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Old 03-17-2012, 03:23 AM   #81
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Banned, I understand. Is it possible for you to write some small tutorial on how to create patches in PD? This way we would "learn how to fish", instead of getting the fish

I noticed that its possible to set up two control surfaces at once while using only 1 BCR2000:
Eg. OSC+bcf2000 patch - which also works with BCR and what is interesting it actually gives feedback for the first 2nd row of encoders, so I suspect it would be possible to create sth similar for bcr2000 and all of the encoders/buttons.

Combining the BCF2000 "patch" + OSC "patch" at once gives many possibilities. That is what I actually want to use.

If I could create patches in PD, I would set up 2 control surfaces (OSC+Bcf2000 for my bcr2000) in this way:

1) The PD patch would give feedback to 3rd and 4th row of encoders, so I could use them with eg. Duende channel strip

2) The bcf2000 patch would give feedback to 2nd row of encoders, and I would use them for volume.

Start/stop/rewind/forward/buttons also in bcf patch, because feedback is not needed there.

Actually I already use such patch only with BCF2000 control surface for my BCR2000. I use the 3rd and 4th row of encoders in absolute soft takeover mode.

Ive my bcr2000 set up on 4 presets in BC manager:
preset1 channels 1-8
preset2 channels 9-16
preset3 channels 17-24
preset4 channels 25-32

This way I can use 32 channels of volume with feedback in 4 groups.
I also have buttons set up for:
-choosing next/previous channel
-channel 1, 9, 17 (for quick jumps)
-showing/hiding fx window for current selected channel
-show/hide mixer

To be honest, I wouldn't even use OSC in first place, if only I could set up my BCR knobs to work faster in relative mode I tried using BC manager to increase speed of the encoders, but it didn't work AT ALL. Any ideas why it didn't work?

I will gladly post my BCR2000 settings if anyone is interested.
I'm sorry if my post seems a bit chaotic or not related to topic in 100%, but maybe someone else can relate to my use of bcf2000 & PD patch.
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Old 03-17-2012, 08:33 AM   #82
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Banned, I understand. Is it possible for you to write some small tutorial on how to create patches in PD? This way we would "learn how to fish", instead of getting the fish
Yes, that was exactly my intention. Or rather, showing you how to teach yourself how to invent a better fish rod and cultivate your own favorite kind of fish.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oscar Wilde
“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day - set a man on fire and he won't feel cold for the rest of his life.”
If I'm going to serve fish, it better be a feast meal, and not something smelly. It may be my particular taste, but I find that most fish stinks. Even after you put them on a fire for a while (or especially because you put them on the fire for the rest of their life or whatever...). Including the ones of my own cooking. They need some special preparation to be ready for public consumption.
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I noticed that its possible to set up two control surfaces at once while using only 1 BCR2000: [...]
Yeah the fun only starts with a simple patch, it gets much better with more complex setups indeed. But the usefulness of setups will be highly dependent on context, and then still be subjective, so imho it makes most sense to discuss simple examples patches for separate issues.
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To be honest, I wouldn't even use OSC in first place, if only I could set up my BCR knobs to work faster in relative mode I tried using BC manager to increase speed of the encoders, but it didn't work AT ALL. Any ideas why it didn't work?
Hmm, yes, there's a few tricks for that, but BCR hacking is also a bit of a separate issue which I rather delve into (and discuss) after having a bit more fun with the basic REAPER OSC stuff.

Moreover, I think it is even more interesting to figure out how to best use the different abilities of the BCR (including all the hacking tricks) and implement a bridge layer (in Pd / Max / wherever), to convert absolute values for OSC into whatever relative mode is best on the controller end. That would be more generally (re)usable than just implementing some praticular mode. And simple (absolute) MIDI CC# mode is even more generally usable than some of the things the BCR supports, so that's what has my first priority. (Even) I can easily think of some ways how to implement a relative mode and fine/coarse control without even having anything else than plain MIDI CC#s, so I figured that I'd try doing that first.

And to be honest, conversely, I'm not really interested in using a proprietary protocol like is used for the existing BCF feedback support. I think I can do much better than that. I'm still interested in discussing some aspects of it, it just does have a *much* lower priority for me than using OSC, and certainly at this moment.

But I'm confident we'll end up with you (and others) being able to do exactly what you described in a pretty short period of time somehow. And I will bet that by then, you will again want to add or change just a *few* tiny things here and there.
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Old 03-17-2012, 10:28 AM   #83
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Please respect my nick and stop all this fishtalk. !
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Old 03-17-2012, 10:47 AM   #84
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Please respect my nick and stop all this fishtalk. !
Whoops, sorry!

(I'm a fish myself btw, at least if you believe in astrology, which I really don't)
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Old 03-20-2012, 03:53 AM   #85
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Excuse my ignorance here for a moment. I've battled with times of Love and times of Hate with Novation Automap for some time now. I've also picked up a V cheap 3rd hand Ipad1 to have a bigger surface than my Ipod touch to play with OSC and TouchOSC.

Do we see a potential here for ditching the Automap type of plugin host/automation?
It would be superb to have a page customized to a VSTi and to switch to this when we need to control that instrument.

I'm quite looking forward to this going public soon
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Old 03-20-2012, 10:19 AM   #86
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Excuse my ignorance here for a moment. I've battled with times of Love and times of Hate with Novation Automap for some time now. I've also picked up a V cheap 3rd hand Ipad1 to have a bigger surface than my Ipod touch to play with OSC and TouchOSC.

Do we see a potential here for ditching the Automap type of plugin host/automation?
It would be superb to have a page customized to a VSTi and to switch to this when we need to control that instrument.

I'm quite looking forward to this going public soon
Yes we do! We could already do a bunch of great stuff this way, but now: feedback + high resolution parameter values = even more awesomeness.

In fact, I think we can do much better, at least in terms of powerful features. Easy, user-friendly customization features (i.e. programmatically adapting for different types of controllers) will perhaps be a bit harder, but of secondary concern and thus lower priority, to me at least. Perhaps better done in something like Max/MSP than Pd, much like making it look slicker than vanilla Pd, which I think is quite ugly. I'm mainly using Pure data now for a first round of prototyping, because it kind of guides me to focus on core functionality instead of putting cherries on top, while also keeping it easy to port almost anywhere. In the case of Pd, making a button or knob slightly prettier takes much more time (and is much more problematic) than implementing a parameter remapping feature - at least with my modest skills.

And of course I haven't yet 'taught' it much about existing plugins, while they probably have a whole bunch of data ready to go.

I haven't played much with Automap myself (btw, Novation has a pretty bad rep with me since their early days - their first products were embarrassing failures: a 303 clone which didn't sound anything like it, and a digital 808/909 clone which was notoriously unreliable, had clunky polyphony management that could make the most horrific digital noise I've ever heard - samples of that noise were the most interesting thing about it. But still, getting a Launchpad for use with Numerology is pretty high on my wishlist. ) And I haven't tried their iOS app either.

So, while I do have a good idea about the general concept, I'm not familiar with the details of Automap's implementation (e.g. where does it show parameter names, does it use its own dedicated GUI, or is it integrated into the host software? Are parameter names limited to 8 characters?) If some Automap users could briefly describe what main features they really like about it or conversely, what features they're missing most, I'd appreciate it very much.

When looking at their documentation, I only see stuff about parameter names/values and remapping of parameter numbers, nothing about rescaling the actual parameter values (i.e. smoothing, quantization, breakpoint curves, coarse/fine tune, conversion between absolute/relative modes). That is where things gets really interesting as far as I'm concerned - in fact, if I had to choose between remapping parameter numbers or rescaling parameter values, I'd be happy to just forget about remapping at all. Value rescaling is way more important imho. Does Automap do anything like this at all?

(Also, I don't have to switch pages at all. With the proper settings, whenever a plugin has focus, my controller automatically switches to the appropriate page. I thought Automap can also work like that?)

Btw, I also tried played with some Abletonesque knobs for Pd, which seem pretty similar to what Novation uses for the Automap GUI:



Compare:



But since I didn't yet manage to get them to work in circular mode (which is essential for high resolution control imho), I am using much uglier ones currently:



But hey, they work fine in circular mode. I'm now playing with hue, saturation and lightness values to temporarily make a knob or its background 'light up' when its parameter is tweaked and/or show the last parameter value as a color (i.e. value = hue, when tweaked, lightness jumps up and fades down again). Too much cherry on top kind of stuff already, I guess.

PS: if you tried clicking on any knob on the image in your browser, you probably need more coffee.
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Old 03-20-2012, 10:35 PM   #87
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Little demo video (1.9Mb .mov, ~52 sec) of rescaling ReaEQ's frequency parameters (which imho happen to completely suck - go figure ).

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File Type: jpg PluginParameterValueRescalingDemo.jpg (26.5 KB, 2557 views)
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Old 03-21-2012, 02:20 AM   #88
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Yes we do! We could already do a bunch of great stuff this way, but now: feedback + high resolution parameter values = even more awesomeness.

In fact, I think we can do much better, at least in terms of powerful features. Easy, user-friendly customization features (i.e. programmatically adapting for different types of controllers) will perhaps be a bit harder, but of secondary concern and thus lower priority, to me at least. Perhaps better done in something like Max/MSP than Pd, much like making it look slicker than vanilla Pd, which I think is quite ugly. I'm mainly using Pure data now for a first round of prototyping, because it kind of guides me to focus on core functionality instead of putting cherries on top, while also keeping it easy to port almost anywhere. In the case of Pd, making a button or knob slightly prettier takes much more time (and is much more problematic) than implementing a parameter remapping feature - at least with my modest skills.

And of course I haven't yet 'taught' it much about existing plugins, while they probably have a whole bunch of data ready to go.

I haven't played much with Automap myself (btw, Novation has a pretty bad rep with me since their early days - their first products were embarrassing failures: a 303 clone which didn't sound anything like it, and a digital 808/909 clone which was notoriously unreliable, had clunky polyphony management that could make the most horrific digital noise I've ever heard - samples of that noise were the most interesting thing about it. But still, getting a Launchpad for use with Numerology is pretty high on my wishlist. ) And I haven't tried their iOS app either.

So, while I do have a good idea about the general concept, I'm not familiar with the details of Automap's implementation (e.g. where does it show parameter names, does it use its own dedicated GUI, or is it integrated into the host software? Are parameter names limited to 8 characters?) If some Automap users could briefly describe what main features they really like about it or conversely, what features they're missing most, I'd appreciate it very much.

When looking at their documentation, I only see stuff about parameter names/values and remapping of parameter numbers, nothing about rescaling the actual parameter values (i.e. smoothing, quantization, breakpoint curves, coarse/fine tune, conversion between absolute/relative modes). That is where things gets really interesting as far as I'm concerned - in fact, if I had to choose between remapping parameter numbers or rescaling parameter values, I'd be happy to just forget about remapping at all. Value rescaling is way more important imho. Does Automap do anything like this at all?

(Also, I don't have to switch pages at all. With the proper settings, whenever a plugin has focus, my controller automatically switches to the appropriate page. I thought Automap can also work like that?)

Btw, I also tried played with some Abletonesque knobs for Pd, which seem pretty similar to what Novation uses for the Automap GUI:



Compare:



But since I didn't yet manage to get them to work in circular mode (which is essential for high resolution control imho), I am using much uglier ones currently:



But hey, they work fine in circular mode. I'm now playing with hue, saturation and lightness values to temporarily make a knob or its background 'light up' when its parameter is tweaked and/or show the last parameter value as a color (i.e. value = hue, when tweaked, lightness jumps up and fades down again). Too much cherry on top kind of stuff already, I guess.

PS: if you tried clicking on any knob on the image in your browser, you probably need more coffee.
I can't see two of the images, however Thank You for the detailed reply.

Automap displays Parameter names in it's own floating GUI (If your press the View button on your hardware) Or in the surprisingly decent display on most of their hardware, not that Nocturn 49 above though
Leaving DAW control to one side for a moment (As it's mainly HUI for most or native support for Live) and focusing on how it handles plugins. With Automap you choose which plugins you want to control during the setup phase, Automap then 'Wraps' these plugins and creates a new dll or vst component (On a mac)it appears this is just a hook to grab the parameter names and hook them back into the Plugin. Of course the order of what you see on the hardware is based on the order the parameter's are exposed by the plugin, unless Novation have a pre configured map in their default setup. So while mapping of parameters is automatic making them usable requires a fair old amount of messing around in the Automap GUI.
I've given up with this and have fallen back on Midi learn and making hardware templates leaving Automap behind.
The only thing I do miss from it is it auto detecting the plugin in use and switching to it's template on the fly.

Sorry that's probably a bit confusing and badly written, it's early and Work is bugging me. But I wanted to reply to say thanks for the detailed response.
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Old 03-21-2012, 03:14 AM   #89
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I can't see two of the images, however Thank You for the detailed reply.
You're welcome. Perhaps the images (nothing important) were just loading slow, they're showing here. [EDIT: hey, since moving the thread here I now don't see them here either, even after reloading... I trashed them after uploading, so can't quickly reattach; will perhaps make new ones later. Or see a few little vids here.]
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Sorry that's probably a bit confusing and badly written, it's early and Work is bugging me. But I wanted to reply to say thanks for the detailed response.
No, it's perfectly clear. I think I pretty much got all of that covered then. If they also use their own GUI, then this setup is pretty similar. Plus, I already have a rudimentary version of automatic plugin detection / template switching implemented. And if it doesn't have any value rescaling... exit: Automap.

I hadn't yet thought of implementing a button on the controller device for showing the GUI and hiding it again, but that's pretty easy to do. Thanks, great tip - exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for!

PS: perhaps try some more coffee?
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Old 03-21-2012, 04:09 PM   #90
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This is great news. I am deciding what controller I should get.
Lemur, Ohm, etc.
Do you have any suggestions on which surface would be bes suited for the OSC-MIDI stuff....?

Thanks Again for your discoveries...
i finally caved in and got an ipad2 about 6months ago...its now become one of my main devices for generating midi and controlling reaper nstuff. there are so many good apps...Lemur is amazing, SoundPrism is an awesome alternative to using a normal midi keyboard, and then there is touchOSC for a more straight forward osc/midi template tool, not to mention all the synth/iosDAW apps and music tools like polychord...so much flexibility.

the main problem with the ipad is that u can only have one app using screen at a time... luck my girl friend want an ipad too :P
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Old 03-22-2012, 05:59 PM   #91
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Thanks for moving the thread over here mods!
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Old 03-28-2012, 02:44 PM   #92
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ok Mr B..

I've managed to resurrect my 'vintage' 2004/5 bcf2000 - (without any casing) although a fader cap has gone AWOL..

reason is that i'd like to toy with this pd stuff that you're doing with bcr, and end up with something applicable working for bcF.

installed pd yesterday and 'OKAAY..' so i'm starting at level 1 - easy mode - no zombies. can see you have your hands full with as many controls as on the bc' units.

was going to start messing about with your patch5, but get the impression this could lead to more stress than necessary as reaper's osc implementaion may have changed since then and you also may be doing things a better/neater way, so just wondering if i should hold off for a better jumping off point, or just get stuck in...


ultimately i think a follow focused fx mode and a 'mixer/general' mode would be good for bcf, and i'd like to then get some feedback/parameter labels to touchosc, but i will wait on that as studio daw is wireless-less at the momen

i'd also like reaper to do this natively, and stuff. but nevermind.
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Old 03-28-2012, 03:12 PM   #93
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I did not read the whole thread, because the first page looked quite complicated already, sorry.
Why isn't there a simple MIDI value feedback implemented in Reaper? We can setup any MIDI input as a control input and learn the CCs, why is it not possible to select a "control out" MIDI port, where the same CCs with their actual value are SENT by Reaper?? Any standard controler like Korgs Nanos or other would react on the same incoming messages like they send and make their lights react.
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Old 04-01-2012, 08:43 AM   #94
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ok Mr B..

I've managed to resurrect my 'vintage' 2004/5 bcf2000 - (without any casing) although a fader cap has gone AWOL..

reason is that i'd like to toy with this pd stuff that you're doing with bcr, and end up with something applicable working for bcF.

installed pd yesterday and 'OKAAY..' so i'm starting at level 1 - easy mode - no zombies. can see you have your hands full with as many controls as on the bc' units.

was going to start messing about with your patch5, but get the impression this could lead to more stress than necessary as reaper's osc implementaion may have changed since then and you also may be doing things a better/neater way, so just wondering if i should hold off for a better jumping off point, or just get stuck in...


ultimately i think a follow focused fx mode and a 'mixer/general' mode would be good for bcf, and i'd like to then get some feedback/parameter labels to touchosc, but i will wait on that as studio daw is wireless-less at the momen

i'd also like reaper to do this natively, and stuff. but nevermind.
Hey mr. B., indeed, REAPER's OSC implementation has changed and I have also found a few neater ways to do things as I refreshed my own limited Pd skills (I have been using Max more than Pd for the last couple of years, and my older Pd stuff is on a computer that has been broken so I can't access it. ) So indeed, a fresh start is in order. I just need some time to break down some simple ('noob manageable') modules out of my ever evolving, increasingly complex Pd prototype.
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Old 04-01-2012, 08:50 AM   #95
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I did not read the whole thread, because the first page looked quite complicated already, sorry.
Why isn't there a simple MIDI value feedback implemented in Reaper? We can setup any MIDI input as a control input and learn the CCs, why is it not possible to select a "control out" MIDI port, where the same CCs with their actual value are SENT by Reaper?? Any standard controler like Korgs Nanos or other would react on the same incoming messages like they send and make their lights react.
Agreed, as already noted. Please vote for the appropriate FRs too.

But I also hope you see the potential to go beyond simple MIDI feedback here, and to add useful features even to plain old MIDI controllers.

Sorry if this already looks complicated, it really isn't that complicated if you take the time. I can't make it much simpler than it is, sorry.
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Old 04-01-2012, 06:45 PM   #96
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Hey mr. B., indeed, REAPER's OSC implementation has changed and I have also found a few neater ways to do things as I refreshed my own limited Pd skills (I have been using Max more than Pd for the last couple of years, and my older Pd stuff is on a computer that has been broken so I can't access it. ) So indeed, a fresh start is in order. I just need some time to break down some simple ('noob manageable') modules out of my ever evolving, increasingly complex Pd prototype.
cool no problem, look forward to your conclusions.. i got some joy with the first few encoders since they match the bcr, but although the pd window was getting the feedback, the unit wasn't - plus nothing seemed very editable, well, at first 'click' anyhow.

the idea of bite size modules sounds good. keep black box stuff in black boxes!
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Old 04-04-2012, 12:54 PM   #97
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Hi,
Sry..post deleted

I think I found my answer^^

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Old 04-15-2012, 05:24 PM   #98
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Hi,

Please help!

I also have a BCR-2000 Controler and I really want to get the MIDI feedback thing going with it. I was really excited when I saw this thread, but all the explanations seem over my head. I keep checking it to see if someone posts a step by step tutorial for this. It seems I have to download another program (PureData) and do something with that. I am not a computer programmer and I don't have to time to invest in learn to do that right now.

Is anybody willing to to walk me (and others)through this?

rod
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Old 04-15-2012, 11:06 PM   #99
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[...] I also have a BCR-2000 Controler and I really want to get the MIDI feedback thing going with it. I was really excited when I saw this thread, but all the explanations seem over my head. I keep checking it to see if someone posts a step by step tutorial for this.
I will post some more simple tutorials when I get around to it - I'm just a bit too busy for that lately. But it is not going to get that much simpler, only more modular.

Btw, I did just post a little example here that could also be helpful to get started. Not for MIDI / feedback though.
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It seems I have to download another program (PureData) and do something with that. I am not a computer programmer and I don't have to time to invest in learn to do that right now. [...]
Me neither.

Seriously, this is really only as much 'programming' as creating a composition using MIDI or creating a patch for a modular synthesizer is 'programming'. I'm not writing code, not even scripting. I'm basically just patching virtual cables between simple functions such as add and multiply - any electronic musician should understand how that works. It just becomes complex because we want to do complex things. It's not the patching that makes it difficult, it's formulating *exactly* how you want controls to function, and how you want them laid out. That takes much more time and thought than actually patching it.

For example, today I have spent several hours experimenting with different acceleration values for the BCR-2000 rotary encoders in 14 bit mode, until they felt right to me. I ended up with this:
Code:
.resolution 96 12288 12288 18432
That took about an hour per value, half a working day for a short line of 'code', if that's what you want to call it. No programming required at all, just tweaking knobs with many different combinations of values. The actual 'programming' after I was done looking for suitable values: one search/replace action on a SysEx file, took about 15 seconds to open the file, change it, save it and transmit it to the BCR-2000.
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Old 07-13-2012, 05:17 AM   #100
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Parameter feedback with any midi device? Also with the novation remote zero sl mk2? Would I be able to have Reaper sent the parameters names and values of any currently focused plugin to the display and knobs assigned to them? Maybe even switch to the next 8 parameters? Without Automap, of course ...
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Old 05-19-2013, 04:04 PM   #101
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Definitely. Pretty much anything is possible... I was thinking myself about using the 2 rows of 8 buttons on the BCR-2000 for a selection matrix: select (any combination of) track(s) 1-8 and (any combination of) effect slot(s) 1-8 to select which (combination of) effect parameters are targeted by all the other knobs and switches.
This sounds like an Ensoniq synthesizer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYsdXJcZNvk

I should try this whole OSC story soon also with my BCR2000. Time to use those sends in Reaper, too. Without send control everything sucks, kind of.
Everybody knows sends are best way to add temporary effects to tracks. Reaper developers know it also, on the OSC side, but not on the midi side.
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Old 05-20-2013, 05:01 PM   #102
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Banned, commenting on your VU-meter example can you also change the volume on that knob where the vu-meter is dancing? If yes, would it be also possible to use all 32 knobs to display 32 vu-meters, all parallel?

Another BCR-2000 related dance, when changing presets, I think there are all together 32 presets on the BCR2000, could you have different setups all defined in those presets, and switch among those, and it would still communicate nicely with Reaper? Or is this only possible with a single preset at maximum? If all 32 presets can work in parallel, this would increase the possibility space for the factor 32. Then we need only a mechanism to switch into those presets DIRECTLY, from some external trigger, NOT using prev/next buttons on the BCR2000, imagine you are in preset1 and want to switch to preset15, here you would need to press 14 times the next button, which would be a catastrophe. Using program change events, might be one idea to jump into BCR2000 presets.
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Old 05-21-2013, 01:31 AM   #103
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Banned, commenting on your VU-meter example can you also change the volume on that knob where the vu-meter is dancing? If yes, would it be also possible to use all 32 knobs to display 32 vu-meters, all parallel?
I should check to make 100% sure (as that was just a PoC thingie, and I never use VU meters like that myself), but I think not - you would have to decouple the knob (sending e.g. MIDI CC#1 on Ch.1) from the LED ring (which would have to be receiving and displaying something else, e.g. CC#2 on ch.2), and I don't think that is possible.

What *can* be done is using the push button on the same encoder to create such a function: when pressing on the encoder, it can send a command (e.g. a note-on command for, say, note 0 on ch. 1) to the intermediate patch between the BCR-2000 and REAPER (e.g. Pure data, but that could also be something else), which would then respond by switching functions on its end: stop sending the VU meter as CC# data, start interpreting and routing the incoming data to the desired parameter of your choice (e.g. the level of send 1 on the currently selected track(s)).

You can definitely use all 32 LED rings, but unfortunately you can only 'fill' the ring on the upper 8; the lower 24 have more limited LED display modes. That's just about visual appearances though; it would still give you the same visual feedback, it's just not typical to display VU meters with only one or two LED 'dots' on a ring.
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Another BCR-2000 related dance, when changing presets, I think there are all together 32 presets on the BCR2000, could you have different setups all defined in those presets, and switch among those, and it would still communicate nicely with Reaper? Or is this only possible with a single preset at maximum? If all 32 presets can work in parallel, this would increase the possibility space for the factor 32. Then we need only a mechanism to switch into those presets DIRECTLY, from some external trigger, NOT using prev/next buttons on the BCR2000, imagine you are in preset1 and want to switch to preset15, here you would need to press 14 times the next button, which would be a catastrophe. Using program change events, might be one idea to jump into BCR2000 presets.
Yes, you can use multiple presets, and they maintain their state nicely. So when go back to you previous preset, all knob positions are still where you left them (unless you switch the power off - so just don't do that during a live performance ). There is no unnecessary spamming of current values back and forth.

You can of course also use very similar complementary setups. A simple illustration of this, perhaps even more useful in the light of recent developments, is to set up the same CC#s in 7 bit mode on one preset, and in 14 bit mode on the next (and perhaps another few using various acceleration schemes). This way you can switch all controls between coarse and fine tuning mode. However, because the presets are independent, and since there is no spamming of current values when changing presets from the BCR-2000 side, when using the same parameters on multiple presets, their values are not updated between presets.

An even more sophisticated technique, which can also be used to work around the problem just mentioned, is to switch the functions of individual control elements on the fly using SysEx. I can for example make an encoder switch between 7 and 14 bit mode seamlessly, by first reading/storing its current value, using that value as the default value in a little SysEx message that changes the resolution (bit depth) of that encoder, and then send the SysEx to the BCR-2000, which will then of course update its function accordingly. This approach of course takes quite a bit of hacking to be fully automated (I alson use Pd to compose/generate such SysEx commands), but certainly gives us a lot of flexibility where required.

And as for switching between presets, a little tip: you don't have to press a button repeatedly: just hold down either the 'next preset' or 'previous preset' button and turn any knob. Changing the current preset from 1 to 32 is just one action with two hands.
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Old 05-21-2013, 01:49 AM   #104
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Parameter feedback with any midi device? Also with the novation remote zero sl mk2? Would I be able to have Reaper sent the parameters names and values of any currently focused plugin to the display and knobs assigned to them? Maybe even switch to the next 8 parameters? Without Automap, of course ...
I'd think so, yes. I haven't used that device before, and am not familiar with how it displays parameter names, but typically such things are done via SysEx, using the ascii format for text characters. So I'm pretty sure it can all be done; what you describe all works pretty well here. I only use a second screen standing behind my controller to display things like parameter names and 'normalized' parameter values (e.g. '303.808 Hz') because the MIDI controllers I currently have aren't quite cool enough to have proper (dual) text displays for individual controls/parameters. Switching parameters in banks still annoys me though, because we're not able to easily redefine the order or parameters. That can especially be uncomfortable when the order does not suit your preferences and/or when you use plug-ins with very large numbers of parameters.

Apologies for the late reply, btw.
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Old 05-21-2013, 02:27 AM   #105
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And as for switching between presets, a little tip: you don't have to press a button repeatedly: just hold down either the 'next preset' or 'previous preset' button and turn any knob. Changing the current preset from 1 to 32 is just one action with two hands.
Thanks for all the explanations and this tip. This seems to be a default BCR2000 feature? Never read any manual of the BCR2000 yet, on first sight this seems to be a useful feature, kind of holding prev/next as SHIFT keys, however is not this a "waste" of possibilities, why wasting all knobs for this? One knob would be sufficient, all the other knobs could do something else. Probably this can be also changed.

I saw some time ago, there is another OS project for the BCR2000, but I could not see any examples there. I do not know if anybody tried already, new, more sophisticated OS'es for the BCR2000, similar to JJOS for the MPC series.
http://hackaday.com/2010/09/02/firmw...-midi-devices/
http://willem.engen.nl/projects/bc2000-dev/


Mainly, holding buttons to switch possibility space. Two buttons side by side, could switch to another possibility space, one button as momentary switch, another as toggle switch, depending what type you prefer (momentary/toggle) in which situation you would use that button. There are 10 buttons on the BCR2000 on the lower right area, so we could do this game 5 times, in parallel. Each addressing another possibility space. With the previous preset switching idea, we get all together:
extended-possibility-space = possibility-space * 32 * 5. Not bad.
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Old 05-21-2013, 02:32 AM   #106
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Little demo video (1.9Mb .mov, ~52 sec) of rescaling ReaEQ's frequency parameters (which imho happen to completely suck - go figure ).

Your parameter value rescaling example for ReaEQ is so cool, is this implemented into Reaper in the meantime or do we still need your pd hack for this? You are totally right, why dealing with all frequencies when in practice, in the western world we use only a subset of pitch positions, thus frequencies, under normal cases. Every ReaEQ should have a checkbox on its GUI saying "I want Banned style intelligent ReaEQ". banned, boreg & bang brothers tips should not be ignored by the Cock team. Ohh, I forgot the os.
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Old 05-21-2013, 02:49 AM   #107
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Thanks for all the explanations and this tip. This seems to be a default BCR2000 feature? Never read any manual of the BCR2000 yet, on first sight this seems to be a useful feature, kind of holding prev/next as SHIFT keys, however is not this a "waste" of possibilities, why wasting all knobs for this? One knob would be sufficient, all the other knobs could do something else. Probably this can be also changed.

I saw some time ago, there is another OS project for the BCR2000, but I could not see any examples there. I do not know if anybody tried already, new, more sophisticated OS'es for the BCR2000, similar to JJOS for the MPC series.
http://hackaday.com/2010/09/02/firmw...-midi-devices/
http://willem.engen.nl/projects/bc2000-dev/


Mainly, holding buttons to switch possibility space. Two buttons side by side, could switch to another possibility space, one button as momentary switch, another as toggle switch, depending what type you prefer (momentary/toggle) in which situation you would use that button. There are 10 buttons on the BCR2000 on the lower right area, so we could do this game 5 times, in parallel. Each addressing another possibility space. With the previous preset switching idea, we get all together:
extended-possibility-space = possibility-space * 32 * 5. Not bad.
That particular 'waste' doesn't bother me much, really, as it also makes it easy to remember. But if you want, even the default buttons for 'store', 'learn', 'edit', and 'exit' can be overridden to do something else. Btw: since the top row uses dual use encoders, and there are 4 banks, you actually have 56 encoder positions per patch; and don't forget the buttons, that can also send note-on/offs, which*you like to use for toggling iirc. So if you really want to use a lot of modifier buttons, there are also 16 fixed ones at the top and 8 x 4 switchable on the top row encoders. Not bad indeed for such a cheap old thing.

Thanks for the tip about the OS hacks, hadn't seen those yet!
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Old 05-21-2013, 03:04 AM   #108
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Your parameter value rescaling example for ReaEQ is so cool, is this implemented into Reaper in the meantime or do we still need your pd hack for this? You are totally right, why dealing with all frequencies when in practice, in the western world we use only a subset of pitch positions, thus frequencies, under normal cases. Every ReaEQ should have a checkbox on its GUI saying "I want Banned style intelligent ReaEQ". banned, boreg & bang brothers tips should not be ignored by the Cock team. Ohh, I forgot the os.
I'm not sure if we need to use OSC for this; there may be other ways as well, but it's definitely not implemented in REAPER as a standard feature. Using Pd is certainly not necessarily. It should be relatively easy to make a similar lookup table using other tools for converting the 128 steps of a 7 bit MIDI CC# to arbitrary OSC values. Of course a displaying the transform curve function on a graph is nice, having it editable is nice too, but that's just for show really. A simple 2 dimensional array without GUI would already suffice to do the job just fine, and can relatively easily be done in pretty much any language or platform. It just makes for much less illustrative demo video's.

I actually like to be able to fine-tune frequencies very precisely and sweep them very smoothly, too. And I occasionally like to play some non-western scales as well (I'm currently having a lot of fun playing with Indian scales). It just makes sense to me that for 7 bit CC# control of frequencies over the audible range, the default scaling should be using the western 12tET scale since that is pretty much the standard.
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Old 05-22-2013, 08:10 PM   #109
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Maybe we should mention also this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfaDp2ouiKs
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Old 06-20-2013, 04:41 PM   #110
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Maybe we should mention also this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfaDp2ouiKs
Lulz, indeed.
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Old 06-21-2013, 01:04 AM   #111
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In your parameter rescaling example, is it possible to move the frequency parameter using another signal via parameter modulation, where it follows the input frequency?

Example: Some bassline signal with moving root notes should control/cut/notch another pads low frequecies, but changing the notched frequency point based on bassline input? Something like precise and dynamic sidechain-eq/notch'ing.
Yeah, that's certainly possible, but for audio you'd have to rely on some pitch tracking mechanism (e.g. ReaTune sending MIDI notes, ~fiddle in Pure data); for precision I much prefer to simply respond to MIDI notes (+ pitch bend), which of course only works if you have MIDI playing that bass line in the first place. I do this sort of thing with virtual control voltages to tune and offset frequencies quite a lot in Numerology, usually not with EQs but slightly more 'radical' filters. Great stuff.
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Old 12-22-2013, 08:53 AM   #112
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From what i gathered the OSC to MIDI / MIDI to OSC conversion can be done by justins new OSCII-bot as a substitute for PD.
anybody tried it yet?
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Old 01-04-2014, 11:49 AM   #113
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Default Probably a stupid question

I got a quick question,
I got stuck very early here

How can i edit a reaperocs file to get this in there?
FX_PARAM_VALUE /track/@/fx/@/fxparam/@/value
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Old 01-07-2014, 07:15 PM   #114
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Banned, did you share your .syx for BCR2000 anywhere, for example that one using LEDs as VU-meters? Hmm, what else we need, *.ReaperOSC and some *.pd to complete the story. Anything forgotten?

To all readers who read that far in this topic, let me give one tip. You own a BCR2000 and want to use it in most powerful way? Ok, good. Now which editor you need, which is the best? You say, clearly BC Manager? No, wrong answer. If you want the best method you need only BC-Convert.exe, Token reference information and a good text editor, e.g. emacs. No need for BC Manager at all. I mean if you want to use the best method. I hope you learned something.
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Old 02-05-2018, 05:03 PM   #115
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Banned, thank you very much for all your hard work, you're a lifesaver! Unfortunately I'm no good with programing, so I am taking baby steps here.

I managed to get feedback through Pure Data, using your examples. Actually I edited example #2, to include 24 cc's to accomodate my tascam US-2400's channel strip mode. The idea is to select a channel each time, so that the 24 knobs jump to its settings and I can control its channel strip and 8 aux sends from there.

So I have three questions if it is not much trouble:

1) How do you choose selected track, instead of track 1 for example?

I'm using your "send /track/$1/fx/$2/fxparam/$3/value $4" line. How could I change it so it sends to the channel selected in reaper?

2) Is there a way to use some of the knobs to control the channel's sends instead of fx? So instead of fx and fxparam there is other code that refers to reaper's sends?

3) Because of the feedback, the knobs seem to be fighting against themselves. What I mean is: While I dial a new value going clockwise, the feedback sends back to the knob its current value with a small delay, so the knob trembles around its starting position and doesn't want to go up. I know because when I disable feedback, the controler works fine. What could I do? My idea would be to make PD send the controller positions only once, when the channel is initially selected. The rest of the time it isn't needed really, because the controller is either moving to set the new value, or is idle on the value it has already set. But when I change track selection, that's when I need the controller positions recalled. Does that make sense coding-wise?

Thank you very much for everything!

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