Author Topic: ACT-Editor  (Read 43316 times)

Offline azslow3

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #30 on: October 16, 2015, 12:33:28 PM »
i´m not sure if i understand...
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I have assigned the same parameter to different knobs and then have "ACT Learned" them.
you did this with my editor? and afterwards ACT-learned? that makes no sense to me.
I´m using editor as replacement for ACT-learning (because that´s so buggy).
Mixing editor and ACT-learning will likely produce strange results - is this what you are saying?
No! I do not think someone will return to "ACT Learning" after installation of your Editor.
What I mean is that is possible that current configuration for some plug-in, messed by ACT Learn inside Sonar, is garbage. "ACT Learn" can not fix it. Your editor does not see parameters correctly and so can not fix it either. So, the only way to proceed is clear the section, let Sonar reinitialize it and then use the editor to do correct mapping.

I remember your could not assign to buttons if there was no buttons assigned yet. I could! See my old instruction. I guess the reason was "very special bugged" second XML file. For me, it looks like while initially accepting the same IDs and Names for different controls, Sonar sometimes mix all that in a bad way during "ACT Learning" by forgetting name duplicated parameters, ignoring them, writing garbage to names or incorrectly replacing IDs. Once that happened, there is "no way out".

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And then I have noticed I can just compile it with AZ Controller by adding 2 lines to call it from "Tweak..." and so I did  :D
sorry, but i really can´t guess what you mean  :(
I have an option in the latest version, under "Tweak current configuration..." which format that XML.

Offline MarKo

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #31 on: October 16, 2015, 08:46:48 PM »
Ok, i got i now!
First i thought that the editor made errors.
Of course i will implement this "repair" for broken ACT-plugins too.

Offline dwcaldwell

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #32 on: December 14, 2015, 12:27:40 AM »
Hi MarKo,

I have been trying out your ACT editor and like it very much. I have only found one problem, but for me it is kind of a big one. The "follow Azctrl" does not always sync to the correct plug-in if there are multiple plug-ins with the same name. I have three different versions of a plug-in named "Panipulator" by Boz Digital Labs (a VST2 version, a VST3 version and a ProChannel version). Each of these have different CLSIDs and different parameters exposed to ACT (the Prochannel version has an "Enable" parameter that the other two do not have and the VST3 version has a "Bypass" parameter that the other two don't have.) When I open the VST2 version in SONAR, the SonActEdit editor syncs to the Prochannel version, not the VST2 version I want to modify.

I am guessing that the editor is matching only to the name of the plug-in and not the CLSID. So to edit these correctly, I cannot use "follow Azctrl". But now I have a different difficulty because it doesn't seem like the editor loads the Plugin selection drop-down list in the order that the plugins appear in the genericpluginparams.xml file. For instance, the order of the Panipulator plugin definitions in my genericpluginparams.xml file is:

1) VST2 version
2) VST3 version (with the additional "Bypass" parameter)
3) ProChannel version (with the additional "Enable" parameter)

but the order of the plugins in the editor's pick list is:

1) Prochannel version
2) VST3 version
3) VST2 version

It is easy to select the right one of these in the editor (with the help of Azctrl's ACT map) since they all have different parameter sets, but I'm afraid it might be much more difficult to distinguish between different plugin versions if they had identical parameter sets.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know in case this is a bug and not my "user error". Lol.

Kind regards,
Don

Offline azslow3

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #33 on: December 14, 2015, 11:10:57 AM »
Dear Don,

There are limitations set by Sonar Control Surface API. AZCtrl has no way to get CLSID. Sonar is exposing just a name. It is also not possible to get "real" parameters of the plug-in since there is no mapping between the ACT context (what you modify with the Editor) and plug-in position in terms of stip/FX number.

But let me propose a workaround. You can rename plug-ins. The mapping within Sonar is CLSID based, so that should not break existing projects.

From Sonar "Utilities" menu select "Cakewalk Plug-in Manager". Select "VST Audio Effects" and  the plug-in in question. Press "Plug-in Properties" button (in "VST Configuration" section under the list). Edit the name and press "Ok". You need restart Sonar to see the change.

Unfortunately XML will not be automatically modified, so the Editor still will see unchanged names. So the next step will be changing the name in XML manually. But once that is done, everything should work fine.

Offline dwcaldwell

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2015, 10:18:32 PM »
Fantastic! Thanks, Alexey.

Offline MarKo

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #35 on: December 18, 2015, 02:10:30 PM »
Hi Don,

Sorry for the late answer, but due to much other work i have not so much time currently.
It seems Alexey has already answered your question.
What surface are you using?
I was thinking about making the editor a bit more generic for other devices, but then i had not enough time anymore. Maybe this gets better around the new year...

Offline dwcaldwell

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #36 on: December 19, 2015, 10:58:06 AM »
Hi MarKo,

Thank you for the reply. I know very well what it is like to have much other work too!

I am using a BCR2000 (with your excellent beta8 preset) and a Frontier Designs Alphatrack, both controlled by the latest version of AZ Controller. I plan to use only the BCR2000 for ACT control of plugins.

I decided not to rename my plugins as Alexey suggested because it is still easy to use the editor without "follow AZctrl" to set up the mapping for the plugins that have the same name, and the renaming of the plugins is undone whenever the plugin inventory is Reset from the Plugin Manager (and I'm lazy and don't want to do the renaming again if I ever need to do the reset. ;D) I have finished mapping all of the plugins that I actually still use. Of course, I have many others that I have collected over the years that rarely get used anymore. Maybe I will set them up someday. Your editor was a great help and I am so happy to never use ACT Learn anymore!

Kind regards,
Don

Offline micv

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #37 on: January 22, 2016, 10:17:46 PM »
Hi Marko,
I'm a Sonar user and was pointed to ACT Editor by Alexey, who btw has helped me tremendously.  I must say ACT Editor saved Cakewalk ACT, as I basically abandoned it a couple years back when I was looking at this.  It works for me so far but I do need to do additional manual editing of the .xml file when I need more than 8 sliders.
My question is, is it possible to have 16 sliders? Graphic of controllers or GUI is not important to me but perhaps a quick and dirty 8 more data boxes to map slider.
Again I really do appreciated your work.

Offline MarKo

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #38 on: January 24, 2016, 12:57:20 PM »
Hi micv,
I always thought about making a bit more generic version of this editor.
We´ll see if i can finish this now...

Offline MarKo

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #39 on: January 24, 2016, 11:24:51 PM »
Hi all,
finally i made a first version of a more generic ACT-Editor.
Look at settings.ini for layout-definitions, 2 examples are included.
Max number of rows/columns is 8, giving a total of 64 controls.
Each row can be either Btn/Slider/Knob.
To access the different settings, click the button with the Sonar-Symbol.
I hope it´s working, not tested very much.

download here: SonActEdit
« Last Edit: January 24, 2016, 11:34:43 PM by MarKo »

Offline helgenr1

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Re: ACT-Editor
« Reply #40 on: July 15, 2016, 10:10:37 AM »
Hi,

the ACT Editor is amazing! Indeed something like this should have been implemented in SONAR years ago :)

The sync with AZ Controller works great as well.

Cheers,
helgenr1