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Controller lights

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Sadler
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Joined: Sat Aug 02, 2014 7:10 pm
Location: London, UK

Controller lights

Post by Sadler »



As you can see, I've labelled a couple of effect buttons on my controller, but they're tricky to see in the dark. Given that each button has a light, it seems logical to use it to illuminate its label. It is relatively easy to light up the APC40 using Processing (and I guess any language with midi libs). The program just sends midi to light the buttons and leaves Magic to receive midi as normal. The only problem with this is that, since the controller resets the button (it goes off) when pressed, Processing needs to keep running in the background and need to continually send midi data to all buttons since it cannot read the state of buttons (and hence, know which button was reset) when Magic is listening. I might be able to use a virtual midi device to have two apps listen - that's the next step - but it would be even nicer to have Magic help do this somehow. For example, have some midi initialisation and then feedback, or...have a full-blown controller light-show feature for controllers with button arrays.
Magic
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Re: Controller lights

Post by Magic »

So you want to keep the button light on always? That makes sense for using the controller in the dark, but wouldn't it then mean that the button is inaccurately representing the MIDI state in Magic?
Sadler
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Location: London, UK

Re: Controller lights

Post by Sadler »

To set up effects on the controller I have a sequence of 40 effects in series - not sure if this is very efficient. The bypass for each module is controlled by a global, allowing me to view the state of the effect even when the effect bank isn't visible (although, even minimised, these fill the globals panel). Each global is midi assigned (momentary) and inverted so buttons have to be pressed. I've tried latches but, without feedback, I forget which have been turned on sometimes.

So to answer your question, yes, sort of, except that because the bypass is inverted, perhaps it is logical that the light is on when the button is not pressed. And, there are three colours (and off and flashing) to represent state - I believe Ableton uses one colour to show a slot is filled and another to show it is playing. In a similar sense Magic could use one colour to show that midi is assigned to (at least) one parameter and another to show the state of that parameter.
Magic
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Re: Controller lights

Post by Magic »

If I recall correctly, the APC40 doesn't have programmable buttons -- the MIDI commands are fixed. If you could change them, you could easily make them be increasing notes (by +1) and then you could use an InputSelector with the Note Number feature. But, what you've done might be as efficient as it can.

I'm not super enthusiastic about having Magic send real-time MIDI output because it opens up a whole can of worms, but I'll keep it in mind as I'm working on other MIDI stuff.
DemBambiSeiMudder
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Re: Controller lights

Post by DemBambiSeiMudder »

I already thought that midi output would be cool for live performances. But so far it was ok and not urgent enough to make a feature request :-)
I mainly use TouchOSC and that works fine for me.
On one show I added a Behringer BCF 2000 with motor faders, so I can run around with the ipad, but the other VJ could also control some of the main features, like brightness and such.
So, of course, I wanted to sync those two. With OSCulator I was able to do that. Maybe that could be used to control the lights?
Sadler
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Joined: Sat Aug 02, 2014 7:10 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: Controller lights

Post by Sadler »

Yeah, OSCulator looks cool but is mac only. I think it could also be done with Bomes midi translator - not sure, but I hear some Resolume folks set up feedback that way in older versions of Resolume. I not too enthusiastic about running loads of programs though, since, apart from having to remember to start everything (Kinect, bpm tap, midi-clock, midi-ox etc), they all use resources that I'd like to reserve for FPS and memory and screen space/focus.

I like TouchOSC too but haven't used it outside of playing/testing because of network or lack thereof at events.
Eric said: If I recall correctly, the APC40 doesn't have programmable buttons...then you could use an InputSelector with the Note Number feature.
You're right, it's not programmable but each column does follow a note sequence and I've used the InputSelector in this way as a sort of clip selector. Having all effects in the same path allows me to mix anything with anything else - not always successfully (order matters) - but it is great to have that flexibility.

I'd like Magic to incorporate midi-feedback, midi-clock, bpm-tap etc but, as alluded by Bambi above, they can be lived without and hence are not urgent.
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