Link from parameter: LAG slider for CC smoothing

[kurvalol]

I'm a MIDI b*tch, and i hate automation envelopes!

I automate in CC's alot through "Link from parameter" option in "Parameter modulation" window. The one thing thats a big flaw in MIDI standard is surely the 128 CC levels which makes automating a bit steppy (mostly the synths filters suffers from that)

So i figured it out that there would be a nice addition in the "parameter modulation" window in the form of LAG slider. It would smooth out the transition between low resolution jumps in particular time.

check out the problem:
1. creating a track
2. inserting ReaControlMidi
3. inserting (for example) ReaSamplOmatic
4. assigning (for ex.) CC#20 to slider1 in ReaControlMIDI
5. assigning slider1 to ReaSamplOmatic's LEVEL parameter.
6. now moving the slider1 of ReaControlMidi from value 0 to 1, makes a jump in ReaSamplOmatic from "-inf" to -36.1db (thats a LOT! )

The idea of implementig the LAG in "paramter modulation" would make the transition glide through all the values from "-inf" to "-36.1db" in user definable time

[IMG]http://img213.**************/img213/7449/lagc.jpg[/IMG]

What do you think ppl? is it worth making a FR from that?

[kurvalol]

not to mention that it would partially resolve the problem of automation clips :P no one interested?

[chopstickkk]

Excellent + voted.

The pd patcher in me is thinking a simple low pass filtering of the steppy control data.

Perhaps just 'Smoothing' would be a better parameter name than 'Lag'?

(When I read the post title I thought it was like the 'Delay' control that postpones LFO modulation in synths.)

[chopstickkk]

Oh, and please consider voting for my MIDI Learn FR

http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=4127

[Germps112]

Originally Posted by kurvalol

not to mention that it would partially resolve the problem of automation clips :P no one interested?

It seems that they improve only for guys who work with audio, midi is still quirky, i want to like the reaper, but it has too may options and it takes away creative side, to make music reaper isnt cutting for me, i dont want to learn a daw for 3 years, i cae from ableton, but i like reaper fro hes CPU friendliness.

[Travesty]

This seems useful

[EvilDragon]

Except it's not useful. Lag wouldn't help in smoothing out the available 128 MIDI CC values at all - because there are only 128 of them (nothing to smooth in between - sure there are 14-bit CCs, but what if the plugin doesn't support that? Again no help there then.). This really needs to be internal to the virtual instrument.

[ashcat_lt]

Well the OP was using Parameter Linking. Back in 2012, we didn't have MIDI Link in PM. I have to assume they were wiggling some knob somewhere via CC and linking that to some other knob somewhere. That second knob might have a whole lot more than 128 steps of resolution, so if there was some smoothing between those knobs... Then now we do have MIDI Link to control any knob anywhere, so it might be useful.

You might say that the plugin itself should handle its own parameter smoothing. I might agree, but the fact is that many otherwise very good plugins just don't, and those that do don't usually allow us to tweak that smoothing time. It would be pretty cool if we had some external way to smooth those things.

So I wrote a simple JS that does that. Link the Input slider to whatever (parameter, CC, etc), set the smoothing time, and then Link the Output slider to the knob you want to wiggle. A bit of a hack, but it lets you add parameter smoothing to everything, but...

...Parameter Modulation is not sample accurate! It processes in blocks the size of you Audio Device buffer settings. So the Output slider glides nicely from value to value, but when you Link it to the knob, it gets stair-stepped along the way. Frustrating AF!

We need sample accurate PM. I need it a heck of a lot more than a Notation Editor or Web Interface. Those are nice, but this one thing would open up so much new power. We have (supposedly) sample accurate envelopes, but PM won't do it.