Notifications
Clear all
Unify Feature Requests
10
Posts
3
Users
3
Reactions
1,476
Views
Topic starter
March 4, 2021 4:46 pm
I was trying out the Airwindows Plugin Starter Pack and was impressed by how clean and compact the controls are. See the attached Airwindows.png image.
What I would like is to click on a plugin panel and have the Unify macro knobs auto-mapped to the plugin sliders as knob-1 = slider-1, knob-2 = slider-2, etc.
To be really effective the knobs would need a pickup feature so that they did not move the sliders until the knob was moved to the current slider value.
The Unify macro knobs would show the current value of the plugin slider and would, say, change color when the MIDI controller knob reaches that value to indicate that the controller knob, macro knob, and plugin slider were synched and active.
The Unify macro knobs should also display the name of the plugin parameter that it controls as the UI control order is not necessarily the same as the plugin parameter order.
The Macro Automap behavior could be switched on/off using a mode toggle and would only apply to the currently active plugin window.
Then above would seem practical on the Airwindows plugins that I looked at.
Looking at third party plugins using Reaper's "no-ui" view it appears that most plugins are just a list of named parameters or a list of Param 1, Param 2, etc. with continuous and multi state parameters all controlled by sliders.
For plugins with named parameters the macro-automap idea seems reasonable. For plugins with generic param names the user would need to make a cheat sheet or just not use macro-automap.
The benefits of the above are a lot less RSI from mouse clicking and dragging and a lot more fun knob twiddling.
Does the above make sense?
March 4, 2021 11:24 pm
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for. The AirWindows plug-ins appear as they do in Unify because they have NO GUI of their own; what you're seeing is Unify's own "generic GUI" which simply presents a scrolling list of sliders, one per parameter.
This looks nice enough for plug-ins that have a dozen parameters or so, but would be less useful with, say, Serum (315 parameters) or Surge (664).
Your idea to auto-map a single, fixed set of knobs to the currently-selected plug-in is interesting, but again, I'm not sure how helpful this would be with plug-ins like Serum or Surge.
Topic starter
March 5, 2021 1:04 am
The Unify generic GUI looks great. It is what inspired me to propose auto-mapping the generic sliders to the macro knobs.
For Serum or Surge the auto-map idea would clearly not work. You would want to map things manually and ideally save your mapping.
However, many effects plugins, for example the Unify built-in effects, have less than 32 parameters and an auto-map mode could potentially work nicely.
Use Case 1: I have a track with three effects plugins and I open all three effect UIs. As I focus on each effect window I can twiddle the knobs on my controller to adjust the effect.
Use Case 2: I have three tracks and I want to mix the gains. I open the gain effect UI for each track, focus on a gain window, tweak the gain, then move to next/previous track, etc.
Its time for bed!
PS I was playing with Surge earlier. It has some AirWindows plugins built in to the FX chain. Neat!
getdunne reacted
Topic starter
March 5, 2021 12:34 pm
@getdunne After sleeping on the above I came up with the following, which is related to the above but not dependent on it:
MIDI/Macro Knob Pickup
Currently the range of the MIDI and macro knobs is 0 - 127 and this range is mapped on to whatever range the plugin parameter has.
When the MIDI knob is turned it immediately changes the value of the macro knob to that of the MIDI knob.
This could be called a hard pickup and is not always desirable so maybe an additional soft pickup option would be useful.
The following describes a possible algorithm for a soft pickup for a single MIDI CC/macro knob:
The soft pickup process has three states:
1. IsSync = False when the Midi CC value is outwith the macro value +/- 7
2. IsSync = Pending when the Midi CC value enters the range of the macro value +/- 7
3. IsSync = True when isSync = Pending and no Midi CC events have been received for 100ms
The MIDI/macro knob only changes the Plugin value when IsSync = True.
The value range of the MIDI/macro knob becomes 120 steps and is offset by the difference between the MIDI and macro values when IsSync = Pending
The macro knob UI always shows the relative value of the associated plugin parameter.
The IsSynch status is reflected in the macro knob UI EG False = red, Pending = Orange, and True = green (aarghg - traffic lights!)
The UX would be as follows:
1. The macro knob is initially red
2. I turn a MIDI knob until the macro knob turns orange
3. I remove my hand from the knob and wait until the macro knob turns green
4. Now when I turn the MIDI knob the plugin parameter value smoothly changes from its previous value to the value set by the MIDI knob
Peter
March 5, 2021 4:37 pm
I appreciate your input, but I'd prefer you just tell me what you want, not how to implement it. Here is how I decipher what you've written:
- You'd prefer that Unify's macro-knobs wouldn't "jump" suddenly to a new position, as soon as the connected MIDI control is moved.
- The basic idea is that the knob shouldn't move until the MIDI control's position almost exactly aligns with the knob's position.
- You propose a visual feedback system using color help the user know how close the MIDI-control and knob-positions are.
Point 1 is the basic problem, point 2 the solution. Point 3 is about a separate problem, which is that each macro-knob only shows its own position, not that of the MIDI control, so with some MIDI controllers, it may not be clear which way to move the control.
Your idea to use 3 colors for visual feedback is interesting, but I'd prefer something similar to a typical guitar tuner. Each macro knob would have two small triangle indicators, pointing left/right (or possibly up/down). When the MIDI knob position is unknown, both are dark. As soon as the first MIDI CC message is received, only one of the triangles lights up, indicating which way the control knob must be moved to align with the macro-knob. When the MIDI CC and macro-knob values get sufficiently close, both arrows light, and only then does the macro knob begin tracking the position of the MIDI control.
I'll put this on the to-do list. There are a number of other aspects to consider, e.g., should the triangles go dark again if the knob is moved via the mouse, or externally via host automation or OSC? (For plug-ins, this should probably be a user preference. The Unify stand-alone app could conceivably track and remember the state of every CC on every connected controller.) What should happen when a macro knob's CC assignment is changed by the user? Things like this tend to get quite complicated, quite quickly.
March 6, 2021 11:58 am
I really like the Macro Automap idea.
At the moment, I‘m experimenting with „random sound creation“ by sending a bunch of random CC#-values to (parameter connected) macros. BTW Plasmonic and Vital e.g. gave some interesting results as yet. As pointed out already, automapping VSTs with a great many parameters would not be that useful, but having an easier way to map a bunch of parameters would be great (mapping many macros one by one is a very tedious job ...).
So, @getdunne, would it be possible to present the VST-parameter-list in a window being able to multi select the desired parameters and then automap & autoname them in sequence to the macros ? ... Pure fun I think !
Does this make sense ?
Best regards
Rob
mj_prod reacted
March 6, 2021 2:51 pm
I was skeptical at first, but I'm getting VERY interested now. Here's how I interpret this:
We expand the functionality of Unify's "knobs view" so that instead of ONLY controlling Unify's macros, it controls the "currently selected plug-in".
- We don't have such a notion in the Unify GUI now, but it's not hard to add. Single-clicking any plug-in selects it.
- By default, knobs would map to the first (up to) 32 parameters of the plug-in.
- You would have the option to define a different mapping for specific plug-ins (based on Rob's suggestion) and save as presets.
- The present "macro" mode then corresponds to Unify itself being the "currently selected plug-in".
- MIDI CC mappings would remain the same (at least by default) no matter which plug-in is selected.
mj_prod reacted
March 6, 2021 3:38 pm
Don‘t know if I understand fully but thanks for contemplating ... looking forward to what you come up with ... thanks again !
July 6, 2021 7:55 am
I really like the Macro Automap idea.
At the moment, I‘m experimenting with „random sound creation“ by sending a bunch of random CC#-values to (parameter connected) macros. BTW Plasmonic and Vital e.g. gave some interesting results as yet. As pointed out already, automapping VSTs with a great many parameters would not be that useful, but having an easier way to map a bunch of parameters would be great (mapping many macros one by one is a very tedious job ...).
So, @getdunne, would it be possible to present the VST-parameter-list in a window being able to multi select the desired parameters and then automap & autoname them in sequence to the macros ? ... Pure fun I think !
Does this make sense ?
Best regards
Rob
So this (Probabilistic Sound Designer inside GP4)
is quite exactly what I had dreamed of ...