OSCII-Bot syntax (noob questions)

[fundorin]

I have a couple of questions:

1. Is is possible to use something like this in oscii-bot?

for (i - 0; i < 8; i++) {
fader(i) = track.Volume(i);
}

I need cycles, so it should be possible to use one structure for groups of similar controls instead of writing the same code for each of the controls.

2. Are there any test or working scripts available, which utilize the endless encoders for a midi controller?
All I found is NRPN types, while I need simple CC commands, where CW motion gives 1++ and CCW gives 65++.

3. How to implement soft pickup for non-motorized faders, so that the volume in Reaper won't jump when controlled by fader that isn't in the correct position? Like volume is 110 and fader is 60, and when you move fader up, volume jumps to 61, instead of waiting, till the fader will reach 110 mark and then volume will follow the fader's movement.

[fundorin]

There's an answer to question 3, if someone else will want to know:

You can use

oscsend(oscOut, "f/action/@/cc/soft", msg3/127, 1);

command, where "@" is an action number.

Action number for track 1 volume is 20, track 2 is 28 and so on.
You can controls volume, panorama, mutes, solo, fx bypass and record arm via actions from 20 to 27 for the first track.
There are actions for 99 tracks available.

Thanks to goldenarpharazon, who suggested this solution.

[fundorin]

For five years I've been struggling to find a way to control Reaper with my Novation SL controllers. I've started many times and didn't complete the task.
I've tried processing, max, python, oscii-bot, ctrlr, bidule, csurf plugins, bome midi translator.
I feel like all of them lacks something that will say "I was made for a human being".
Why is it so hard for Reaper developers to add native midi feedback or a nice way to use midi device as an osc device? So many people here trying different ways to make their controllers to work with Reaper.
Lemur shows that it's possible to construct any desired control surface that not even existed, or, even if you aren't experienced enough, you can use other's templates and be good to go with your iod or android device. This is a good example.

Justin released oscii-bot three years ago and abandoned it. People realised that it lacks of sysex support. Some other guy wrote his own fork with sysex support, a year after. Two years passed and no progress with an official version. Why is it so?

I could be happy using celphor's version of oscii-bot. I've tried writing a script a year ago, but couldn't continue due some personal problems. A week ago I was angry again that my controller is always showing me "automap is offline" message on it's screen and nothing else. I've decided to write a script that would be flexible, modular and easily be edited for some other generic midi controller.

So, I've started with midi 2 osc conversion and imptementd a 128 mixer console, which is one of the four modes for SL that I've planned to make.
Today some forum user advised me to start implementing osc 2 midi feedback while the code is still not heavy. I've decided to start with LED feedback, cause it's obviously easier that LCD.

I had a pretty good progress, but sometime LEDs just didn't want to light. Then I've remembered that SL need a sysex message from host, telling it that host is online. As far as I understand, if it don't receive such message, than it stops reacting to midi input from host.

I've checked midi manual for SL and constructed that necessary sysex message. Than I've added it to my script, reloaded celphor's oscii-bot and it crashed!
I've tried different ways to modify the script. I've even dissected sysex into four regular midi message, so I could feed them to SL. Each time oscii-bot crashed.

Without sysex support it would be impossible to control LED feedback and also construct text messages for LCD screen. And I don't know what to do next.
Still sitting here with my controller, Reaper and oscii-bot. All three do not want to speak with each other like three young crybabies.

I went to Github, once again, to check if there's some other bridges available, that are similar to oscii-bot. I googled many times. Nothing.

I love Reaper, cause it can do many wonderful things, but I feel like I had enough. Ableton, Logic, Studio One and Bitwig, all of them support many different midi controller from the box or via user-made scripts. Many of those DAWs have native and third-party apps for tablets to control them.

I guess, the main reason that Reaper is not as popular as many of you want it to be is that it is not user friendly and developers aren't listening to FR's. I've seen dozens of beautiful suggestions from users, that was never been added to Reaper.
People are forced to code and program, so they could have what they want with Reaper. And this is the reason, why Reaper is the main DAW for many of you. Reapack, SWS, Reacolor and many other addons, scripts and themes - this is what valuable, but with what cost? Instead of making music, people are making scripts.

I'm one of those people, and I'm stuck. Memsets in oscii-bot syntax, instead of a regulat arrays is just a joke. Why bothering with standarts, when you can come up with your own "? :" instead of "if/then", that is used in every other normal language? Why not make one typo in memset's assigment a disaster instead of proper error checking for the code. I don't know. And I'm a bit tired.

[mccrabney]

bruh don't you know? it's the first law of OSC -- you are all alone, you are the only person using it, you are all alone, they're all gone, oh god why me, i'm all alone, i'm all alone.

with OSC, no one can hear you scream.

[mccrabney]

[fundorin]

OSC is fine. It's midi part of ocsii-bot that is broken.
Justin made it and abandoned, while other devs made seamless integration of OSC into their DAW and even have official apps and a way for third-party developers to make their own apps. Ableton is a perfect example, as well as many other DAWs.
The same thing goes with Ninjam. It was fun to use it, but it never became a part of Reaper, while Bitwig announced to have group working on the same projects in realtime in second veersion of their DAW.
Ninjam could be the same thing inside Reaper, but it isn't nad won't be ever.

Other DAWs have nice inspector window for selected tracks, while Reaper users forced to use clipped mixer for those purposes and it's not possible to use "inspector" and mixer at the same time. You must choose, what will be shown at your screen via screensets. But what if I want to show mixer at the second screen, while using inspector at the main screen? Not possible.
You can use custom script (even a paid version of it), but there's no guarantee that is would be further developed in future. Other DAWs have inspector window out of the box, if not all of them.

You want wave editor? No, you can't have one inside Reaper. But we made you an option to use any third-party wave editor that you like. Don't mind that it would be impossible to control it via control surface, OSC or Reaper itself. We just don't care.
Other DAWs have it. Reaper doesn't.

The same thing can be said about any feature of Reaper: "It has a great potential, but it's quirky and you need to write your own script to use it properly". "We've showed you how this can be done. Now go and make it yourself. Have some problems? It's ok. We don't care and won't fix it. That's our main philosophy. Deal with it.".

It's not OSC. OSC is fine. It's Reaper's developers, who are lost.

[N2NPro]

I have to say, I'm with fundorin on this.
I'm using OSC with OSCII-bot for my old Peavey Studiomix' which work beautifully, much better than with it's proprietary software Sonar. My point is, without the coding expertise of a forum member (banned), I would not have been able to setup OSC & OSCII-bot. I wish I could understand it all but it's far too complex for the required learning curve time. I need to record/mix/master clients work not script and code my DAW. Unfortunately, banned hasn't frequented the forum in a year, so if the platform changes and I need assistance, there is no one to turn to. I feel very vulnerable. Granted, greatly appreciative of banned' generosity/expertise and very fortunate my old gear has been revitalized and not obsolete. I can't see myself moving from Reaper however, as it's been tweaked to my personal workflow and would be nearly impossible to work as fast/efficient in another DAW without compromise. Also, I would not be able to use my Studiomix control surfaces.
That said, I wish we had a better solution in the works.
Good luck fundorin! I wish you the best,
N2N

[DarkStar]

The OSCII-bot download includes the source code.

All it takes is someone competent enough ...

[N2NPro]

Hi DarkStar,
If you are referring to me, I have all necessary codes backed-up in triplicate

I can edit a few things but my project required nrpn to be converted and fader jitter to be corrected. Some specific tweaks to get the scroll and jog wheel to function. Modifier button for fine incremental adjustments of FX parameters etc.
I wish I had someone that could school me on the specifics so that I might be able to edit/modify and prepare for future versions of OSC and OSCII-bot.
Are you such a guru?

Kindly,
N2N

[DarkStar]

No, I wasn't specifically. And I have never written C (C++ ?).

But there are some other users around who could tackle OSCII-bot, I'm sure.

[fundorin]

I've found a nice alternative to oscii-bot. It's called VstLua.

As the name says, it's a VST that can load Lua scripts inside it. Lua is a language that is used widely to make Reaper scripts. The plugin should be loaded into VST host at it will do the translation between osc and midi. It supports sysex, nrpn, rpn, have a gui builder and skinning possibilities.

VSTLua is abandoned by it's creator, but other guy picked it and made it to work with relatively new libraries. The same guy is a creator of VstHost, as well as SaviHost, which I'm using to load VSTLua.

There are many examples and tutorials included with the distribution package. The OSC part lacks of proper tutorials, though I was been able to deal with it.

Lua is much more popular than EEL2, which is used with oscii-bot.

VstLua utilises midi ports that was opened by it's host. It should also be possible to open any number of ports from within VSTLua itself. I still hadn't any luck doing so. If it will be possible, than one could load VSTLua inside Reaper itself, instead of using the separate host to run it. Bidule can open external midi ports while being loaded into Reaper, so I think that isn't a problem with Reaper, but with VSTLua. Anyway, I'm good with a separate VST host.
I must also mention that VSTLua is 32 bits only and works under windows (maybe also Linux, can't remember).

P.S. Forgot to add links.

VSTLua - http://www.hermannseib.com/VstLua/index.html
SaviHost - http://www.hermannseib.com/savihost.htm (download 32 bit version)

[Rodal]

Originally Posted by fundorin

other devs made seamless integration of OSC into their DAW and even have official apps and a way for third-party developers to make their own apps. Ableton is a perfect example, as well as many other DAWs.

Which are the other daws that have "seamless integration of OSC into their DAW " ?

I cant find any, cubase, sonar and studio one dont, i dont think bitwig does either. Could you tell me which ones you found that do ?

[fundorin]

Originally Posted by TonE

If you want to solve any oscii-bot related problem, best would be splitting the problem into smaller chunks, and asking the chunks separately, as smaller problems. Just an idea. Greetings to Russia.

There's only one problem with oscii-bot and it can't be splitted into anything. oscii-bot simply crashes when sending or receiving sysex messages.

Originally Posted by Rodal

Which are the other daws that have "seamless integration of OSC into their DAW " ?
I cant find any, cubase, sonar and studio one dont, i dont think bitwig does either. Could you tell me which ones you found that do ?

I see tons of Lemur templates at Liine's download section, as well as other apps for iPad or Android, official and third-party. You can check Lemur templates here:
https://liine.net/en/community/user-library/

As for mobile apps, just search your favorite DAW name in store and you'll find dozens on control apps for it. I must mention that both Bitwig and Ableton support many controllers out of the box and it's also possible to add or write scripts for your controller, either existing ones or your own.
Few examples for my SL are here http://www.mossgrabers.de/Software/Bitwig/Bitwig.html and here https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=192290

[LugNut]

Hi,
Meanwhile bomes is showing mtp at namm w full osc support!

And I'm back using my converted hui board with klinkes now that I fixed my 18 year old consoles midi card.

Thought you would want to know bout the osc/MTP development fundorin.
Best investment in my studio ever...midi translator pro.

[fundorin]

This is a useful info, LugNut. Thanks.