Hi guys,
> This what I thought was required, if not perhaps Goyya can expand on
> what he wants.
here we are: the basic idea is a standalone app that can prompt on its GUI informations read from a file when receiving a MIDI message; different MIDI message = different file, of course.
I'll try to summarize what has come out till now (long post, thanks for being patient!) - right now, I see 4 steps/possibilities from my point of wiew, getting the first two done would already be a great result (and maybe not too difficult)!
1) BCR/BCF software GUI (my first thought):
· the GUI is a BCR/BCF image, under each knob/fader/button (not moving ones, just a fixed image) there's a text box
· the file is FUNCTION.txt (or .xml, ) and contains a list of the FUNCTION parameters, and the relative physical BCR/BCF control (for example encoder 1 = track 1 volume, encoder 2 =track 2 volume)
· ; the MIDI messages are...lots of options here:
- Mackie HUI sysex, namely those who contain the name of the active FUNCTION (which is displayed in the middle of Huskervu, BCF view or whatever, and can be the mixer, insert1 fx, a VSTi, etc); this sysex have to be interpreted (Huskervu source code can help i suppose) and automatically triggers the associated FUNCTION.txt file
o ; CC, program changes, etc; in this case a mapping between the CC and the correct file should be provided, the file triggering is not automatic, but for example you could have different soft labels for each BCF/BCR preset
The midi message triggers the FUNCTION file and the FUNCTION parameters names are displayed in the text boxes under the relative physical controllers.
This app would need just MIDI IN, to receive the trigger CC or the feedback from the host (the "auto-trigger mode" would work with every host supporting the Mackie HUI protocol, hosts with configurable remote control could use "the trigger CC" mode).
It would probably seem needless if you use a BCF in MCU mode + LCD emulator, BUT if you don't have a BCF and/or program the controller by yourself (we've got the great Art Hunkins examples here on how to program a BCR to freely emulate MCU functions) or use host like Cubase that lets you configure their remote control setup it would be damn useful and it could work for whatever hardware controller too!
If I understand correctly, this basic app wouldn't be very difficult to implement, and would not need complex stuff like JUCE, just some Java it's worth noting that all the MIDI programming would be done on the BCF/BCF and/or in the host.
2) A prompting system and/or score manager for performers of all kinds (Steve's idea):
- The GUI would just be a panel to set up MIDI input and assign MIDI CCs
- The file is a pdf, doc, jpg, etc file
- The MIDI message are well, whatever!
MIDI messages trigger the "open file" function of the correct software, and maybe other functions, like page down for example (just think: you have a song scored in pdf, and the relative midi file playing in the the host; just insert a CC when you have to "turn page", and Adobe Reader does it for you cool!)
This function could be a part of option 1), I guess
;
3) An evoluted BCR/BCF software GUI
- Adding moving knobs to the GUI they receive feedback from the host (again, following the Mackie protocol or a generic feedback)
- Adding support for vstxml file: some host support them, they allow to change the order of VST/VSTi parameters and to change their names to something meaningful if needed; that's useful to put the VST parameters in the same order they appear on the VST GUI (which isn't always the case) so actually encoder 1 will move (left to right) the first knob of the VST GUI , encoder 2 the second and so on the vstxml could be used also by the BCR/BCF software GUI to display parameters name, keeping everything coherent
The JUCE pack would maybe come handy for knobs? I suppose this step is quite more complex than the first two .
4) A soft BCR/BCF:
- Adding midi out
- All the programming is done in software (you just use preset-1 on th physical controller):
- BCR/BCF control via MIDI the GUI knobs, which outputs custom MIDI messages/sysex (maximum flexibility, multiple messages per knob, one shot CC + continuous CC for a knob)
- Support for presets and remote preset changing via MIDI
- Support for "multiple pages" presets (see Asseca's mGUI on www dot asseca dot com I use it and took some ideas from it), ie if a soft synth has 70 params, it's relative preset has two pages of course, midi remote page switch!
Are we getting into science fiction with this??
Hope I didn't forget something .
Ciao,
Francesco (Goyya)