Author Topic: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One  (Read 4365 times)

Offline macmalon

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Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« on: January 26, 2021, 09:07:57 PM »
Hello,

First of all thank you for all your work AZSlow and the guys who made presets for the X Touch one (namely Boblev, Jashk@ and Horsepants). Now my XTouch O is perferct for my use (I use the Cubase modified SPP by Horsepants).

Now to my problem... I use the Lecto amp sim from LePou, and I would like to use a foot pedal (I use a recycled 2 buttons Marschal amp foot pedal for this purpose, with only the Channel button being recognised in AZC) to flip a switch on the amp (the Vintage/Raw/Modern switch). I have tried reading the how to but honestly, it's too complicated for me :)

However, by fiddling with the AZC plugin, I managed to see a value when I hit the pedal switch and I see three different values for the position of the swith on the amp plugin. But I have no idea how I can link them together.

And what would be perfect for my use, is to be able to only switch between Raw and Modern on the amp so that when I press one time on the footswith it goes from Raw to Modern and to modern to Raw on a second press.

Thank you for reading and maybe providing a solution :)

Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2021, 10:02:31 AM »
Hello,

It is a bit complicated, also the plug-in is a bit buggy in that parameter exposition.
I attach an example preset, assign button/pedal to the control and focus the track with LePou. Pedal/button should switch between Raw and Modern then.

An explanation.
1. you need to "find" the track with plug-in. In the example I just use current focused track. Depending on your needs, that can be changed. You can use some
fixed track and select by number, f.e. first+5 with track 6. You can also use fixed track name, f.e. GTX (you will need to define "TrackName" Set in the options tab,
with "GTX" state, then you can choose it in the Track selection action).
2. we select FX (LePou) on the track and parameter "Mode". Then we try to map it's value (always 0-1 for any parameter) to 3 States Set. That is buggy in this plug-in,
but should work for the purpose. Than we set Value to what we need (modes are 0., 0.5., 1.0). In general you probably want all that as it is.

If you want to copy this control into your existing preset, do that exactly with the same parameters (exporting as text in the Options tab can help you clearly see all
parameters). Don't forget to create Software State Set used.
Sure, if you upload your current preset I can add this control for you. I know that takes some time without experience.

Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2021, 12:21:58 PM »
Hi !

Whoo! That's very nice of you! I did not expect such a great service. Thanks very much.

The track will always be track 1 in Cakewalk where I plug the guitar and where I set the amp as an effect.

I must admit that it would be nice to implement this in the attached preset I'm using as it took me three bottles of wine to get through all the tutorials! (might be the reason why everything got a bit confused in the end!!!) (we like wine too here in France!!)

And optionnally, I have noticed that with this preset, the motorized slider moves down and up again everytime I change track. Like let's say track 1 is at 0db, and track 2 at -6db. When I go from track 2 to track 1 it goes down a bit and back to 0db. I didn't notice this behavior when it was in Mackie Control mode. It's because I needed to have a switch for the virtual amp that I came accross your work.


Anyway, thanks a lot for your help. It's like having an engineer at ones side!

Edit: I haven't had the time to try out your solution yet, but I will definitely try later today.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2021, 12:26:00 PM by macmalon »

Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2021, 09:06:15 PM »
Assign your pedal to "Pedal" control (the first one).

For the faders jumps... I have an idea why it can be so (X-Touch One specific). I will try to address it tomorrow.

Why you write "It's like having an engineer"? You really have a system software engineer with 30+ years experience in hardcore programming on the "other side"  :)

Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2021, 10:47:03 PM »
Yeaaah it works (almost perfectly*) !!!

I had to tinkle a bit with the hardware part because the pedal was assigned by default to play/pause function. I tried detaching but it was still doing play/pause. Then I copied your lines in the logic tab, looked for the pedal line, removed play/pause function and pasted your logic lines. So now it does exactly what is expected, i.e. switching just between raw and modern.

*However, there is still a small inconvenient which might be due to the pedal which is just a switch from a real amp. So I have to press twice on the pedal to make a change. The midi event alternates between Value 0 OFF and Value 127 for each press on the pedal. So I'm guessing the software switch only moves when the hardware switch from the pedal says 127?

Is there a way to make the software switch move on every switch from the real pedal, if you see what I mean?

(What I meant in the previous message is that its amazing to have an engineer like you helping out like this, thanks !)




Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2021, 11:37:33 PM »
Have you inserted actions into UserA or UserB ? You never need to press "Detach" (till you want completely remove control), use "Forget MIDI" to remove assignment.

You can select "Note:Any" (default is Note:On) Condition for each action in the pedal list. That the whole sequence should work every time.

Please upload modified preset, so I can try to solve fader problem in it (and you don't need to repeat your modification).

Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #6 on: January 28, 2021, 12:29:45 AM »
Actually, after messing up with your preset, I reloaded it clean and just pasted your action list in the pedal control used for play pause without detaching anything. The pedal control is further down in the list (midi channel 1 and then 102)

I do not see "Note: any" condition in your list. Shall I create it?


In the meantime, here is my modified preset...
« Last Edit: January 28, 2021, 12:34:47 AM by macmalon »

Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #7 on: January 28, 2021, 04:16:32 PM »
Please check this version.

Note that track selection indication is changed, I have no real way to check it works. But it should avoid the fader "goes toward zero" first on channel switching.
Pedal should work every time.

NOTE: please check you run the latest AZ Controller, v412

Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2021, 05:33:27 PM »
Cool, thanks! Now the footswith responds perfectly at each press :) Very pleased and impressed :)

As for the slider, it might be slightly better but it still jumps. If it goes from a higher poistion to a lower position, no jump. But from a lower to higher position it goes up to position (or almost, goes too fast to be sure), go down again a bit and back up to the right position of the track.

Here's a link to a small video of the behavior of the slider going back and forth between 2 tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRkw3AClJ7M and a pic of my tracks in Cakewalk.


Thanks


Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2021, 06:28:11 PM »
With AZ Controller open, press the same buttons as in the video. What you see in the "Last MIDI Event"? I am not interested in MIDI info, but there should be Control Name.

From my imagination what i SHOULD do, resulting behavior is not expected. It is not only extra moving the fader, it is clearly visible that LEDs are "blinking".

Can you also check that AZv2 and AZ (so my previous upload) really produce significantly different result?

Since I don't know what this device is really doing and so what exactly it expects from the DAW, it is not easy to "fix" it  :D

Also I home you use the latest X-Touch One firmware. First versions was buggy.     

Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2021, 06:38:49 PM »
In last midi event I see Select 1 and Select 2 for the control names, if that's what you're looking for?

I've just checked with the previous version of the preset, and the sliders moves much more down before coming back to position. With V2 it doesn't go so low. The green channel select led blinks in both versions.

I'm using the latest version of your plugin and firmware ver 1.07 on the surface wich is the one of the latest. Definitely not the first versions so.


Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #11 on: January 28, 2021, 10:43:21 PM »
Select 1/2 is what I have expected (well... guessed, more precisely hoped  :o )

Can you check if attached v3 works better or worse then v2?

But probably to analyse the problem we will need to go online. Fixing problems in preset which in fact was written for completely different device, based on some imagination how this device emulate another device, has little chances for perfection.

BTW the right way to use X-Touch One with Cakewalk is put it into native mode and create special AZ Controller preset from scratch... But no-one has done that so far.

Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #12 on: January 28, 2021, 11:37:46 PM »
I have just loaded the new preset but the issue is still there. When going up, no problem, but when the next track volume is inferior, then it bounces.

It's the same behavior.

The thing is that there is no cakewalk native mode in the x touch one. Many other DAWs except that one... there is a MC User mode, the one I'm using right now.

...

While I was writing the last sentence, it made me think I could try changing the different modes in the surface. And I found out that with the Reaper mode the slider moves flawlessly! With both of your presets. The slider doesn't jump anymore. However I'm afraid it messes up the layout of other buttons. I'll restart computer to check this.


Offline macmalon

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #13 on: January 28, 2021, 11:43:57 PM »
So yeah, it meses up all the buttons configuration...

Offline azslow3

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Re: Footswitch for VST amp with X Touch One
« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2021, 01:14:46 AM »
Button layout is easy to fix. You can just "Forget midi" for particular button and then "Assign midi" for the right one.

X-Touch One has own native mode, where it is just a MIDI controller without an attempt to emulate anything else. They have just implemented different Mackie behavior for different DAWs, observing how Mackie plug-ins in particular DAW works. The result can't be perfect, it is one strip controller which emulate 9 strip device with way more buttons.

So making one strip preset for one strip controller is the best approach.