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Setting up Articulation/Keyswitch Map

By chancholoraq @chancholoraq
    2022-10-09 16:35:05.644Z

    Hello!

    I’m currently a ProTools Studio User, and I am a doula rely ecstatic about using SoundFlow with the Mac once I get my hands on it. I’m on PC at the moment :/

    Either way, before I get too excited, I have a very serious question that I have not been able to find a relevant and recent answer on as of today.

    It’s very simple, sending MIDI messages with SoundFlow to send to ProTools.

    I am NOT talking about using a MIDI message to communicate a different message. I’m talking about sending a note on/off message and receiving that exact same message in ProTools.

    I have not found any documentation except a forum post from 2020 talking about sending raw MIDI data, but not note on/off messages.

    I want to send a MIDI note on/off message at C-2 with SoundFlow to ProTools to a specific MIDI channel, is this possible?

    It would be helpful if I could view a list of every possible action in SoundFlow but I’m sure a lot of people are asking for it. Thanks again for making this awesome app!

    Reply
    • 4 replies
    1. Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer2022-10-10 14:42:14.962Z

      Hi there,

      You can see our full API reference for scripting here:
      https://soundflow.org/docs/api/globals

      We are working on improving the documentation for macro actions as well.

      But the answer to your question is yes - sending MIDI notes is easy with a macro action in SoundFlow:

      And the script equivalent would be:

      sf.midi.sendNote({
    midiNoteOnOff: "NoteOn",
    midiNote: 10,
    velocity: 100,
});
      Reply
      1. Cchancholoraq @chancholoraq
          2022-10-10 15:55:21.985Z2022-10-10 20:25:11.163Z

          It’s the man himself! Hey Christian, I just wanna say that this is the most incredible macro software that I have used to date. I’ve used a damn lot of them, TouchOSC, MetagridPro, Avid Control, MIDIPad, and this one really augments the world of automation. After seeing Scheps bounce factory and the potential for dynamic triggers and events, I was freaking sold.

          I have something really important to ask you. It’s about building the ultimate articulation/keyswitch deck for Virtual Instruments.

          I’ve achieved this flawlessly using one iPad and one Windows Desktop using Ableton, Control Surface Studio, andMetagridPro.

          Here’s how each piece of the puzzle fits into the equation:

          1. Ableton: If you’re not familiar with Ableton’s Instant Mapping Macros, it’s a lovely feature that launched with some MIDI controllers but also could be programmed as an Ableton’s Remote Script which Developers could implement in Ableton to give instantly mapped controls for Ableton’s primary functions right on your MIDI keyboard. Even though the average geek could easily program these scripts, the average music producer also values their time more than a darn script!! So, the answer for controlling these instantly mapped macros is the lovely Scripting Program for Mac and PC, Control Surface Studio!

          2. Control Surface Studio: Another reason why Ableton is PC truly one of the most modular DAW’s… (until I found out about SoundFlow and ProTools ;) …Control Surface Studio is an incredibly powerful Script Generator that can allow you to develop your own MIDI remote script for whatever control surface you have. Allowing you to…

          …instantly control Macros for the Selected Instrument! Solving the problem we had before. By doing this, I don’t have to map my dynamics or vibrato control for every individual instrument, I’ll have universal faders that will control dynamics and Vibrato for the specific instrument that is Selected and Record-Enabled.

          To conclude Control Surface Studio, I am able to designate a specific range of CC’s that will always control the 8 Macros that are attached to each instrument, which internally maps to the specific parameter I want to modulate.

          Ok, now my Keyboard is ready to play any instrument in my Ableton Template. Now I want to implement my iPad to control the articulations/keyswitches for each Selected and *Record-Enabled” Instrument. This transitions us to a decent indie-competitor to your incredible product…

          1. MetagridPro

          I’m not going to go into everything that this Software can do, but I’ll explain the points of why it is a competitor but definitely not the victor…

          • Has powerful Macro Controls for Windows and Mac ;)
          • Can use Wi-Fi and USB control ;)
          • Has Deep Software Integration with popular Media Creation Software such as: Nuendo/Cubase, Dorico, Ableton, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Lightroom, Sketch, Spotify, and Finder (Mac)
          • All the macro goodies like MIDI/messages, keyboard shortcuts, that you can stack along with these integrated actions and sending them to Mac or PC etc.

          As attractive as all of these are, I still experience bugs/crashes since it’s early in development, but on all other fronts this guy is definitely onto something.

          To continue my explanation, I am using his software to send a range of MIDI note on/off/CC messages to control my Keyswitches/Articulations for my Virtual Instruments. Being a film composer, this is paramount ;) to my process.

          I’ll have to share some photos later, but with Ableton and Control Surface Studio, my Metagrid allows me to:

          1. Select an instrument in my DAW, Record enable the selected instrument, turn the metronome on and off, start recording, start playback, nudge left and right, and most importantly, I labeled and colored EVERY articulation for every instrument I have (my template is growing as all of ours are) and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

          I click the instrument, it’s nice and highlighted, the articulation buttons change, I can test out any idea in real time without moving from my keyboard, allowing us to finally make music.

          I love your conversations with Scheps about just creating music and getting back to what we love. I’ve been helping everyone in my family as much as possible with automating daunting tasks in their lives (both my parents are teachers, even still after all this crap we’ve been going through!) so it’s software like this which really breaks barriers and allows people from all technical backgrounds to just skip the BS and do what we love. We’re not getting any younger right?

          Ok Christian. If you’ve been reading this long then hopefully you’ll be up for my big question. The whole reason I typed up this essay in the first place!

          Can I do what I’ve explained to you, with all those extra software components, only in SoundFlow with ProTools? Essentially, can I control the parameters and MIDI information of the selected and record-enabled instance with my SoundFlow Grid? I can handle Macro parameters with BlueCatAudio’s Remote Control (another brilliant piece of software) but as long as I can send these MIDI note on/off/CC messages I was asking about earlier, I’m pretty sure I can accomplish this set up!!

          One thing that I’m sure I could accomplish, is have the iPad display the articulation grid of the selected instrument when I change it in ProTools. I didn’t want to program the headache of making them bi-directional so I control instrument selection on the iPad. I’m sure SoundFlow could have a trigger to initiate a grid dependent on the selected track in ProTools. Either way, I’m so so excited! (Gotta get a Mac first ;)

          I also wanted to share my set up, I can’t talk about this with anybody without them falling asleep so if you read all the way through then you made my damn day!

          Have a beautiful day Christian!

          Stay in the Flow! SoundFlow! ;)

          Reply
          1. Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer2022-10-11 09:18:45.964Z2022-10-11 09:30:08.319Z

            Hi there,

            Thank you for such an insightful and well thought out post. Lots to unpack here.

            I really appreciate the context you're putting this into, which ultimately is about taking something that today takes WAY too much time (articulation switching) and trying to use different pieces of software to make it more intuitive. We have some development in this area that I can't share yet, but yea, suffice it to say that I agree this is something that could be vastly improved UX wise.

            Quick thoughts:

            • Yes, you can have your iPad show different content depending on the selected track in Pro Tools. It takes a bit of scripting, but is possible.
            • In Pro Tools, it's Pro Tools itself that controls which track receives MIDI input. There's a setting in Pro Tools' preferences to have this default to the currently selected track. If you need more control over this, it should be fairly trivial to automate making changes in Pro Tools based on your needs.

            You made a lot of other great points that I'll be sure to keep in mind for our future roadmapping :)

            Reply
            1. Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer2022-10-11 09:31:59.855Z

              control the parameters and MIDI information

              This is probably the more tricky aspect in Pro Tools. Yes, you can send MIDI from SF as much as you want, but Pro Tools doesn't have the concept of "macro parameters" that Ableton has, for example. But you could conceivably create scripts in SF to control this mapping outside of Pro Tools, having the mappings set up in a database or JSON file, for example.

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