AZSlow

AZ Controller plug-in for Cakewalk SONAR => Tutorials => Topic started by: azslow3 on September 15, 2017, 05:25:50 PM

Title: Several named instances of AZ Controller
Post by: azslow3 on September 15, 2017, 05:25:50 PM
v0.5.6 or later is required (current test version)

With current Cakewalk ACT philosophy, each Control Surface hardware should have its own Control Surface plug-in. In case you are using universal plug-ins, such as AZ Controller, ACT MIDI or Generic Surface, especially in case you have more then one device, use face some inconvenience, one bug and one problem:

To eliminate mentioned problems, AZ Controller can have more then one "named instance". While the plug-in is still the same, Sonar will think there are different. Each such instance has user defined name, own set of presets and GUIs are not clashing.

Instances management
Note that uninstalling AZ Controller also delete all user defined instances (I like when programs do not leave anything in the registry when deleted). So in case you upgrade AZ Controller later, please do not uninstall previous version (that is handled correctly).

Moving presets between instances
Since Sonar "think" that each instance is a separate plug-in, it does not show "AZ Controller" presets in other instances. To avoid confusion, all published presets are still for "AZ Controller" and still in the Cakewalk format. But you have move presets by exporting/importing.

A big warning about Dynamic Plug-in Parameters Mapping for all Sonars prior 2017.1
There was a nasty bug. In case you ACT Learn (or the system somehow think it should do this) some mapping in more them one plug-in (in our case AZ Controller instances) without closing Sonar in between, the mapping file will be immediately, irreparable, corrupted! Intensively use AZ ACT Fix utility, at least you can recover previous backup then.
So, every time you want ACT Learn: exit Sonar, start Sonar, learn what you want in ONE INSTANCE ONLY, exit Sonar, run AZ ACT Fix to check the mapping is still ok and make a backup.