Hello all, first post here, I'm a fellow Reaper user and hardware engineer for the living.
I am working on a chainable PCB RGB Led Strip to operate as a Vumeter strip, and intend to implement it on my reaper setup (see attached files).
A this very moment I have a functionning version operating as an MCU vumeter in Midi-over-USB, and it works well with reaper (arduino programmed as an USB Midi device, using MCU library, LEDs being seen by the unit as a chain of "Neopixels" leds, which is why those 4 channel blocks are chainable as well up to... any number you want).
Point is, I want to reach a greater integration level with reaper, notably taking advantage of the fact that each LED is RGB, which means :
* using colors on each VUMETER strip to implement Peak/RMS/LUFS/Left&Right display,
* doing the same for recording, switching VUMETER LEDS to red just like reaper does in the normal theme,
* have track color, mute, solo et al being displayed as well
* Use another strip to Master display
Which means that MCU mode is not sufficient, and OSC is probably limited as well.
Enventually, I'm reaching a point where I could need some guidance from the more educated ones here to make the right decision in terms of both software and Reaper integration architecture, here's what solutions I've been considering so far:
* Developping a specific JS plugin for that to be incorporated in each channel that broadcasts data over Midi, so the Arduino can process and display it. I have a "rough" prototype of such solution, which works oddly, but does the job.
Pros : I can do whatever I want, using sysex messages to transmit any kind of information gathered from each channel. Cons : Midi intensive, quite overkill and probably resource-expensive , not working on master (I have not been able to transmit midi from master effect strip to any output).
* Bend project towards an OSC-based solution, implementing specific messages if needed. Main issue I have here, is understanding how OSC implementation works under Reaper and if I can do everything I want to do using this method, which i'm not sure I can.
This is where I'd be grateful to get some insight and ideas from the Reaper community, on the best way to proceed in such project.
Note: This hardware can easily be reproduced, it's a simple 10x10 PCB cut in two. I'd be happy to share the design files if you are interested. It's friendly with almost all PCB web warehouses, I had a strip of 20 channels (5 boards) assembled by a Chinese prototyping warehouse for less than 35USD).