Get Button Feedback From VST Software?

[Makrophag]

Hi!

I am currently thinking about building a MIDIbox, if the following is possible:

I want a dedicated hardware controller for "Audiorealism Bassline 2" (see here). This has some knobs, where no problems should occur. But I also want to control the sequencer, because otherwise, the dedicated controller makes no sense, right (because I could use any existing controller that has 9 knobs/faders, and I already have a M-Audio Radium49)?!

The sequencer works step wise and thus, the state of each buton changes, dependin on the step teh software is currently at. The seqeuncer buttons are MIDI asignable, I already checked.

But can I make a MIDIbox (which one?) that has some LEDs or even light buttons that receive these changed states?

Example:

Step 1 is a C,

Step 2 is a D.

When I switch from Step 1 to Step 2 via the step advance button, the LEDs/Buttons schould change, so now the "D" corresponding LED is lighted and not the "c" as in the step before.

Is this possible? And if yes, would a MIDIbox64 or 64E do this? Do I have to write some difficult programm for this?

[ilmenator]

It depends on your software, i.e. on "Audiorealism Bassline 2" - if it sends out its (button, LED) state via MIDI messages, then what you want is possible. But, I would suspect that it is input only, and won't send MIDI messages, so the answer is most probably a no. Check the manual and check the MIDI out of the plugin to see what happens if you change button / LED state with the mouse.

[ultra]

i would install a midi loopback (such as loopbe on windows) and route the software's output to midi-ox.

ultra

[ssp]

if you do a search on the forum there is a thread that discusses assignment of leds relative to those in a virtual software synth. If i remember rightly i also asked some questions in that thread.

here is one

and here is the thread that i started.

[Makrophag]

i would install a midi loopback (such as loopbe on windows) and route the software's output to midi-ox.

ultra

Good Idea, thank you. I used MIDI-Ox and MIDI Yoke to see what the plugin outputs.

All the knobs and buttons are programmable, and after setting up, I realised, that the the VST outputs/passes through everything, when the internal "MIDI Output" function is enabled (this was implemented as a not fulklky suported feature though...): The notes, and the knob/button movement. This is the good news so far. Bad news is, the isn't any dynamic output, when "next step" for example is pressed. So my initial Idea would fail.

if you do a search on the forum there is a thread that discusses assignment of leds relative to those in a virtual software synth. If i remember rightly i also asked some questions in that thread.

here is one

http://midibox.org/f...8556#entry88556

and here is the thread that i started.

http://midibox.org/f...__1#entry124912

I DID a forum search, but as I see now used the wrong keywords maybe. As my first thoughts now failed (see above), I will take a closer look to your posts there, to see wether I could use this. Thank you!

OK, I read this through without looking at all this code. It seems that this woul near the solution to my needs, but no treach it, because this requeires either messages from the VST Plugin, or rewriting the whole sequencer into the LED processing code...wich might be not so easy, as I know only very basic things about programming and no experience in C.

So at the moment this all looks like I can give up my idea unless I get into this programming stuff?!

Edited April 23, 2011 by Makrophag

[ultra]

what host are you using?

[Makrophag]

what host are you using?

I am running Ableton Live 8 on Windows XP (32bit).

[ultra]

you could likely get the feedback you want with liveapi. this requires coding your own script in python which you load like any other control surface. it's not the easiest thing to do if you don't know python or any other OOP language, but it's worth learning because using liveapi has countless applications. whether or not it's possible depends on if those step functions are exposed to live. they probably are if they're midi assignable.

[ultra]

i grabbed the demo of audiorealism bassline 2, and unfortunately i don't think the step parameters are exposed to live. i did a dump of what's available, and here it is:

[696172.950] DEBUG: Device On

[696172.961] DEBUG: Tune

[696172.972] DEBUG: Cutoff

[696172.984] DEBUG: Resonance

[696172.994] DEBUG: Env.mod

[696173.006] DEBUG: Decay

[696173.017] DEBUG: Accent

[696173.028] DEBUG: Drive

[696173.040] DEBUG: Distortion

[696173.051] DEBUG: Volume

[696173.063] DEBUG: Reserved

[696173.074] DEBUG: Waveform

[696173.091] DEBUG: DistortionType

[696173.107] DEBUG: HighpassFilter

i looked into the parameter called "reserved" just to make sure, changing it doesn't seem to do anything.

sorry to get your hopes up.

ultra

Edited April 26, 2011 by ultra

[Makrophag]

Yes, these are the ones that you can automate in Live.

Thanks a lot for your efforts! Maybe I will ask at Audiorealsim, if they have an idea.