What do you mean by call the second surface? Do you want to use both simultaneously or do you want to switch between surface one and two?

Let's say you want to use both simultaneously. Try this:

1. Create two MFTwister folders within your CSI\Zones folder. Call them MFTwister_1 and MFTwister_2. Put the main MFTwister.zon file in both, setup CSI to use both folders, but we'll try to do is use different fx.zon files for the different mappings. For instance...

2. For MFTwsiter_1, create the fx.zon mapping plugin parameters to the first instance as you want.

3. Now in the MFTwister_2 folder, create a second fx.zon for that same plugin, mapping plugin parameters to the second instance as you want.

...I think that's how you'd map FX between two surfaces at once even though they share the same setup. In that scenario, I believe CSI would map the fx.zon file in the MFTwister_1 zone folders to the first surface, and the do the same for surface 2.

Originally Posted by cjewellstudios

2. Since I have effectively an 8x4 grid setup, I'd like to have the first row of 8 be tracks 1-8. But I don't really see how I can do this using the same surface file.

***my csi newbie brain says that I should just make the second twister send unique control messages and make one big surface file so I can lay the track controls across both of them, but I maybe working too hard

Here's where I might modify the .mst (if you're using mine as a starting point). I'd give the widgets meaningful names [to you] for the setup you want just to make it easier to keep track of. The MFTwister can be up to 128 rotary encoders, so naming things just "rotary1" thru "rotary128" will unnecessarily complicate CSI setup down the road, so I'd probably add some logical order to the widget names.

So lets say you want the top row of 4 encoders to be Pan and ShiftPan, and the second row to be volume. In the .mst, I would probably rename the top 4 widgets "Pan1" thru "Pan4" add the shift encoders as "ShiftPan," and then have 4 widgets for the second row called "Fader" (doesn't matter they're encoders not physical faders). Obviously, add the number to the widgets name and increment up.

So now you've got 1x4 for pan/shiftpan, and the 1x4 for volume in your .mst. The corresponding zon file for that setup would look something like like this:

Zone Home
	IncludedZones
		"Channel|1-4"
	IncludedZonesEnd
ZoneEnd

Zone "Channel|"
	TrackNavigator
	Pan| 		TrackPan "0"
	PanWidth| 	TrackPanWidth "1"
	Fader|  	TrackVolume
ZoneEnd

Now...use that EXACT SAME .mst and .zon file for MFTWister 2. After you add that in CSI, it will assign tracks 1-4 to MFTwister_1 and tracks 5-8 to MFTwister_2. How? Because CSI itself is internally handling what tracks go where via the navigator. It's not going to create two sets of Reaper Tracks 1-4, it's going to create Reaper Tracks 1-4 on the first surface and then be smart enough to put Reaper Tracks 5-8 on the second one.

EDIT
Mixmonkey was typing at the same time I was. At least we're both saying the same thing! Makes me feel better.