AZSlow

AZ Controller plug-in for Cakewalk SONAR => Presets => Topic started by: azslow3 on April 25, 2015, 10:45:01 AM

Title: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on April 25, 2015, 10:45:01 AM
Produced in cooperation with Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc.

Preset should work out of the box.

How to use it:


The has the functionality described in the Origianal documentation for AlphaTrack with Sonar (https://www.frontierdesign.com/download/pdf/AlphaTrack/SONAR_and_AlphaTrack_v1.0.4.pdf).

Some features from the original documentation which are not going to be implemented or implemented differently:

Tip for the preset customization: in the "Option" Tab, "Software States" section you can change the default state which is set on preset load. Select required Set first, select required State, check "Default state" and press "Save". Note, the effect will be after Sonar restart/saved preset reload only. Useful Sets (changing default state for other Sets either have no effect or produce unexpected results):



For those who do not understand what AZ Controller is
What is discussed here is just a preset for AZ Controller plug-in. It is not hack/RE from the original one. I am followed (public) available documentation and I have reproduced (close to) the same result from the original device (which I do not have).
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on April 30, 2015, 09:10:25 PM
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Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: watercourse on May 06, 2015, 12:58:08 AM
Finally got a chance to give it a try.  Looks like a good start.  The only inconsistency I'm noticing so far is that pressing the 'Pan' button also lights up the 'Auto' button and pressing the 'Auto' button after it's already been lit turns off both the 'Pan' and 'Auto' buttons.

I'm not as familiar with the AlphaTrack (compared to FaderPort) so if there's anything specific you'd like me to test out, just let me know.  The scroll strip does work (pretty cool!) but I'll have to do some more comparisons with the original plugin to see if there are any noticeable differences.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 06, 2015, 12:57:15 PM
Thank for the first bug. Fixed.

As I have mentioned, everything except encoders and display should work (as described in the original documentation). I am a bit busy now, so I am not advancing fast.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 09, 2015, 12:20:03 AM
So, I have "coded" the whole stock documentation into the preset. All modes/shift/flips/etc except display (which is not described well in the documentation). Everything is absolutely untested so (no comparable devices in hands, and "emulating" it with what I have is a challenge on its own).   

I hope you understand that there will be no future development till I see some feedback (bug reports, suggestions, etc).
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 13, 2015, 01:21:50 PM
Hi...

OK I'm exploring the Alphatrack preset now. It's pretty difficult without the display, but I'm making some progress...

One fairly big problem so far is that the resolution of the knobs is incredibly fine, so much so that it's almost impossible to use them for any adjustments except super fine tweaks. For example, to turn a pan control from center to 50% left or right, I have to give the thing 36 pretty hard turns (meaning, crank it over, let go, turn my wrist back to center, crank it over, let go...)

The original plugin for Alphatrack gets around this by having two different resolutions, coarse and fine, switchable by pushing the knob in, and indicated in the display by an asterisk * on the display, which shows that you're in fine-control mode. So you can make coarse adjustments, then push the knob in to make fine tweaks, and switch back and forth. Fairly handy, and I don't know if it's possible in your plugin (and again, without the display to indicate what's happening it would be of limited use) - but if not, maybe there's a way to increase the knob resolution to work in larger increments?

I like the change to switch between track and bus control by only a click rather than a click and turn. In fact I was in communication with the guy at Frontier about this years ago, when he was tweaking the original plugin, and I suggested it but it never got implemented. So that's cool. But in fact so far on your preset it looks like you have to push three times - one click does nothing, the next switches to bus mode, the third switches back to track mode. I'm a little familiar with how your plugin works now, I'll have a look at how you've implemented this and see if I can suggest an improvement - I was able to get a single-click back-and-forth action working on my Kore MCU implementation with a little fiddling.

One thing that is not working at all here is the Send Level. I can switch to Send mode, and switch between sends with the first knob, and control the send pan with the third knob, so that's all as expected - but the middle knob, which should control the pan level, doesn't seem to do anything at all.

Another issue is the Auto button - this seems, strangely, to be inconsistent - once I was able to get into Auto 'mode', and the light on the controller went on, and seemed to work as expected (based on how it behaves in the original plugin), but now it doesn't work this way, and only switches Write on and off in the selected track, without going into a separate control mode which gives control over Write and Read. Not a showstopper, since for the most part what one wants to do with automation is leave read enabled and switch write on and off, which currently works, but the total control should be possible, and again, it seemed to work at one point but now, not.

I'll get to further exploration and give further feedback as time allows, but for now, one last thing: I seem to be losing control of the AZ plugin window while testing the Alphatrack - it goes away and cannot be called back as normal, from the Utilities menu. I never experienced this with my Kore/MCU testing, where I can assign a button to toggle the plugin control window open and closed. Using the Alphatrack - either the physical controller or the preset, somehow - seems to break this and the only way to get back to it is to restart Sonar.  *EDIT* - On this last point - in fact, the control window was there, just hidden behind the Sonar console window which I generally have maximized on my second monitor. So it was there but invisible and inaccessible until I closed the console window. Maybe I'll put in a toggle switch... or you can...

Ok I'll get to more in a bit... I hope that's helpful and clear for now...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 13, 2015, 02:58:02 PM
Hi, thank you for detailed report! I know it takes time, and it can be a bit frustrating... But you can imagine my feeling after I have coded the preset (a bit more time then for testing) and have no response  :)

In general, the preset should at the end work exactly as in documentation (with exceptions mentioned in the first post).

For the tests, please redownload the test version.

Hi...

OK I'm exploring the Alphatrack preset now. It's pretty difficult without the display, but I'm making some progress...
But do you see something on display? I mean strip name, buttons functions? I will need precise information what is visible in each particular situation from original plug-in (or generalized way, if applicable) to reproduce that.

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One fairly big problem so far is that the resolution of the knobs is incredibly fine, so much so that it's almost impossible to use them for any adjustments except super fine tweaks. For example, to turn a pan control from center to 50% left or right, I have to give the thing 36 pretty hard turns (meaning, crank it over, let go, turn my wrist back to center, crank it over, let go...)

The original plugin for Alphatrack gets around this by having two different resolutions, coarse and fine, switchable by pushing the knob in, and indicated in the display by an asterisk * on the display, which shows that you're in fine-control mode. So you can make coarse adjustments, then push the knob in to make fine tweaks, and switch back and forth. Fairly handy, and I don't know if it's possible in your plugin (and again, without the display to indicate what's happening it would be of limited use) - but if not, maybe there's a way to increase the knob resolution to work in larger increments?
The idea was that it should work the same way. I have rechecked documentation for mapping, must be something else. Please do the following. Switch to the Overview Tab touch the Right encoder (only Right, will not work with other), check "Last MIDI Event". Do you see "Right encoder touched" there? Check "Last control actions", do you see "Right encoder touched -> Yes".  Remove your finger. Do you see reversed reaction?  Repeat the same with pressing (after pressing do not release finger immediately, since that should trigger "touch release"). Do you see right reaction?

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I like the change to switch between track and bus control by only a click rather than a click and turn. In fact I was in communication with the guy at Frontier about this years ago, when he was tweaking the original plugin, and I suggested it but it never got implemented. So that's cool. But in fact so far on your preset it looks like you have to push three times - one click does nothing, the next switches to bus mode, the third switches back to track mode. I'm a little familiar with how your plugin works now, I'll have a look at how you've implemented this and see if I can suggest an improvement - I was able to get a single-click back-and-forth action working on my Kore MCU implementation with a little fiddling.
Can come from the same bug.

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One thing that is not working at all here is the Send Level. I can switch to Send mode, and switch between sends with the first knob, and control the send pan with the third knob, so that's all as expected - but the middle knob, which should control the pan level, doesn't seem to do anything at all.
My bug. Should be fixed.

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Another issue is the Auto button - this seems, strangely, to be inconsistent - once I was able to get into Auto 'mode', and the light on the controller went on, and seemed to work as expected (based on how it behaves in the original plugin), but now it doesn't work this way, and only switches Write on and off in the selected track, without going into a separate control mode which gives control over Write and Read. Not a showstopper, since for the most part what one wants to do with automation is leave read enabled and switch write on and off, which currently works, but the total control should be possible, and again, it seemed to work at one point but now, not.
Again, still depends on the first problem since Auto use "Touched" states.

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I'll get to further exploration and give further feedback as time allows, but for now, one last thing: I seem to be losing control of the AZ plugin window while testing the Alphatrack - it goes away and cannot be called back as normal, from the Utilities menu. I never experienced this with my Kore/MCU testing, where I can assign a button to toggle the plugin control window open and closed. Using the Alphatrack - either the physical controller or the preset, somehow - seems to break this and the only way to get back to it is to restart Sonar.  *EDIT* - On this last point - in fact, the control window was there, just hidden behind the Sonar console window which I generally have maximized on my second monitor. So it was there but invisible and inaccessible until I closed the console window. Maybe I'll put in a toggle switch... or you can...
Uhh.... that could mean severe bug otherwise!
But that property page is out of my control, it is created by Sonar, it just ask me for the content. But I create "Internal display", it is always on top.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 13, 2015, 10:55:20 PM
Hi Alexey

OK cool. By 'display' I meant the actual physical Alphatrack display, which does not show anything at all from your plugin at the moment, at least here. The AZ display (on the computer screen) works well, and displays the relevant control in every situation I've found, more or less the same as the original does on the device screen - with the exception that the asterisk * showing whether the knob(s) are in coarse or fine adjust mode (more on this below). There are places where this can be improved, and I'll try to be specific about that as I go along, but in general it's a good start and basically working.

I'm not sure if it's possible to send the same information  to the device display but of course that's the ideal scenario. I understood from your notes above that you haven't done that yet; in any case, nothing is showing on the device display at all yet.

On to further bugs.

1. The 'auto' behaviour is still kind of strange. I've sorted out exactly what it does now: It only switches to the 'right' Auto mode (with the light on and the knobs mapped to strip/read/write, indicated in the AZ display) from either Plug-in mode or Send mode. Meaning, it has to be in one of those states in order to switch into Auto mode. Otherwise, if it starts from either Pan mode or EQ mode, then it does not swich into Auto mode but instead toggles the Write on and off (actually it toggles Sonar's 'half-write' mode - I've never been quite sure what that does).

2. Send level now works, but the problem with the knob resolution persists. To be more precise, it starts at a reasonable/usable coarse resolution, but after pressing the knob it changes to very fine resolution (5 clicks of the encoder to change one number) and does not change back.

I went through your diagnostic, and here's what I see:
- on touching the right encoder, in the area at the top I see 'Right Encoder touch ()', and the value toggles from '127' to '0 OFF'
- in the lower area (Last control actions) I see 'Right Encoder touched -> Yes' followed by 'Undefined'. Nothing changes on release.
- on pushing the encoder, up top I see 'Right Encoder pressed ()', and the value toggles from '127' to '0 OFF'
- when taking my finger off, it toggles 'touch' off again as above.
- when pushing the encoder, in the lower area I see 'Right Encoder pressed -> yes'. Nothing changes on release, or on moving my finger away, so the last action remains 'pressed -> yes'.

Does that help?

3. The EQ does not seem to work at all. The AZ display updates correctly, and pressing the EQ button multiple times toggles between the two modes ('Freq Gain Q' and 'Band Filt OnOff') as per the original plugin, which is a nice setup (though I'd prefer it to default to 'Band Filt OnOff' on first press as opposed to the other way around, personally). But there is no actual control over the EQ that I can see. Mind you, the original plugin doesn't work either - it was coded back before the X series when the on-board channel EQ was the Sonitus, so to control the Pro Channel EQ might need different commands. In any case it doesn't seem to be doing anything at all right now.

The only exception seems to be the Filt mode. I can control this, but it takes a lot of turning clockwise to change the mode 'downwards' - from 'Hybrid' down to 'G-mode' - but to change it back up it changes in one mode per click. If it could be like that in both directions, that would be best.

4. The 'Send' mode left encoder, which should change between active sends, does so but it seems, from the information in the Overview window, to be hard-coded to 8 sends - so if you've only got 1 or 2 active, this knob can seem inactive if it's up in the 7 or 8 range, since there's no information in the display (or anywhere except the plugin control window) to indicate which send you're controlling. And of course if this knob is set to an inactive send, then the other knobs in send mode won't do anything either, and so it can seem unresponsive. I'm not sure if there's any way within your plugin to only switch between active sends, but this would seem ideal.

EDITs:
5. OK there's a problem with the motor fader. If you load or reset the preset, it works fine initially, and if you move between tracks with the track buttons, everything is OK. But as soon as you use the left encoder to change tracks, or push it to change to bus controls, then the motorfader stops responding - or at least, again, that's what's happening here. It still functions as a non-motorized fader, but it does not stay in sync with the fader on the screen, and cannot be returned to working control without resetting the preset. It seems to go into a mode where it wants to return to a center position no matter what you do with it.

(One of the nice things in the original plugin is the fact that when changing channels with the encoder, the motor does not engage to move the fader until you let go of the knob, thus avoiding rapid jumps if you're quickly shuttling through channels to get to the right one).

6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing. On the original you can flip pan, send level, EQ or plug-in parameters as well, from their respective pages. The display also indicates the flip by means of an arrow beside the flipped parameter.

7. In the original plugin, when using the mode buttons in a two-page mode such as Send, EQ, or Plug-in, the light on the device above the respective mode button flashes as an extra indication that it is on its second control page. Not necessary but a nice touch...

Finally, the plugin control window is fine, that was just my mistake. But it might be cool if one of the user-selectable buttons could be repurposed to toggle that back and forth. Did you have any other plans for those buttons? In the original plugin control window there's a menu from which you can set these to different functions. In your plugin of course it could be ultra-flexible, if not as easy as just selecting from a drop-down list...

Hope that helps, I'll keep looking for specific problems and keep you posted. Thanks as always for all your work!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 14, 2015, 10:19:18 AM
I hope we are closer to working configuration now, but still many things to check/fix/implement. Please download the latest test version again.

I'm not sure if it's possible to send the same information  to the device display but of course that's the ideal scenario. I understood from your notes above that you haven't done that yet; in any case, nothing is showing on the device display at all yet.
The intention was to show on both displays the same information (since I can not see real one). But there was a bug, which I hope is fixed now (thanks to you report that you see nothing!).
With '*', we have to discuss later (sure it is possible, as well as any other information).

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1. The 'auto' behaviour is still kind of strange. I've sorted out exactly what it does now: It only switches to the 'right' Auto mode (with the light on and the knobs mapped to strip/read/write, indicated in the AZ display) from either Plug-in mode or Send mode. Meaning, it has to be in one of those states in order to switch into Auto mode. Otherwise, if it starts from either Pan mode or EQ mode, then it does not swich into Auto mode but instead toggles the Write on and off (actually it toggles Sonar's 'half-write' mode - I've never been quite sure what that does).

2. Send level now works, but the problem with the knob resolution persists. To be more precise, it starts at a reasonable/usable coarse resolution, but after pressing the knob it changes to very fine resolution (5 clicks of the encoder to change one number) and does not change back.
The problem with press/touch was still there. I hope it is fixed, see later.

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I went through your diagnostic, and here's what I see:
- on touching the right encoder, in the area at the top I see 'Right Encoder touch ()', and the value toggles from '127' to '0 OFF'
- in the lower area (Last control actions) I see 'Right Encoder touched -> Yes' followed by 'Undefined'. Nothing changes on release.
- on pushing the encoder, up top I see 'Right Encoder pressed ()', and the value toggles from '127' to '0 OFF'
- when taking my finger off, it toggles 'touch' off again as above.
- when pushing the encoder, in the lower area I see 'Right Encoder pressed -> yes'. Nothing changes on release, or on moving my finger away, so the last action remains 'pressed -> yes'.
Does that help?
Sure! That is the information I need. Please redo the test, and if it works correctly many other functions should work as well.

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3. The EQ does not seem to work at all. The AZ display updates correctly, and pressing the EQ button multiple times toggles between the two modes ('Freq Gain Q' and 'Band Filt OnOff') as per the original plugin, which is a nice setup (though I'd prefer it to default to 'Band Filt OnOff' on first press as opposed to the other way around, personally). But there is no actual control over the EQ that I can see. Mind you, the original plugin doesn't work either - it was coded back before the X series when the on-board channel EQ was the Sonitus, so to control the Pro Channel EQ might need different commands. In any case it doesn't seem to be doing anything at all right now.
EQ should work. It can happened that you have to switch it "on" once manually (yet another Sonar bug), but I think the result is saved in project.
There was typo in my preset code, it is fixed now.

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The only exception seems to be the Filt mode. I can control this, but it takes a lot of turning clockwise to change the mode 'downwards' - from 'Hybrid' down to 'G-mode' - but to change it back up it changes in one mode per click. If it could be like that in both directions, that would be best.
With "MIDI" resolution it should be better. But not perfect. Again, SONAR "feature". Frontier call that in documentation "some parameters is better to control with fader". Not that they have not foreseen how that should work, but it looks like they "forgot" it along the road.

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4. The 'Send' mode left encoder, which should change between active sends, does so but it seems, from the information in the Overview window, to be hard-coded to 8 sends - so if you've only got 1 or 2 active, this knob can seem inactive if it's up in the 7 or 8 range, since there's no information in the display (or anywhere except the plugin control window) to indicate which send you're controlling. And of course if this knob is set to an inactive send, then the other knobs in send mode won't do anything either, and so it can seem unresponsive. I'm not sure if there's any way within your plugin to only switch between active sends, but this would seem ideal.
The situation is the following. It is possible for plug-in to detect how many FXes and Parameters are there. But (while possible) that is not easy to code inside AZ Controller... I still think how to improve that.

But once I have coded it for myself, I have found that the result is far from ideal, at least for me. Let say your track 1 has 3 sends and track 2 has 1 send. You are on track 1 and selected send 3 to adjust let say reverb send. For whatever reason, you have temporarily switched to track 2 and have adjusted its volume (or to mute it). You are back on Track one, continue adjusting reverb but... you are adjusting something else: when you was on track 2, there was no send 3. So, current "send" is down to "1".

Saving the setting per strip is again not ideal in case you have several tracks with the same set of sends.

And so, I feel myself "safer" in case once switched to Send 4, it stay Send 4. Independent either current strip has it or not. But in case that is a show stopper for you, I can try to implement alternative solution.

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5. OK there's a problem with the motor fader. If you load or reset the preset, it works fine initially, and if you move between tracks with the track buttons, everything is OK. But as soon as you use the left encoder to change tracks, or push it to change to bus controls, then the motorfader stops responding - or at least, again, that's what's happening here. It still functions as a non-motorized fader, but it does not stay in sync with the fader on the screen, and cannot be returned to working control without resetting the preset. It seems to go into a mode where it wants to return to a center position no matter what you do with it.

(One of the nice things in the original plugin is the fact that when changing channels with the encoder, the motor does not engage to move the fader until you let go of the knob, thus avoiding rapid jumps if you're quickly shuttling through channels to get to the right one).
Please recheck now. I also switch off motor when changing strip by encoder. But whole "touch/push" was broken (MIDI mapping), so fader had no chance to work correctly.

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6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing. On the original you can flip pan, send level, EQ or plug-in parameters as well, from their respective pages. The display also indicates the flip by means of an arrow beside the flipped parameter.
Flip is coded the same way as in the original plug-in. Display we will also fix, once the rest is working.

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7. In the original plugin, when using the mode buttons in a two-page mode such as Send, EQ, or Plug-in, the light on the device above the respective mode button flashes as an extra indication that it is on its second control page. Not necessary but a nice touch...
Possible to implement but not there yet. Once we are at "display" point, I will code that as well. Which frequency of flashing you prefer?

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Finally, the plugin control window is fine, that was just my mistake. But it might be cool if one of the user-selectable buttons could be repurposed to toggle that back and forth. Did you have any other plans for those buttons? In the original plugin control window there's a menu from which you can set these to different functions. In your plugin of course it could be ultra-flexible, if not as easy as just selecting from a drop-down list...
All controls in AZ Controller are "User defined" controls. And in fact it is as easy as selecting from a drop-down list(s... I mean several) !
Switch to "F1" Logical Control in Logic Tab. Default "Save/Recall" in the original plug is also coded there. Let say you want "Commands":
* Click on "Call ((None))_gf..." action (the second one), click "Delete"
* Click on "Recall parameter..." action (the first one), change type from "Save/Recall" to "Command".
You have "Drop down list" of commands you see in the original plug-in (with exception of "some", they do not specify the whole list in docs, special Alphatrack commands). Do the same for "Shift:+" actions to change behavior when shift is active. 
But since it is "Ultra" you can add for example "Mode: xxx" conditions to make Function Keys reaction mode dependent.

As with everything else in AZ Controller, in case you want something "simple", it is simple. In case you want something more complex, it is more complex. And in case you want something "smart" (like Alphatrack preset as a whole), the configuration is also "smart"  ;)

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Hope that helps, I'll keep looking for specific problems and keep you posted. Thanks as always for all your work!
Thanks for testing! Several more iterations and it should work good. I can start implement "extra wishes" then.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 15, 2015, 01:32:04 AM
Hi again Alexey, I was out all day but I'm home now and just had a look around the new version. Man you're quick, and amazingly dedicated to getting these things right, especially for someone working essentially for free. A lot of people would love to have this kind of turnaround from a company they're giving lots of money to! I will definitely drop something in your paypal next time my own tops up, and I'd also love to send you some music, I'll PM you about that.

I hope we are close to working configuration now, but still many things to check/fix/implement. Please download the latest test version again.
We certainly are! It's pretty much as good as the original now, maybe a bit better - some things still to fix for sure and not quite there but other things already better - see details below!

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The intention was to show on both displays the same information (since I can not see real one). But there was a bug, which I hope is fixed now (thanks to you report that you see nothing!).
With '*', we have to discuss later (sure it is possible, as well as any other information).
It works now, the AZ display is mirrored on the device display, so no need to make that distinction anymore. Yes, we can talk about possible refinements once everything is in place. I have some ideas...

One thing that the original plugin does well is to display contextual information about what the controls will do - for example, in Plug-in mode, when you change the parameter to be controlled it tells you what the current parameter is, as best it can. When changing a parameter knob, it tells you the current value. Sometimes when you are touching an encoder, it will use the whole display to give information about the parameter and sometimes even a simple slider to show the value. On encoder release, it reverts to the default display for the current mode.

None of this is essential, and of course nobody should expect you to replicate it precisely (for no money! on a discontinued device!). But it's a thought - simple visual feedback from the device screen is a bit more direct than twisting a knob while looking up at the computer screen. Of course, it might also be distracting - maybe it's better to just have the display help you grab the right knob, know what it will do, and then use our ears...  8)

On the plus side, Auto mode now works as expected, you can switch to it from any other mode, no irregularities.

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The problem with press/touch was still there. I hope it is fixed, see later... Please redo the test, and if it works correctly many other functions should work as well.

The test now checks out, all working and the results on the overview page are as expected - touch and release, press and release all showing what they should in both areas of the Overview page.

With regards to the triple-push on switching from track to bus mode: I have narrowed this down and noticed an odd thing: If the AZ plugin control window is open, and *selected*, it behaves as it should - switching back and forth with a single push. It also works if another program is open, like for example this browser window, and Sonar is running in the background (I can see from my console on a 2nd monitor). If the plugin window is not open at all, it still needs the triple push - two pushes to change from track to bus, one from bus to track.

Obviously this is not a big problem as most of the time there would be no reason to work with the plugin window open, but I thought it might be useful to help you track down whatever is causing it to take more presses than necessary.

Also, and a bit more of a problem, is that if the Console is selected - whether in the Multidock or its own window - the track/bus encoder push does not work at all.

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EQ should work. It can happened that you have to switch it "on" once manually (yet another Sonar bug), but I think the result is saved in project.
There was typo in my preset code, it is fixed now.

EQ now working fine, everything is in place to control the four main bands from the Alphatrack. The problem with the knob resolution with regards to the Filter Mode (Hybrid/Pure etc) is still there - takes many turns to change 'downward', in opposite direction it is very fast. Not a showstopper but strange to be sure.

It might be better to control with the fader, but with flip functionality still not working in modes other than Pan (see below), it's not an option here yet. We *could* think about assigning one of the Function buttons to this.

It would also be great, eventually, in the name of completeness, to get control of the low- and high-shelving EQs, as well as Gloss and the shelf/bell switches on the low and high bands. It occurs to me that the low/high shelving ones could just be added as two more bands to control from the band select knob; and the rest could be done with a third 'page' on the EQ mode button - with knobs assigned to Gloss, low-band-mode and high-band-mode respectively. OR they could be assigned to buttons if they can be set up to be mode-dependent as you suggest.

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4. The 'Send' mode left encoder, which should change between active sends, does so but it seems, from the information in the Overview window, to be hard-coded to 8 sends
The situation is the following. It is possible for plug-in to detect how many FXes and Parameters are there. But (while possible) that is not easy to code inside AZ Controller... I still think how to improve that.

But once I have coded it for myself, I have found that the result is far from ideal, at least for me. Let say your track 1 has 3 sends and track 2 has 1 send. You are on track 1 and selected send 3 to adjust let say reverb send. For whatever reason, you have temporarily switched to track 2 and have adjusted its volume (or to mute it). You are back on Track one, continue adjusting reverb but... you are adjusting something else: when you was on track 2, there was no send 3. So, current "send" is down to "1".

Hmm. Here's what I think would be the ideal situation: in the display, on line 2, where at the moment it says "Send Level Pan", you could have it say "Send:1 Lvl  Pan", or "Send:2 Lvl Pan" depending on where it's set. Then there's visual feedback and there's no confusion about which send you're affecting.

It's certainly not a showstopper, I'm just trying to help think of how it could be optimized, since you seem - like me - interested in finding the 'elegant' solution to these things... but are also - unlike me - actually able to code...  :o

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5. OK there's a problem with the motor fader...
Please recheck now. I also switch off motor when changing strip by encoder. But whole "touch/push" was broken (MIDI mapping), so fader had no chance to work correctly.
Works now, with one exception: If you use the encoder to change tracks it delays engaging the fader, as in the original plugin, but unfortunately it does not then engage it again, until you change to a different track with either the buttons or the mouse. It also doesn't engage if you use the mouse to select the track or bus it's already on - you have to change it.

The same happens when you push the encoder to change to Bus control mode or vice versa. It does not re-engage the motor unless you then change the track (or bus) with the buttons or the mouse. Possibly related to the odd behaviour on the encoder push above?

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6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing. On the original you can flip pan, send level, EQ or plug-in parameters as well, from their respective pages. The display also indicates the flip by means of an arrow beside the flipped parameter.
Flip is coded the same way as in the original plug-in. Display we will also fix, once the rest is working.

OK but it doesn't work yet, which it does in the original plugin. It's unchanged from the previous version - works from Pan mode, and engages the motor now, which is great, but does not work in other modes, which it does in the original (let's call it the Frontier plugin, for clarity).

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... flashing lights...
Possible to implement but not there yet. Once we are at "display" point, I will code that as well. Which frequency of flashing you prefer?

No problem and obviously no hurry! Off the top of my head, I guess around 2-3 flashes a second would be fine. Fast enough that you can tell at a glance, not so fast that it's annoying or distracting... The original appears to be one flash per second, which I find a bit slow to see right away.

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All controls in AZ Controller are "User defined" controls. And in fact it is as easy as selecting from a drop-down list(s... I mean several) !
Switch to "F1" Logical Control in Logic Tab. Default "Save/Recall" in the original plug is also coded there. Let say you want "Commands":
* Click on "Call ((None))_gf..." action (the second one), click "Delete"
* Click on "Recall parameter..." action (the first one), change type from "Save/Recall" to "Command".
You have "Drop down list" of commands you see in the original plug-in (with exception of "some", they do not specify the whole list in docs, special Alphatrack commands). Do the same for "Shift:+" actions to change behavior when shift is active. 
But since it is "Ultra" you can add for example "Mode: xxx" conditions to make Function Keys reaction mode dependent.

As with everything else in AZ Controller, in case you want something "simple", it is simple. In case you want something more complex, it is more complex. And in case you want something "smart" (like Alphatrack preset as a whole), the configuration is also "smart"  ;)
It's true. It's a bit more complicated, but that's a small price to pay for a whole lot more flexibility and possibilities. So I'm certainly up for a small learning curve in order to get serious configurability. Mode-specific function keys would be great! But, even harder to remember...

I realize I haven't given you any feedback about the slider yet. It works pretty well! It could be faster to slide on the basic one-finger mode, it's a bit too slow at present. On two-finger mode - which engages FF and RW - it's a bit different than with the Frontier plugin - there it stops as soon as you take your finger off the strip, whereas with yours it continues until you either double-tap the strip - a single tap won't do it - or press the corresponding FF or RW transport button - the opposite one doesn't work. Play or Stop also don't do anything - it feels a bit stuck and it took me a while to figure it out. Now that I know, it's OK, but it would probably better if it could be made to either stop on finger-release or stop with any transport action. 

Also, on the Frontier plugin you can tap the left and right ends of the strip to move to the previous/next marker (and to the start and/or end of the project if at the first/last marker). On your plugin only the left tap for previous marker is working, tapping the right end of the strip does nothing. Again, a very minor point, but I noticed it...

That's it for now!  ???

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Thanks for testing! Several more iterations and it should work good. I can start implement "extra wishes" then.
No problem happy to help and again, I'm kind of amazed at your dedication and willingness to take this to the level you have. Chapeau!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 15, 2015, 02:38:22 PM
It works now, the AZ display is mirrored on the device display, so no need to make that distinction anymore. Yes, we can talk about possible refinements once everything is in place. I have some ideas...
Lets speak about that later. We will have to "fill the table" of possible indications, which is rather big:
* default display in each mode
* display when some modifier is pressed (shift, flip, auto, etc)
* display when some control is touched (fader, encoder, strip)
* and so on

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The test now checks out, all working and the results on the overview page are as expected - touch and release, press and release all showing what they should in both areas of the Overview page.
Great.

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With regards to the triple-push on switching from track to bus mode: I have narrowed this down and noticed an odd thing: If the AZ plugin control window is open, and *selected*, it behaves as it should - switching back and forth with a single push. It also works if another program is open, like for example this browser window, and Sonar is running in the background (I can see from my console on a 2nd monitor). If the plugin window is not open at all, it still needs the triple push - two pushes to change from track to bus, one from bus to track.

Obviously this is not a big problem as most of the time there would be no reason to work with the plugin window open, but I thought it might be useful to help you track down whatever is causing it to take more presses than necessary.

Also, and a bit more of a problem, is that if the Console is selected - whether in the Multidock or its own window - the track/bus encoder push does not work at all.
I will try to investigate that later with real surface. Normally I am testing using "software" surface, and so the focus is always away from Sonar.

In general, Sonar has several bugs there, not only affecting surfaces. Some are reported on OF (like "not possible select track in closed folder in PRV when console is closed"). There is some chance they fix that later, but I will see what I can do.

In our case, it has something to do with focus/switch "duality". I try to switch focus when we switch track/bus, but I also monitor current focus (to follow mouse changes). For some Sonar internal reasons  (bugs) that focus changing is not working, next monitoring detects the focus is still original and revert plug-in strip type. The result is "Switch to bus (left encoder pushed)"->"Bus"->"Track selected by mouse"->"Track". So, I have to found how to distinguish "Asked focus to be on bus, but that is not working" and "Asked focus to be on bus, but user has changed it back by mouse".

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EQ now working fine, everything is in place to control the four main bands from the Alphatrack. The problem with the knob resolution with regards to the Filter Mode (Hybrid/Pure etc) is still there - takes many turns to change 'downward', in opposite direction it is very fast. Not a showstopper but strange to be sure.
I will think about it... What is going on there: Sonar accept only value changes between 0. and 1. Endless encoder change the value by "small" amount (1/127 in MIDI mode). The reaction from parameter is plug-in (VST, ProChannel, I mean not my plug-in) dependent. So, let say there are only 4 "real" values for 4 filer modes (0, 0.33, 0.66, 1.), I have not checked the real values for EQ, but must be something like that. Let say current value is reported as "0.33" and we use encoder. We try to set "0.34" or "0.32". What happens is EQ implementation dependent, from your observations it looks like EQ switch to "0.66" once it see "0.34", but does NOTHING (keep "0.33") when it see "0.32". In the first case you see immediate change, in the second you need many ticks (0.32, 0.31, 0.30, ... 0.03, 0.02, 0.01, 0.00) till it is "convinced" to switch the type.

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It would also be great, eventually, in the name of completeness, to get control of the low- and high-shelving EQs, as well as Gloss and the shelf/bell switches on the low and high bands. It occurs to me that the low/high shelving ones could just be added as two more bands to control from the band select knob; and the rest could be done with a third 'page' on the EQ mode button - with knobs assigned to Gloss, low-band-mode and high-band-mode respectively. OR they could be assigned to buttons if they can be set up to be mode-dependent as you suggest.
Lets put it into TODO list after Display, it make sense to show current selected band fist, especially once we have many of them.

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Hmm. Here's what I think would be the ideal situation: in the display, on line 2, where at the moment it says "Send Level Pan", you could have it say "Send:1 Lvl  Pan", or "Send:2 Lvl Pan" depending on where it's set. Then there's visual feedback and there's no confusion about which send you're affecting.

It's certainly not a showstopper, I'm just trying to help think of how it could be optimized, since you seem - like me - interested in finding the 'elegant' solution to these things... but are also - unlike me - actually able to code...  :o
Your ideas are welcome. But again, the proposed way is display dependent and so it is behind the display in TODO.

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Works now, with one exception: If you use the encoder to change tracks it delays engaging the fader, as in the original plugin, but unfortunately it does not then engage it again, until you change to a different track with either the buttons or the mouse. It also doesn't engage if you use the mouse to select the track or bus it's already on - you have to change it.

The same happens when you push the encoder to change to Bus control mode or vice versa. It does not re-engage the motor unless you then change the track (or bus) with the buttons or the mouse. Possibly related to the odd behaviour on the encoder push above?
That should work now.

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6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing. On the original you can flip pan, send level, EQ or plug-in parameters as well, from their respective pages. The display also indicates the flip by means of an arrow beside the flipped parameter.

...

OK but it doesn't work yet, which it does in the original plugin. It's unchanged from the previous version - works from Pan mode, and engages the motor now, which is great, but does not work in other modes, which it does in the original (let's call it the Frontier plugin, for clarity).
Flipping can work only for specific Mode/Page/Encoder combinations (when controlled parameter is "continuous").

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... flashing lights...
Possible to implement but not there yet. Once we are at "display" point, I will code that as well. Which frequency of flashing you prefer?

No problem and obviously no hurry! Off the top of my head, I guess around 2-3 flashes a second would be fine. Fast enough that you can tell at a glance, not so fast that it's annoying or distracting... The original appears to be one flash per second, which I find a bit slow to see right away.
Noted. But remember me later in case I forget.

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I realize I haven't given you any feedback about the slider yet. It works pretty well! It could be faster to slide on the basic one-finger mode, it's a bit too slow at present.
Changed from Beat to Measure. You can try to find yourself the best resolution, in the "Strip" Logic control, select "Jog Ribbon" action and change the parameters for it. The effect is immediate.

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On two-finger mode - which engages FF and RW - it's a bit different than with the Frontier plugin - there it stops as soon as you take your finger off the strip, whereas with yours it continues until you either double-tap the strip - a single tap won't do it - or press the corresponding FF or RW transport button - the opposite one doesn't work. Play or Stop also don't do anything - it feels a bit stuck and it took me a while to figure it out. Now that I know, it's OK, but it would probably better if it could be made to either stop on finger-release or stop with any transport action. 
That should be fixed now.

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Also, on the Frontier plugin you can tap the left and right ends of the strip to move to the previous/next marker (and to the start and/or end of the project if at the first/last marker). On your plugin only the left tap for previous marker is working, tapping the right end of the strip does nothing. Again, a very minor point, but I noticed it...
I hope that is also fixed. If not, press that part of the strip and look at "Last MIDI Event". You should see "CH:10 PB " and then Value. Please write which value it was.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 15, 2015, 04:32:14 PM
hi again...

...display refinements...
Lets speak about that later. We will have to "fill the table" of possible indications, which is rather big...
Indeed. And quite possibly if I dig into what you've done here a bit more I can take over some of this, or at least make my own tweaks and offer them as completed versions of the preset for your consideration, rather than asking you to fix things.

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In general, Sonar has several bugs there, not only affecting surfaces. Some are reported on OF (like "not possible select track in closed folder in PRV when console is closed"). There is some chance they fix that later, but I will see what I can do.

In our case, it has something to do with focus/switch "duality". I try to switch focus when we switch track/bus, but I also monitor current focus (to follow mouse changes). For some Sonar internal reasons  (bugs) that focus changing is not working, next monitoring detects the focus is still original and revert plug-in strip type. The result is "Switch to bus (left encoder pushed)"->"Bus"->"Track selected by mouse"->"Track". So, I have to found how to distinguish "Asked focus to be on bus, but that is not working" and "Asked focus to be on bus, but user has changed it back by mouse".
I can understand how this gets convoluted. It's really not a big deal for the moment - as long as I remember to change the focus back to the track window after doing anything in the console, it is just one extra click - two to get to bus control, one to get back to tracks - hardly worth bending over backwards to sort out complex technical questions over, but perhaps this is part of a deeper issue with the plugin's interaction with Sonar. If so, hopefully it's helpful to have another set of eyes on it, but I'm certainly not demanding you fix this on my account!  ::)

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... EQ 'filter mode' switching...
I will think about it... What is going on there: Sonar accept only value changes between 0. and 1. Endless encoder change the value by "small" amount (1/127 in MIDI mode). The reaction from parameter is plug-in (VST, ProChannel, I mean not my plug-in) dependent. So, let say there are only 4 "real" values for 4 filer modes (0, 0.33, 0.66, 1.), I have not checked the real values for EQ, but must be something like that. Let say current value is reported as "0.33" and we use encoder. We try to set "0.34" or "0.32". What happens is EQ implementation dependent, from your observations it looks like EQ switch to "0.66" once it see "0.34", but does NOTHING (keep "0.33") when it see "0.32". In the first case you see immediate change, in the second you need many ticks (0.32, 0.31, 0.30, ... 0.03, 0.02, 0.01, 0.00) till it is "convinced" to switch the type.
Got it. Maybe the button approach would be simpler? I'll have a look at it...

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... more EQ control...
Lets put it into TODO list after Display, it make sense to show current selected band fist, especially once we have many of them.
Cool. Certainly should not be anyone's highest priority at this point.

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Your ideas are welcome. But again, the proposed way is display dependent and so it is behind the display in TODO.
OK. But I'm not clear - what basic functionality is missing in Display at this point? it seems to work pretty well! Is there something fundamental that needs to be sorted out before more dynamic updates can be sent to it?

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... motor fader wasn't re-engaging when using encoder to change tracks or from track-bus / vice versa...
That should work now.
It does indeed! Very nice. It now works exactly as per the Frontier plugin

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6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing....
Flipping can work only for specific Mode/Page/Encoder combinations (when controlled parameter is "continuous").
Hmm. Again, on the Frontier plugin, if you're in Send mode, you can hit Flip and it will flip the Level control to the fader, and tell you that it's done so in the display with a little arrow, and light the Flip light. If you're in EQ mode it flips the Frequency, and in Plug-in mode it flips the currently selected parameter value. These are fixed, but they work.

I was able to replicate this in your plugin - on the Flip button's 'Logic' tab I copied the entry:
'Mode:Pan' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E3
And made 3 more:
'Mode:Send' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E2
'Mode:EQ' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E1
'Mode:PlugIn' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E3

... this makes it work more or less exactly like the Frontier plugin. The Fader motor works too. Easy! See, the plugin works, even for people like me who barely know what they're doing!  ???

Doubtless this can be improved, especially if we can get it to send something to the display to indicate what is being flipped to the fader, but it's a start, and it works!

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... flashing lights...
Noted. But remember me later in case I forget.
OK. Again, very low-priority. Big rocks first, but we're getting through those!


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... touch strip resolution...
Changed from Beat to Measure. You can try to find yourself the best resolution, in the "Strip" Logic control, select "Jog Ribbon" action and change the parameters for it. The effect is immediate.
OK. Measure seems to be better for now.

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...  touch strip two-finger FF/RW behaviour
That should be fixed now.
... and it is. Works just like the Frontier plugin now.


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... touch-strip marker navigation
I hope that is also fixed. If not, press that part of the strip and look at "Last MIDI Event". You should see "CH:10 PB " and then Value. Please write which value it was.
It's working perfectly now!

EDIT!!!

I think I forgot to mention last night. The change from coarse to fine resolution on the encoders is not working at all now. It's a decent, usable resolution for most purposes - kind of medium - but pushing on the encoders does nothing at all now, so no fine-resolution control is currently possible. Hope that helps!

EDIT 2

I notice now that if I go back and do your diagnostic test about the right encoder, nothing is showing at all in the Overview page for either touch or press. It was working when I reported it as fixed, now it does nothing... Hmmm. This is in your unaltered preset; the tweaks I made to the Flip button do not seem to affect it...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 15, 2015, 06:32:05 PM
...display refinements...
Lets speak about that later. We will have to "fill the table" of possible indications, which is rather big...
Indeed. And quite possibly if I dig into what you've done here a bit more I can take over some of this, or at least make my own tweaks and offer them as completed versions of the preset for your consideration, rather than asking you to fix things.
I think it is simpler in case I make at least first changes to the display. With my "native" knowledge about the plug-in, my first (and the only) complex display implementation (for MCU) is a complete mess. I have made several adjustments in Actions to make the task more transparent (Text Buffers, functions and monitor priorities) but there is no example how to use that all together. I am sure you can configure it on your own, but let me do this.

For the beginning, just write me what exactly you see when let say you have just touched the Right encoder in Pan mode. Does it changes in case you start turn it?

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Your ideas are welcome. But again, the proposed way is display dependent and so it is behind the display in TODO.
OK. But I'm not clear - what basic functionality is missing in Display at this point? it seems to work pretty well! Is there something fundamental that needs to be sorted out before more dynamic updates can be sent to it?
It looks like we are ready for display now. When I was talking "after" or "later", the meaning was not "next year", just 1-2-3 tests more  ;)

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6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing....
Flipping can work only for specific Mode/Page/Encoder combinations (when controlled parameter is "continuous").
Hmm. Again, on the Frontier plugin, if you're in Send mode, you can hit Flip and it will flip the Level control to the fader, and tell you that it's done so in the display with a little arrow, and light the Flip light. If you're in EQ mode it flips the Frequency, and in Plug-in mode it flips the currently selected parameter value. These are fixed, but they work.

I was able to replicate this in your plugin - on the Flip button's 'Logic' tab I copied the entry:
'Mode:Pan' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E3
And made 3 more:
'Mode:Send' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E2
'Mode:EQ' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E1
'Mode:PlugIn' 'Flip:-' 'FlipEncoder:No' 'Note:Off' -'FlipEncoder -> E3

... this makes it work more or less exactly like the Frontier plugin. The Fader motor works too. Easy! See, the plugin works, even for people like me who barely know what they're doing!  ???

Doubtless this can be improved, especially if we can get it to send something to the display to indicate what is being flipped to the fader, but it's a start, and it works!
I put your changes (with small modification) into the preset. And now I understand that I forgot to put that "default" flipping.

It is possible (as described in the documentation) to select which encoder should be flipped (Send 2/3, EQ 1/2/3) by touching encoder while Flip button is pressed. That functionality was there.


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EDIT!!!

I think I forgot to mention last night. The change from coarse to fine resolution on the encoders is not working at all now. It's a decent, usable resolution for most purposes - kind of medium - but pushing on the encoders does nothing at all now, so no fine-resolution control is currently possible. Hope that helps!
We have to fix that. Open Overview Tab.  Select "Right Encoder Pressed" (should be No). Now press right encoder, do you see the state is changed to "Yes"? Fine resolution works when you use pressed encoder, so when the value is "Yes" and you turn the encoder .


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EDIT 2

I notice now that if I go back and do your diagnostic test about the right encoder, nothing is showing at all in the Overview page for either touch or press. It was working when I reported it as fixed, now it does nothing... Hmmm. This is in your unaltered preset; the tweaks I made to the Flip button do not seem to affect it...
Yes. I have reverted these controls to "SYSTEM" (to avoid too many "Last MIDI Event"s when you Touch+Push+Turn).
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 15, 2015, 11:11:41 PM
I am sure you can configure it on your own, but let me do this...
Happily! I am not so sure I could get it done in fact, the display stuff seems pretty complex and I'm just a jazz musician...  8)

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For the beginning, just write me what exactly you see when let say you have just touched the Right encoder in Pan mode. Does it changes in case you start turn it?
The device display does not change. The AZ Display (if I have it open, which I generally don't since it's a duplicate of the device display at this point) does not change. The plugin window, if I have it open,  does not change if I touch the encoder, but does change if I turn it - it shows this:
Endless MIDI, manual touch -> 0.65 (or whatever number, between 0 and 1. This corresponds to Pan values between 100%L and 100%R.

It's pretty much the same in any mode. The device display currently works well as a 'static' indication of what controls do, but does not give any dynamic information about what's being done - parameter values, plugin names or parameter names, and so on.

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It looks like we are ready for display now. When I was talking "after" or "later", the meaning was not "next year", just 1-2-3 tests more  ;)
OK. I'm ready to test whatever you throw at me, and will try not to clog the process with too many 'feature requests'... but I can tell you what the original plugin does well, if that's helpful...

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I put your changes (with small modification) into the preset. And now I understand that I forgot to put that "default" flipping.

It is possible (as described in the documentation) to select which encoder should be flipped (Send 2/3, EQ 1/2/3) by touching encoder while Flip button is pressed. That functionality was there.
It is there and it all works now. It took me a while to figure out how to get it to work, but once I got my head around it, it seems stable. Sorry if I missed that before, it was not clear to me but that might be because I never used that functionality much in the original plugin. Now it works from every mode (except Auto, where it doesn't make sense) and it can be configured from one control to another on the fly. Nice!

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... change from coarse to fine resolution on the encoders is not working at all now...
We have to fix that. Open Overview Tab.  Select "Right Encoder Pressed" (should be No). Now press right encoder, do you see the state is changed to "Yes"? Fine resolution works when you use pressed encoder, so when the value is "Yes" and you turn the encoder .
AHA! Yes, that works. It displays Right Encoder pressed (Yes) when pressed, and the fine resolution works.

I didn't notice it because this behaviour is different than in the Frontier plugin where the press is a toggle between coarse and fine resolution. Meaning, default behaviour is coarse, press toggles to fine resolution (and indicates in the display with a *) which persists until another press, which toggles back to coarse resolution.

I think that would be better, if it's possible, but for the moment the way you have it set is also acceptable. But it's slightly uncomfortable to hold it down and turn the encoder while holding it down. Press-to-toggle behaviour is a bit more easier to manage.

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... diagnostic test...
Yes. I have reverted these controls to "SYSTEM" (to avoid too many "Last MIDI Event"s when you Touch+Push+Turn).

Got it. So that's not necessary now that we've got it working as expected.

So where are we at?
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 15, 2015, 11:22:57 PM
I am sure you can configure it on your own, but let me do this...
Happily! I am not so sure I could get it done in fact, the display stuff seems pretty complex and I'm just a jazz musician...  8)

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For the beginning, just write me what exactly you see when let say you have just touched the Right encoder in Pan mode. Does it changes in case you start turn it?
The device display does not change.
The question was what Alphatrack display show when used with the original plug-in in that situation. So, what should I display...

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I didn't notice it because this behaviour is different than in the Frontier plugin where the press is a toggle between coarse and fine resolution. Meaning, default behaviour is coarse, press toggles to fine resolution (and indicates in the display with a *) which persists until another press, which toggles back to coarse resolution.

I think that would be better, if it's possible, but for the moment the way you have it set is also acceptable. But it's slightly uncomfortable to hold it down and turn the encoder while holding it down. Press-to-toggle behaviour is a bit more easier to manage.
I have misunderstood the documentation then, I will change that.

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So where are we at?
... display definition. I need the in formation from you what I should define  :)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 16, 2015, 12:23:26 AM
Got it. I'm a bit slow sometimes!

So. Switching to the Frontier plug-in:

In Pan mode, here's what's displayed (on a track called 'Audio'):

Audio
Trk1   Mark   <C>


If I move the right encoder to manipulate the Pan, the entire display changes while I'm touching the encoder, and changes back when I release it. It looks a bit like this:

Pan  -----><----
                   <C>


If I move it to the right, it changes to, for example, this:

Pan  ----->|||--
                     56R


(the vertical lines are actually solid bars, not discrete characters, but lines would be more than adequate!)

And then when I let go of the encoder it returns to this:

Audio
Trk1   Mark   56R


... depending, of course, on the actual Pan value I've changed it to.

Finally, if I push the encoder while turning to toggle it to fine control mode, it looks like this:

Pan  ----->|||--*
                      57R


... and it stays in fine mode, indicated with the *,  until I push it again to toggle it back.

It also seems to remember the fine/coarse state of different controls when changing between modes and back.

...

Similarly, in for example Send mode, with two sends enabled, say Reverb and Monitor, the display would look like this:

Reverb
Snd1  0.0     0


If I touch the middle encoder (send level), it changes to this:

SLvl ||||||||||----
       0.0dB


And then if I move it:

SLvl ||||||||||||--
       3.2dB


Or if I move the right encoder (Pan):

SPan -----><----
                           0


changing to:

Pan  ----->||---*
                      45R


... and so on.

If I touch the Left encoder (Send select):

Reverb
Snd1


changing to:
Monitor
Snd2


And releasing:

Monitor
Snd2   0.0      0


... you get the idea. So there is always visual feedback about what each knob will do, directly above the knob, and when touching that knob the display changes to indicate what it will do and what is happening as you turn it.

Finally, if I hit Flip, the indicator above the knob that is exchanged with the fader gets a little <- arrow beside it, to indicate that its control has moved over to the fader. This arrow disappears when pressing Flip again.

That's pretty much it. The EQ is a bit more complex, but I'll put that in a separate post - this one is long enough!

Thanks in advance for whatever you're able to do... I hope some other Sonar/Alphatrack users will benefit from this at some point!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 16, 2015, 11:17:36 AM
By the way I think it's totally unnecessary to try to replicate the 'slider' on the display. But some sort of 'live' numerical feedback would be great - just the changing value above the knob being changed, and an indication of what the current parameter is on the top line.

So, you could have this:

Audio
Trk1   Mark   <C>


change to this, when touching/adjusting the right encoder:

Trk1 Pan:
                      56R


or this, in Send mode when touching/adjusting the middle encoder:


Trk1 Snd1 level:
       3.2dB



or this, in Send mode with the right encoder:


Trk1 Snd2 Pan: *
                      47L


(if we use the * to represent fine adjustment mode)


... Easier? Possible?

I'll have a look at the Frontier plugin's EQ and Plugin modes and try to boil it down to something similarly simple and useful...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 16, 2015, 10:53:47 PM
At the moment I need "Send name" (so, the send output name). That functionality is not in AZ Controller and it is time to implement it. That can take a while (I mean tomorrow, not weeks...). I will continue with Display then.

I have already implemented "Push" to change the resolution, and it is "remembered" for each mode/encoder (as you have observed in the original plug-in).

I think I will try to implement all fancy views the original plug-in provides, in case you specify not standard characters, please find them on page 9 of the original documentation (https://www.frontierdesign.com/download/pdf/AlphaTrack/AlphaTrack_Native_1.0.pdf)

You have specified what you wee when controlling Pan and Send, but we are not done with "Pan" mode yet. Lets do it complete before we move to EQ.
What you see when Encorder 3 is switched to Trim? What you see during switching to trim (shift is pressed, before and during you touching the encoder). What you see when you touch the Fader?

And about the "pictures". When you turn Pan let say right, does it change from "---->|||--" to "------>|||" when it all way right? What exactly are the character in ">|||" (check with the table, or just make a screen shot).
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 18, 2015, 12:05:47 AM
At the moment I need "Send name" (so, the send output name). That functionality is not in AZ Controller and it is time to implement it. That can take a while (I mean tomorrow, not weeks...). I will continue with Display then.
Sounds fine to me! I guess you're using this preset as a test bed for pushing the plugin to another leve, so to speak. I hope I can help by giving you the information and testing you need... I'll do my best anyway!

Quote
I have already implemented "Push" to change the resolution, and it is "remembered" for each mode/encoder (as you have observed in the original plug-in).
It works! I noticed you also put the 'live' numerical display of the Pan value in. And yes, it 'remembers' the resolution on a per-mode and per-encoder basis. All good.

I also noticed that you've got something working for the Send name - when I change to Send mode it displays the current send and its name, which changes as I turn the encoder. So far so good! However whatever you did seems to have broken the display for everything after that (i.e. to the right) - meaning, there is nothing displayed for the middle or right encoders at all, even though they work, and nothing at all displayed (rather, no change or update to the display) for the EQ, Plug-in or Auto modes/pages. So it's hard to see what they're doing - this is true for the AZ display as well as the device display.

Also, some controls seem to have been affected - for example the EQ frequency encoder is not doing anything, though the gain and Q controls work...

I can confirm that these issues are new - the previous version of the preset displayed properly for all modes and the EQ parameters were all functionsl.

Quote
I think I will try to implement all fancy views the original plug-in provides, in case you specify not standard characters, please find them on page 9 of the original documentation (https://www.frontierdesign.com/download/pdf/AlphaTrack/AlphaTrack_Native_1.0.pdf)
OK. I've got those in front of me and will try to indicate what the screen looks like in terms of those characters - it's clear that they used them to create the 'sliders' in various views in the Frontier plugin.

Quote
You have specified what you wee when controlling Pan and Send, but we are not done with "Pan" mode yet. Lets do it complete before we move to EQ.
no problem. I'll try to sort out what it's doing in terms of the special characters too, so it's clear.  In fact, what might be easiest is if I take a couple of short video clips of the device display and what happens when I touch and move the various controls, in different modes. Might be the easiest way to communicate them to you...

But I'm afraid I can't do it tonight, I have a show tomorrow night and need to sleep a reasonable amount, so I'm going to leave you with the display/encoder bug reported above, and try to get back to it tomorrow.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 18, 2015, 12:10:08 AM
I am not ready with Display yet, but I have some progress with it.

But it will be nice in case you can check that new switching to Fine resolution mode is working. I have also reimplemented EQ Style control. That parameter of PC EQ is buggy, but it should work now as expected (from control and display perspective).

Please note there is no yet Plug-In and Auto modes Display in that version, no display changed on control touch or flip assignment. That is expected.

I have uploaded the version several minutes ago. What you have tested was most probably intermediate build, made for QU24 test... Because you should see at least EQ Display in current one.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 18, 2015, 11:13:13 AM
With regards to the triple-push on switching from track to bus mode: I have narrowed this down and noticed an odd thing: If the AZ plugin control window is open, and *selected*, it behaves as it should - switching back and forth with a single push. It also works if another program is open, like for example this browser window, and Sonar is running in the background (I can see from my console on a 2nd monitor). If the plugin window is not open at all, it still needs the triple push - two pushes to change from track to bus, one from bus to track.

Obviously this is not a big problem as most of the time there would be no reason to work with the plugin window open, but I thought it might be useful to help you track down whatever is causing it to take more presses than necessary.

Also, and a bit more of a problem, is that if the Console is selected - whether in the Multidock or its own window - the track/bus encoder push does not work at all.
I have tried to find working combination. This thing is extremely buggy. It looks like it works a bit different in Plat compare to X2 (where I do the development). And it is buggy as hell in both cases. At the moment, I have ended with some workaround which looks like working for me in Splat. Please check.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 18, 2015, 03:34:36 PM
Hi Alexey.

so today's summary word is: Wow!

One-click switch from track to bus is working perfectly, even if Console has the focus.

Switching from fine to coarse encoder resolution is working perfectly, and remembers on a per-mode basis. The display updates values correctly when using coarse or fine adjustment (though there is still no *visual indication of this in the display, but you know that already). Fine mode could maybe be a *tiny* bit less fine, but that's a little thing.

Pan, Send and EQ displays are working and all parameters (including Send name) update properly.

EQ 'filter style' switching (Hybrid, pure etc) is working perfectly. One click per style in either direction. And updating in the display.

Flip is working perfectly and can change 'flipped' parameters on the fly.

Great stuff! Being able to control EQ properly is really nice (I'd given up on it, since Frontier was obviously never going to update their plugin).

Besides the now missing display pages for Plug-in and Auto modes (the controls still work as previously), and of course the fancy 'slider' displays if you're really going to implement tham, there's only one significant 'bug' that I can find in the current preset:

'Trim' is not working properly yet. In the original plugin the Shift key switches the Pan encoder to control Gain rather than Pan. I see you've indicated this in the display, but the encoder does not control Gain but rather still controls Pan, but only to adjust downwards (turning counter-clockwise) - turning the encoder clockwise seems to do nothing.

It also seems slightly odd to me that this was set up (in the Frontier plugin - I know you're just replicating that so far) as a Shift modification rather than as a second 'page' of the Pan mode as with the other modes - it's inconsistent that in other modes you press the mode button twice to access the second layer of controls, whereas in Pan mode you press shift. I would suggest making this consistent, thus a second page of the Pan mode to control Trim. I don't know what the Shift modification could do in Pan mode then - since in the other modes, it allows switching between tracks with the left encoder - but of course that is already the default behaviour for the Pan mode. Perhaps we could think of something useful. Or leave it as it is... I'm just thinking out loud.

But again, this thing is seriously coming together! Amazing work!

I have to head out to my sound check and show so further info / pictures / videos will have to wait a bit longer. Sorry!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 19, 2015, 08:28:43 PM
Hi again. Sorry, I'm having a crazy busy couple of days and so not able to focus on this quite as much, hopefully I'll be able to spend a little time on it tonight and/or tomorrow, get you the display information you need.

I noticed there was an updated version so I checked it out quickly, it seems everything is the same excpept the Trim behaviour - I can see how you've implemented it now, which makes sense (though I still think a second page of Pan mode would be simpler and more consistent with the other modes). But the actual Trim control is not working yet - it doesn't do anything at all now (where it was uni-directionally controlling Pan before).

So, you're probably waiting on me at this point, I'll try to get to it as soon as possible!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 19, 2015, 09:44:04 PM
I am not in a hurry with that plug-in. In fact I think to take a pause with it. I have StudioMix to go, I also want modify the engine to support QU24 NRPNs.

I have uploaded modified version an hour ago.

Trim. According to the documentation, "Shift"+Encoder 3 switch what Encoder 3 control without shift. And so do I. There was a bug, so operation was "leaking" into Pan control. That should be fixed now.

Second page in the original plug-in is used for Surround. AZ Controller does not support it (yet). But who knows...

I have implemented display for Plug-in (normal and ACT speed dial mode) and Auto (just fixed text, there are LEDs to see the result).

I also display which encoders are "flippable" in each mode (activated when you keep Flip button pressed).

So, from my point of view the preset is usable. There is no "extended" views when you touch some control, but near everything required to understand the situation is visible. When I know how it looks like in all modes/positions, I will try to extend display functions.

But at the moment, I would like you test that everything works as expected one more time and I "release" the preset. You have spend a lot of time for this initial release. May be someone else can take over with display extension.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 19, 2015, 11:49:48 PM
Hi again.

OK I tested the latest build.

In short, everything works! The Trim control works, providing Input Gain control on audio tracks - but not on instrument tracks, which is strange but not a big problem really. In fact it's probably for the best - although the Gain control is available on screen in Instrument tracks, and can be changed with the mouse, it seems to have a fairly strange and unstable effect on instrument tracks - rather like a second, invisible, non-linear MIDI volume. I've never used it (I don't use it much in audio tracks either for that matter) and am just has happy to not have it in this preset.  The Pan 'leak' is fixed, which is the important thing.

The display pages are back for Plug-in and Auto modes, and working properly. I was wondering what the blank 2nd Plug-in page was for - I guess it's a placeholder for surround then?

I noticed the new 'Flip' display elements, that's a nice touch. However I've noticed a slightly strange behaviour there: if I press the Flip button while it is off, the 'Flip' flags appear on relevant encoders, but if I touch one of them nothing happens. The display goes back to normal (for whatever mode you're in) and no flip takes place - when I release the Flip button, the light stays off and the controls stay mapped where they were. The whole thing only works if I press and release the Flip button once first to go into 'default' flip mode, and then press it again to touch/select from the 'flippable' encoders. That's not a big problem, but it's slightly confusing to see the 'Flip' flags over the encoders when you first press Flip, and then touch one, and nothing happens. I'm not sure if it's possible to get it to Flip to a touched encoder right away, but if not, maybe it's possible to not have the flags appear except when they are usable, i.e. when pressing Flip from an already Flipped state? (I hope that's clear, I pretty much confused myself there!)

The preset is absolutely usable as it stands. It's a clear improvement over the original, unsupported plugin in that EQ control works. I'll take that over the 'fancy' display elements any day, but if you are keen to have a go at it, I'm happy to keep testing. It doesn't take so much time really, I'm sure you're spending much more, and you don't even have one of these controllers!

I did try mapping some commands to the Function keys. It's easy to do (now that I'm a tiny bit familiar with the plugin) and in fact it works perfectly to set them up as mode-specific, using the different modes as conditions for the logic entries. I can set it up as shift-dependent too, if I want to, so there are effectively 8 available for each mode. Nice! There are LEDs beside each of the 4 buttons, just as there are for the Loop and Flip ones, and I guess theoretically these could be used to indicate the state of whatever command or function the buttons are mapped to, if that were appropriate, but I can't see yet how you've implemented the LED switches and it's not a big enough issue for me to dig very deep trying to figure it out. The thing works right now, and is basically bug-free (except the minor Flip issue described above). I'm happy to have it back in full working order.

So yes, tomorrow I'll try to give you some information on the 'fancy' display stuff in the original plugin, and you can work on that if and when you want to, no pressure from my side!

Thanks again for your amazing work on all of this, I will continue to mention it on the Sonar forums whenever it seems appropriate (although you're usually faster than me!) and I hope more people start to use it, it's a great resource!

more soon...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 20, 2015, 12:18:27 PM
Hi again.

OK I tested the latest build.

In short, everything works! The Trim control works, providing Input Gain control on audio tracks - but not on instrument tracks, which is strange but not a big problem really. In fact it's probably for the best - although the Gain control is available on screen in Instrument tracks, and can be changed with the mouse, it seems to have a fairly strange and unstable effect on instrument tracks - rather like a second, invisible, non-linear MIDI volume. I've never used it (I don't use it much in audio tracks either for that matter) and am just has happy to not have it in this preset.  The Pan 'leak' is fixed, which is the important thing.
So, we leave it like it is now for the moment.

Quote
The display pages are back for Plug-in and Auto modes, and working properly. I was wondering what the blank 2nd Plug-in page was for - I guess it's a placeholder for surround then?
That is my "ACT Speed Dial" mode! Switch to it and start control something within any plug-in by mouse... You should see the plug-in/parameter names on display (in case the plug-in has some ACT mapping at all), and you can continue to control the parameter with encoder. With a bit of luck (untested), flip should also work here.

With just 3 encoders, I think that is the best way to use ACT. Going throw the parameter list in the page 1 is not productive, especially when a plug-in has 100s of parameter.

Quote
I noticed the new 'Flip' display elements, that's a nice touch. However I've noticed a slightly strange behaviour there: if I press the Flip button while it is off, the 'Flip' flags appear on relevant encoders, but if I touch one of them nothing happens. The display goes back to normal (for whatever mode you're in) and no flip takes place - when I release the Flip button, the light stays off and the controls stay mapped where they were. The whole thing only works if I press and release the Flip button once first to go into 'default' flip mode, and then press it again to touch/select from the 'flippable' encoders. That's not a big problem, but it's slightly confusing to see the 'Flip' flags over the encoders when you first press Flip, and then touch one, and nothing happens. I'm not sure if it's possible to get it to Flip to a touched encoder right away, but if not, maybe it's possible to not have the flags appear except when they are usable, i.e. when pressing Flip from an already Flipped state? (I hope that's clear, I pretty much confused myself there!)
Implemented according to the original documentation (as I understand it).
By touching control when Flip button is pressed, this control is Selected for flipping. But documentation explicitly say that should not flip immediately. Only in case you are/will go into Flip mode.

Quote
I did try mapping some commands to the Function keys. It's easy to do (now that I'm a tiny bit familiar with the plugin) and in fact it works perfectly to set them up as mode-specific, using the different modes as conditions for the logic entries. I can set it up as shift-dependent too, if I want to, so there are effectively 8 available for each mode. Nice! There are LEDs beside each of the 4 buttons, just as there are for the Loop and Flip ones, and I guess theoretically these could be used to indicate the state of whatever command or function the buttons are mapped to, if that were appropriate, but I can't see yet how you've implemented the LED switches and it's not a big enough issue for me to dig very deep trying to figure it out. The thing works right now, and is basically bug-free (except the minor Flip issue described above). I'm happy to have it back in full working order.
For LED, you need "Value monitor" after related parameter selection (or "State monitor" for states). See "Loop" Logical Action list and it's monitor definition in the Feedback section for example.

So, I will put the preset into next release and mark the thread as "(usable)". That does not mean we stop development, but since it is usable, let us mark it as such  ;)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 20, 2015, 12:45:06 PM
Hi Alexey!

So I finally found a bit of time to look at the Frontier plugin again and try to show you how the 'fancy' slider displays work.

In general one of the things it does that your preset doesn't do yet, is kind of 'isolate' the information about what an encoder will do when you touch it - in other words, if I'm in Pan mode and touch the Pan encoder, the display stops telling me about anything else than Pan, and switches to the slider display
(see attached image 'Pan1')

Again, it indicates whether the encoder is in fine adjustment mode with an asterisk * beside this slider
(see attached image 'Pan2')

When adjusting a level rather than a pan, it shows a simple slider without the little center arrows
(see attached image 'Send level 1')


(... more to follow...)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 20, 2015, 01:15:31 PM
again with asterisk for encoder resolution
(see attached image 'Send level 2')

For EQ control this is similar
(see attached images 'Eq1', 'EQ2')



Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 20, 2015, 01:16:36 PM
When adjusting a parameter that is on or off, where a slider would not make sense, it still 'hides' the other information so the display is very clear what the encoder you're touching will do
(see attached image 'BandEnable')

When changing parameters, say, in Plug-in mode, it shows the parameter name. Yours does this already as well, but I think it's kind of useful that the display hides the other information, for clarity.

It's fairly easy to see from the table in the documentation which you sent me already, how to use the special characters to create these sliders: a full block is 1F, on a volume or similar slider you would use characters 04 through 07 to indicate partial blocks, and for bi-directional sliders (Pan) you would also use characters 00 through 03. It's not clear to me how character 08 is different from 00, but maybe you can see something that I can't... I also don't see what the other special characters would be for, but those should be sufficient to create the slider displays.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 20, 2015, 01:23:50 PM
Hi again... just to reply to your reply....

That is my "ACT Speed Dial" mode! Switch to it and start control something within any plug-in by mouse... You should see the plug-in/parameter names on display (in case the plug-in has some ACT mapping at all), and you can continue to control the parameter with encoder. With a bit of luck (untested), flip should also work here.

With just 3 encoders, I think that is the best way to use ACT. Going throw the parameter list in the page 1 is not productive, especially when a plug-in has 100s of parameter.
Oh I see! Cool! It works perfectly, much better so far than in my Kore MCU emulation, so given that I have both in front of me I can just use the Alpha instead for that. Yes, it's really convenient.

Quote
By touching control when Flip button is pressed, this control is Selected for flipping. But documentation explicitly say that should not flip immediately. Only in case you are/will go into Flip mode.
OK no problem, I just found it slightly confusing the first time I saw it, where if I press Flip when it's not already pressed the encoders seem to be offering themselves to be flipped immediately, but it's not possible until you press and release Flip once, and then press it again.

Quote
For LED, you need "Value monitor" after related parameter selection (or "State monitor" for states). See "Loop" Logical Action list and it's monitor definition in the Feedback section for example.
OK I'll have a look at it, maybe if it's easy to implement I can put it into my custom button codes where appropriate. I still haven't decided what I want to map there in each mode...

Quote
So, I will put the preset into next release and mark the thread as "(usable)". That does not mean we stop development, but since it is usable, let us mark it as such  ;)
Agreed. I posted some pictures of the sliders above, I hope they make sense, if you have questions or want more for clarity on what it looks like in specific modes, just let me know!

Thanks again...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 20, 2015, 06:27:29 PM
Released in 0.3r9.

Thanks for pictures, I will try to updated the display soon.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 20, 2015, 06:42:11 PM
Great! No hurry of course.

I also made a video but I need to reduce it to a file size that I can post somewhere... maybe later tonight. In case it's helpful.

I haven't figured out the LED thing yet (state monitor / value monitor) but playing around with it...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 20, 2015, 10:30:19 PM
So, out of interest I've been trying to get an LED working on a Function button, to see if I can understand the flow of information within the plugin. I've chosen to toggle the inspector with the F1 button, just as a test bed. I can get the button working, and by looking at what various existing button/LED combinations do I can get the LED working too, turning on and off with the Inspector, using a state and triggering the Control Midi message to turn it on and off.

It works... until the view is changed from somewhere else, say via the mouse or a key command. Then the light gets out of sync. The Loop LED, however, does not do this - it is obviously reading the Loop state from Sonar, so if it gets changed in some other way, the plugin knows it and sends the command to turn the LED off. I can't figure out how it's doing this - I've tried to track it down but so far, no good. I've also read your documentation, but so far I can't find anything in there to tell me how to get the plugin to monitor a program state like this. Maybe it's not possible currently, except with specific things like Loop?

Also, I can't figure out how to make it Shift-dependent, as the Loop LED is - once Shift is pressed, the Loop button changes its function, so the LED changes to monitoring Punch state.

Any quick advice you can offer would be great - I'm not obsessed with this, or even committed to this particular mapping, I just thought it would be a useful little test to see if I could get the LED to sync with the software state. So far, no luck...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on May 21, 2015, 12:14:47 AM
Maybe it's not possible currently, except with specific things like Loop?
Unfortunately, it is not possible. I can not get that information from sonar, as many other thing which are not accessible with API. The only states which are changed in sync with sonar are System states (Loop, Transport, etc). User defined state are under full user control, there is not magic in my software.

I have spend quite some time to understand how to ask which strip type is currently in focus. And than it took me many iterations till I found working way to switch them. Because: "Switch to Bus panel" alone does not work (buggy), "Focus Bussed" does not work (buggy). But, if you are on track, "Switch to Track panel" (we already here!) followed by "Switch to Bus panel" works!

As you can see, I am also digging and digging, frustrated by bugs, sometimes with success.  But before you spend your time, you can always ask me either something is known to be possible. If you like challenges, I will just answer "Yes/No", without writing the solution  ;)


Quote
Also, I can't figure out how to make it Shift-dependent, as the Loop LED is - once Shift is pressed, the Loop button changes its function, so the LED changes to monitoring Punch state.
The trick here: many LEDs are controlled from the Shift State monitor (Flip, Loop, Punch). Corresponding monitors just trigger Shift monitor, so the same code is working either Flip, Loop, Punch or Shift state is changed. I could do it other way around: update LEDs in corresponding State Monitors, and trigger all that monitors on Shift changes. That second approach is better, since it will not update all LEDs on any state change. So, the first implementation is a kind of "historical".
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: symetrk on May 21, 2015, 12:29:39 AM
OK great, thanks - clarity is good, and I'm not really interested in tilting at windmills so I'll let that one go. The 'I' key works pretty well after all, and even if I decide to use the button, the LED is hardly of great importance when there's obvious visual feedback on the screen, that being the whole point of the Inspector! Anyway I'll gradually find things that seem useful to map to the Function keys that either make sense on a per-mode basis, or aren't easily accessible with key commands (or use complex combinations that are hard to remember).

I think in general you're better placed to do the complex implementations, and of course most of the important ones are already done and working perfectly, so I'll stick to my testing role except for mapping simple commands as above.

Again, if you do get into trying to implement the sliders, let me know and I'm happy to test and/or provide further information where required...
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on June 10, 2015, 09:30:00 PM
Hi friends!

We had a pause, and it was nice, at least for me and my family.

But it is time to continue...

I have uploaded a test version. There are several internal changes there can be some regression! in general, not only in Alphatrack preset. So, please test everything is working as before and does not crash.

To make that test a bit more interesting, I have added display update for Fader (only fader at the moment, no changes for encoders). It should work correctly in normal and flipped mode. In case you are curious what you should expect there, open internal display. While the information is the same, it is transfered different way and I can not test the result.
Complete display functionality should be there! All modes, flips, indicators ("normal" and "pan"), flip indication, resolution indication. I do not display separate views for switches since I do not see a need for that ("On"/"Off"... Why you may want display it "full screen"?). For values it make sense, to display complete value (it is 5 characters only otherwise, cutting some important information) and visualize the "position" for encoders.

I had to increase the traffic for display, so check that disconnects  have not returned. I have modified a bit how the information is transfered to display (at all places), with the hope it works better. But as a former Russian prime-minister sad once: "We wanted make it better, but the result is... as usual..." So who knows, I am also Russian  ;)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: Rhenn on October 23, 2016, 11:45:04 PM
Hi - Not sure if this is the right place to post. New user. Have downloaded and installed AZController, read tutorials, followed instructions, and things are mostly working as I like. Most of this is over my head tech-wise, but so far so good. Setup is Win 10, Sonar Plat, Roland A-Pro300 and Frontier Alphatrack. Delighted to be using Alphatrack again! Here's my question: I would like to use Alphatrack motorized fader to record midi CC 11, CC1, and others occasionally. It works well controlling the track faders/strips in Sonar, but I would like to be able to switch it to midi and then back to it's default ("normal") function. Is that possible? Thanks for all you've done here and for any help you can provide with my request!
Randy
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 24, 2016, 12:54:21 AM
Hi and welcome!

Control Surfaces can not "inject" MIDI, in addition the Fader is sending PitchBend messages. Even if I "free" it "on the fly", I can not influence what it will send. So MIDI track will receive PB message (not configurable). Well, it is possible using MFX plug-in on the track to "convert" the message into arbitrary CC. It still will be recorded as PB, so every time you want edit it in PRV, you will have to apply that MFX to track. In addition, there will be no "feedback" nor Touch, that is simply not supported by MIDI writing.

What I want to say, even if I implement that functionality, there will be absolutely no benefits over using faders from you A-Pro for the same purpose. And you can configure APro to just send required MIDI when you switch it from "Sonar" to "MIDI" mode (and since you have several faders, you do not need to reconfigure that all the time).

If you do not really want CC1, CC11, etc. but write automations for some Synth, that can work out of the box (for one automation parameter in the current preset, but that I can tweak for you) using ACT mode and "flipping" fader with corresponding encoder. Advantages: you can overwrite automations the same way you can do with volume, I mean with touch and feedback. But I want to repeat, that is going to work with automatable parameters only and it will be recorded as a track automation, not into the MIDI clip. While Sonar support track automations for CC on MIDI tracks, Control Surface API unfortunately has no access to such automations.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: Rhenn on October 24, 2016, 04:21:44 AM
Thanks for your fast reply! Let me attempt to explain my workflow and see if that sheds any light on the issue: I do orchestral work with East West Hollywood Orchestra Libraries, etc. I write CC1 (modulation) and CC11 (expression) curves in almost every track in the piano roll.  I find the A-pro sliders "throw" is too short for accurate work, so I usually wind up drawing in the curves with the mouse using the Smart Tool or Drawing tool. Very tedious, very slow process - frustrating but necessary. This made we wonder if I could use the full-size Alphatrack fader to record the midi automation with better results.  It sounds like I "might' be able to do this in Track View in an automation lane - perhaps a 2-step process?

Your 3rd paragraph option sounds interesting. The "flipping" option might work? That would require tweaking the preset?

Does this make sense what I'm trying to do? Any ideas?

Thanks so much!  :)


Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 24, 2016, 11:09:13 AM
For that purpose automation writing throw Control Surface is not possible. We should try to find a reasonable way to write CC.

But I propose we first check that controlling CC mechanically from AT Fader is going to help you. If it is, we can think how to optimize that process.
The following takes less time to try then it looks like, also you can find it useful for other MIDI manipulation purpose:
1. Please install AZ Lua : http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,286.0.html There is a link to YouTube video with step by step explanation.
2. While you can also install proposed "Example presets pack", for the test you will need the preset attached to this post (AZLua_PB2CC). Install it the same way as examples in video (throw Cakewalk Plug-in Manager, NOTE: it is for "MIDI Effects(MFX) / AZ Lua", and NOT for AZ Controller!).
3. Put AZ Lua into FX bin of some MIDI track in question (if you use "Instrument" tracks, switch the Track Inspector to MIDI), select PB2CC preset
4. In Sonar preferences / Control Surfaces, temporarily remove whatever plug-in you are using for Alphatrack (AZ Controller or original). If you have some "unused" MIDI, you can set the plug-in input to that MIDI instead of removing it completely. That should "free" Alphatrack to send all messages to MIDI tracks instead of plug-in.
5. Set MIDI track input to Alphatrack or Omni.
6. Record fader movements into the track, so effectively the procedure we test. PitchBend(Wheel) changes should be recorded (otherwise check the routing). You can also try with PitchBend of your A-Pro. While PitchBend messages are recorded, AZ Lua convert them "on the fly" (and on playback) into CC. Probably you could notice, you can set/change CC number in the AZ Lua GUI, but the effect is immediate, you can not have CC1 and CC11 at the same time (also you can not use REAL pitchbend now, it will be also converted, but do not worry, that we can avoid).
7. You can "bounce" recorded PitchBend into selected CC. Select the clip/track in question, from  Sonar menu select Process/Apply effect/MIDI effects. In the dialog uncheck "Delete the effect...", since we still need it after. After you press OK, AZ Lua will permanently convert PitchBend into selected CC. And you can second next CC (using PitchBend)...


Please let me know either you find that way of recording convenient, I mean either you like the feeling during recording and the result.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: Rhenn on October 24, 2016, 09:22:49 PM
Impressive! Works just as you described. And YES, I DO like writing the midi expression automation this way with the full-size AT fader.  (Much easier than the little faders on the A-Pro.) I can probably get used to the extra steps of adding the MFX plug-in, recording, and then bouncing the effect, (multiple times, probably).  Of course, the other AT functions are now inoperable because the AT plug-in is disabled...
So, is there a way to have both? Can we (you) program the flip button to swap Pitch Bend with CC11? Or some other solution?
In the meantime, I will experiment some more with actual project files and see how that goes...
Thank you!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 24, 2016, 11:07:01 PM
I am glad the first impression is positive! Please give it a try in real project, and in case you are still convinced that the idea is good, there are possible solutions:

1. external MIDI translator
+ pro:  you can switch between controlling mode using AT buttons, no MFX required, data are recorded directly as CC, you can still use original AT plug-in
- cons: you have to "sacrifice" either the number of buttons you need different CCs (f.e. for CC1+CC11 you will need 2 buttons) or one button, but with "looping" functionality (f.e. for CC1+CC11 you will need to press it 2 times to start CC11 writing and then 1 time to return, for CC1 - one time to start then 2 times to end... can be rather boring, especially when the number of possible CCs is more then 2), there will be no indication in which mode you are; most probably I will not manage to do this with free tools, so $60 for Bome's MIDI translator pro
note: it will take a while for me to even start implementing that since I am far away from my Windows PC during this week

2. external MIDI looper (I use loopMIDI, but there are other, free) and 2 AZ Controllers in "cooperation mode"
+ pro: what you control and when you control will be inside preset, you will be able to select required CC with encoder and corresponding indication on display, data recorded directly as CC, all tools are free
- cons: obviously will work with AZ Controller only; there will be some delay between you move the fader and CC is recorded, in my experience it is under 1ms but we better test it before implementing complete configuration
note: I can prepare corresponding test rather fast, 1-2 CCs on function keys are also not a problem, complete solution will take some time

3. modified AZ Controller which can temporarily put the fader "out of control" (not so easy since Sonar has a bug in PitchBend+ControlSurfaces part)
+ pro: no external tools, free
- cons: only PitchBend can be recorded, so with MFX + bouncing, the same way as you are doing this now
note: AZ Controller modification is required and I will be quite busy these days, but probably manageable till the end of the week

-----

From "usability" perspective, (2) is probably the best. But I have mentioned everything which come into my mind this evening ;)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: Rhenn on October 25, 2016, 12:21:13 AM
This still looks promising. I'm always looking for a better/faster way of doing things. I neglected to mention that my main controller keyboard is a Kurzweil K2600. I bought the AlphaTrack, and later the A-Pro, in an ongoing attempt to use knobs & sliders with soft synths, etc. The whole 'ACT' concept, as advertised, sounded great. However, in reality, ACT doesn't work reliably or well, as you point out in your discussion re: the ACTfix utility (which I have now downloaded and attempted to use).* Since the A-Pro was custom made "for" ACT, I figured it would work out of the box. Not so much.
Back to the K2600: using your AZlua MFX plug-in, I can use both the Mod wheel and Pitch Bend wheel to simultaneously control CC1 & CC11, which is cool and useful. The wheel has the added advantage of "springing back" to the middle (value =65), which works well for expression. So I like that!  As of now, I can use the K2600 pitch/mod wheels for the CC automation and use the AT in native mode with your AZ Controller to do other things. Progress!

Still, working with the long fader on the AT is nice. So your solution #2 sounds interesting! It also sounds like a fair amount of work for you, and I don't want to take advantage of your kindness. And I wouldn't want to waste your time if I wound up not using it. BUT... if you want to give it a go when you have time, I'll definitely try it out!  (A <1ms delay shouldn't be a problem for me).

A couple notes on my test of the MFX plugin: 
1. The AT fader motor keeps resetting itself.  It returns to zero, or some other setting whenever I stop moving it for a few seconds. And I can't turn the motor off using Shift-flip since we've disabled the "normal" plug-in. I suspect using it in this fashion might eventually harm the motor?   
2. I assigned the AZ Controller to an extra midi port as you suggested. After the test, when I reassigned it to the AT ports, the AT wasn't recognized by Sonar (or visa-versa) even after exiting and restarting Sonar. I had to reboot the system to get full functionality back. Just FYI.

*Working on this has reawakened my interest in ACT which I had more or less given up on.  I have more questions about using ACT with the A-Pro and your ACTfix utility, and various soft-synths, like Ivory, Kontakt, etc.  Should I start a new thread over at your ACTfix discussion?

Hope this all makes sense.
Many, many, thanks!
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 25, 2016, 11:41:14 AM
Still, working with the long fader on the AT is nice. So your solution #2 sounds interesting! It also sounds like a fair amount of work for you, and I don't want to take advantage of your kindness. And I wouldn't want to waste your time if I wound up not using it. BUT... if you want to give it a go when you have time, I'll definitely try it out!  (A <1ms delay shouldn't be a problem for me).
Ok I will prepare something (may be not today, but during this week).

Quote
A couple notes on my test of the MFX plugin: 
1. The AT fader motor keeps resetting itself.  It returns to zero, or some other setting whenever I stop moving it for a few seconds. And I can't turn the motor off using Shift-flip since we've disabled the "normal" plug-in. I suspect using it in this fashion might eventually harm the motor?   
I remember the reason now... That should not be a problem in solution #2 (good that you have remind me I should take that into account).

Quote
2. I assigned the AZ Controller to an extra midi port as you suggested. After the test, when I reassigned it to the AT ports, the AT wasn't recognized by Sonar (or visa-versa) even after exiting and restarting Sonar. I had to reboot the system to get full functionality back. Just FYI.
It is hard to say why restarting Sonar could not help.

Quote
*Working on this has reawakened my interest in ACT which I had more or less given up on.  I have more questions about using ACT with the A-Pro and your ACTfix utility, and various soft-synths, like Ivory, Kontakt, etc.  Should I start a new thread over at your ACTfix discussion?
Yes, please start a new thread in "Discussions". Since you are using A-Pro + Alphatrack (so more then 1 controller), that is a tick more tricky then usual, even with AZ Fix (there is a bug in Sonar which I have understood and so I guess it is going to be fixed in next Sonar versions...)

Quote
Many, many, thanks!
You are welcome  :)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 26, 2016, 05:51:25 PM
Ok... the first test version is ready. Can be it does not work at all since I can not test it, but you can  ;)

Functionality
Almost the same as build-in preset for Alphatrack, generated with default setting but...

F4 button changes the Fader and Right encoder into "Fader CC writing" mode (and back). In that mode:
* you should see "CC 1" on display over the right encoder
* right encoder change which CC the fader will control (for now 1 and 11, can be extended up to 127). Just an idea (if you need it): I can also change MIDI Channel on which CC will be sent, f.e with Shift+Encoder. But for the moment, the channel is fixed to 1.
* the fader send selected CC messages, so 0 to 127 (the fader is hi resolution, but CC values are not).

Note that there is no "feedback" in this mode since it is impossible to get "last CC value" from Sonar even theoretically (imagine MIDI input is enabled on several tracks, each with different "current" value for selected CC). Once the mode is changed to "normal", feedback should return the fader into correct position. But it should not "reset" itself in CC mode.

Installation
* You need 0.5r3b342 or later version of AZController. Currently it is not yet released, so download it from "Downloads/AZ Controller/Test versions".
* You need some software "loopback" MIDI device. I use "loopMIDI", but there are several free solutions which work for all Windows versions. There are many instructions how to set them in Windows and Sonar, but if you have problems with that let me know (better in other thread since that is not Alphatrack/AZController related). The result of the installation should be one "LoopIn" and one "LoopOut" enabled in Sonar such a way that sending to "LoopOut" should produce MIDI from "LoopIn". Also "LoopIn" should be enabled explicitly or as "Omni" on target MIDI track to have any effect.

1. Follow instructions for build-in Alphatrack preset (the first post in this thread) and check it is working.
2. Add the SECOND instance of AZ Controller into Sonar Control Surfaces, setting Input to "None" and output to "LoopOut".
3. Close properties for the first instance (if you have it opened, important!) and open properties for the second instance (f.e. from Sonar menu Utilities/AZ Controller-2). Without touching anything in the "presets" section (the top of the window), switch to the "Options" tab, find drop box where you see "Master" and change it to "Slave 1". Without (!!!) saving preset close this window (and never open again, till you remove that second instance and want restore the settings later, just repeat the procedure in this case).
4. Download and install preset attached to this post, install it using Cakewalk Plug-in Manager in Utilities menu (select there "Control Surfaces" / "AZ Controller" / "Import..." / select the file and press "Ok").
5. Open properties of the first instance (where you have generated AT preset). In the top left corner, select "AlphaTrackWithCC" preset. If you do not see it here, restart Sonar and try to find it again.
6. What I have described before should work now.

NOTE: most Sonar versions "forget" MIDI port assignments for Control Surfaces if the port is not available during Sonar startup (and unlike other use of MIDI, that setting does not return after sonar restart). And unlike connecting hardware surfaces, it is easy to forget to start MIDI looper before Sonar. So if CC sending no longer works, Control Surfaces ports is the first place to check.

Happy automating!  ;)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: Rhenn on October 27, 2016, 12:30:55 AM
Outstanding! I don't know which is more impressive - your very clever work, or the fact that I was able to follow your excellent instructions without missing something! It all works flawlessly! Very, very cool. A new workflow has been born. LOVE the functionality and the ease of switching from CC mode back to "regular" mode. Also having CC1 & 11 on the right encoder is brilliant and very handy. Hmmm, ....wonder what else this baby can do???

Now, if I can figure out what ACT is supposed to do, versus what it actually does/doesn't do, and write it down, I will pepper you with more questions on a new thread. Stay tuned...

In the meantime, a couple notes: FYI, I wound up installing "LoopBe1" because it had a smaller footprint and an auto mute feature to prevent me from setting up an endless loop and perhaps bringing the entire world to a hasty end. So far so good! Second, the AlphaTrack sometimes hangs when exiting Sonar. No big deal, just unplug it, and it wakes up fine. Just for the heck of it, I increased the Display Update speed to 5 and so far it's behaving itself. Don't know if that a coincidence or otherwise. That reminds me - Can you help me understand the Plug-in Control, Page1 mode options in the Preset settings dialogue - focus/no focus/ACT? I may be sorry I asked, but what does the ACT option do in this case?

One final question - something I've always wondered: You mentioned you could add a midi channel select function on an encoder. Let's say I have Sonar track #1 set to external midi ch1, and track #2 set to midi ch2.  Now, I sequentially record midi parts on both tracks, using my main controller set to ch1 for both. So all events on both tracks are "ch1" events. Including CC events, etc. That's my usual way of working, sometimes up to 100 tracks or more. So all events in the entire sequence are "Ch1" events. Does it matter? Should I care? (I used to use the interpolate function to find/change all the events and force them to match whatever actual midi channel the track was assigned to.) But it didn't seem to make any difference, and I decided I was wasting time for no reason. SO, is there any reason to concern myself with the channel number of individual events as long as I'm getting the desired musical result?  Long question - hopefully short answer! :)

Thank you again so much!!!    :) :) :)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 27, 2016, 08:39:54 AM
Second, the AlphaTrack sometimes hangs when exiting Sonar. No big deal, just unplug it, and it wakes up fine. Just for the heck of it, I increased the Display Update speed to 5 and so far it's behaving itself. Don't know if that a coincidence or otherwise.
What you mean by "hangs when exiting Sonar": Sonar does not exit (hangs) or you can not use AT after?

Quote
That reminds me - Can you help me understand the Plug-in Control, Page1 mode options in the Preset settings dialogue - focus/no focus/ACT? I may be sorry I asked, but what does the ACT option do in this case?
Important! As soon as you use this dialog, the preset is "regenerated". So the changes for CC are no longer there. I will need to modify the code to add changes into auto-generation. Simpler you say  me the settings your prefer I and update modified preset.

"No-focus/focus/open UI" controls what happens when you change plug-in with AlphaTrack. Either "does not inform" sonar about that fact, inform by changing focus (like you click on this plug-in in FXbin) or open plug-in GUI.

ACT - all 3 encoders function as "3 knobs" for ACT Dynamic Map (can be "ACT Learned").

Quote
One final question - something I've always wondered: You mentioned you could add a midi channel select function on an encoder. Let's say I have Sonar track #1 set to external midi ch1, and track #2 set to midi ch2.  Now, I sequentially record midi parts on both tracks, using my main controller set to ch1 for both. So all events on both tracks are "ch1" events. Including CC events, etc. That's my usual way of working, sometimes up to 100 tracks or more. So all events in the entire sequence are "Ch1" events. Does it matter? Should I care? (I used to use the interpolate function to find/change all the events and force them to match whatever actual midi channel the track was assigned to.) But it didn't seem to make any difference, and I decided I was wasting time for no reason. SO, is there any reason to concern myself with the channel number of individual events as long as I'm getting the desired musical result?  Long question - hopefully short answer! :)
It is better to keep everything on ch1 as you do. There was several long discussions about that topic on Sonar forum.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: Rhenn on October 27, 2016, 04:01:48 PM
Quote
What you mean by "hangs when exiting Sonar": Sonar does not exit (hangs) or you can not use AT after?
Sonar closes normally. AT is unresponsive; displays keeps showing track info after exiting Sonar. If I unplug and re-plug USB cable, all is fine. No big deal.

Quote
Important! As soon as you use this dialog, the preset is "regenerated". So the changes for CC are no longer there. I will need to modify the code to add changes into auto-generation. Simpler you say  me the settings your prefer I and update modified preset.
Mostly just curious about how this works and what options are available. No need to customize further. Works great.

Quote
It is better to keep everything on ch1 as you do. There was several long discussions about that topic on Sonar forum.
Ok thanks - good to know!

 :)
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on October 27, 2016, 04:22:42 PM
Quote
What you mean by "hangs when exiting Sonar": Sonar does not exit (hangs) or you can not use AT after?
Sonar closes normally. AT is unresponsive; displays keeps showing track info after exiting Sonar. If I unplug and re-plug USB cable, all is fine. No big deal.
There is no special "cleanup" programmed in the preset. So when you exit, AZ Controller is not cleaning display nor LEDs. But AT should work again when you restart Sonar (or start other program which work with it). You can try to close project before exiting Sonar and see if that change anything (probably not). I can try to program some "good by" logic if you want (to display something like "Have a nice evening!" ;) )
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: db on February 24, 2022, 09:43:12 PM
This looks like amazing software, especially if I can get it to resurrect my Alphatrack.  I tried the Alphatrack "tweak" with AZ Controller (Version .5r10b415, Sonar: 28.2r0b19 [CbB 2022.02]). It seems like the buttons and three encoders work, as well as the scroll strip, but I don't get anything on the LCD screen, the LED's don't work, and the motorized fader just sits at the bottom and doesn't change the value in CbB. If I try to move it, it returns to the bottom.

I have both Sonar Platinum installed and Cakewalk by Bandlab, though I am trying to use it in Cakewalk by Bandlab. I also tried installing the Frontier Sonar software, but removed the alphatrack dll's from the Shared Surfaces folder.

I know this is an old controller, but any ideas?

Thanks.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on February 24, 2022, 09:53:48 PM
Are you sure you have assigned proper MIDI output port to AZ Controller? From your observation, Alphatrack does not receive messages from AZ Controller.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: db on February 25, 2022, 02:33:42 PM
It works! Amazing! Thank you.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: db on February 25, 2022, 04:14:03 PM
Well, I spoke too soon. After about a minute, I don't seem to be getting any midi messages from the Alphatrack's motorized fader. If I close Cakewalk, unplug and re-plug the Alphatrack, and start Cakewalk again, I'll get another minute. All the other buttons and encoders still work.

This doesn't seem to be an AZ Controller issue. I installed a midi monitor and the same thing happens: about a minute of usage from the fader before no midi messages, while all the other controls on the Alphatrack continue to send midi.

>>>>>Update...

I may have the answer... After performing a calibration on the controller (Shift + Stop + F4), things have been stable.
Title: Re: [AZ, Symetrk, Gswitz and Frankjcc] Frontier AlphaTrack
Post by: azslow3 on February 25, 2022, 05:14:27 PM
The unit can be broken... But you still can try 2 things. First try re-calibrate the fader. Read original user manual how to do this.

Check your USB port and cable, many be change to different port and use another cable. The device is bus powered, in case USB power saving options are active, the device can malfunction. Try disable USB power management in Windows settings.

As third, use MIDI monitor to check touch sensor is working. There must be a message when you touch the sensor, before you move it. And there must be another when you release your finger.