AZSlow

Hi Alexey
I had a look at https://ctrlr.org/ but also at https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_RemoteControl/ which is well documented and seems to do most of what I need.

Blue Cat Remote Control provides customisable VST control panels which can output MIDI CCs from controls AND allows level meters to be driven from CC inputs.

The biggest issue I am facing is how to get the External MIDI port connected to the VST control panels.  The 'Remote Control' plugin is VST3 so MIDI I/O is available but Cakewalk seems to be very poor at routing VST MIDI.

Even though the VST Panels are added as FX to Cakewalk Audio Tracks, it seems I have to create one Cakewalk 'dummy' MIDI track for each VST panel just to get external MIDI port to the VST panel.

Can you tell me:

1. Is there a better way to get external MIDI routed to a VST in Cakewalk?

2. Is AZ Controller able to interface MIDI directly with a VST Panel?

Regards
Robert

Hi Alexey
Thanks for the information and advice.

I have tried controlling FX Parameters in both directions using a test AZ preset and it works just fine.  So I know I will be able to control my FX audio units in this way.
My FX audio rack will have two dedicated PICs, one PIC for general control (100% driven from AZ feedback outputs) and the other PIC dedicated to collecting audio level information for the FX audio units to send back to AZ/Cakewalk/VST panels.

I can see no problem to send audio level information from a PIC on a dedicated MIDI channel, to a dedicated instance of AZ running with Cakewalk.  I can send either as CC values or as SysEx.

Can you let me know about the following please:

1. Does AZ pass control data to VSTs via the Cakewalk API? or by some other direct method?

2. If AZ passes control data via the Cakewalk API, would there be any problem so send audio level data, apart from the issues of data quantity and potential response time?

3. Have you seen any VST based FX control panels which make audio level information level available to AZ (either directly or via Cakewalk API)?

I think that most VST control panels generate data for their level meters as a by-product of DSP audio processing, so what I am going to try to achieve is probably quite unusual!  I am in contact with two companies which sell VST design software, so I will focus on understanding whether driving a VST control panel meter from an 'external' data source is possible within the VST framework.

Regards

Robert

Hi Alexey

Could I please ask you for some advice!

Having completed my Cakewalk/AZ controlled mixing console, I want to take a next step ...

I am going to design some analogue FX units which will be controlled from FX VST based control panels which I will design.
I am fairly confident to design the VSTs and there are a number of software tools available to help.
The VST based control panels would be allocated to Cakewalk tracks or buses in the normal way.

Although I can use AZ Controller to read the status of VST controls using the AZ FX and Monitor actions, is it also possible to control the VST buttons and pots from my PIC via AZ Controller?

The biggest issue is that I need to send meter level information from my PIC to the VST, e.g. for a compressor gain reduction meter.  Is this theoretically possible via AZ if I design the VST correctly?

Regards

Robert

It seems like the App is only partially usable without hardware. Nothing really happens when I select something, I guess with device it at least should select the settings for editing. For me the editor is always in U1-1 Initial, can be edited but not ordered to preset nor saved.

The app is build with theoretically accessible framework, chrome based. Technically the app is described by HTML and Java Scripts. All elements in the editor are in fact can be navigated, but the order is wrong. So some "clickable" are components and can be selected by enter, but corresponding labels of the component and type labels are in different lists and so it is not possible to understand the relation. Nothing is grouped reasonably.
Also as you have noticed many operations make accessible navigation stuck till the app is restarted. Unfortunately that is the case with most mouse clicks.

I mean I can't reasonably combine SIBIAC approach with available build-in accessibility. Modifying HTML/JS sources is also not feasible, they are too complicated.
So the only simple task is selecting the page, and that you have already figured out how to do with OCR. Otherwise we will need to develop complete overlay, ignoring all existing accessibility.
Theoretically possible since everything appears on predictable places, but practically comparable in complexity with our AD2 or EZ2 projects.

I own a Boss Me-90 Multi Guitar FX pedal.  I tracked through the BOss Tone Studios app and found that the editior is somewhat readable even without OCR, but there are some things that are invisible, and cannot be  operated.    The only other function I'd like is to be able to upload libraries that I download from the Boss Tone Exchange website, which is integrated with the APP, but is not accessible so I go straight to the site.  I"ve yet to figure out how to make that actually work.

From what I can understand, the app is fully functional without the hardware, just cannot save patches.    I will be more than happy to allow you to do what you need with my machine.

Thank you.