Hello. Completely new at this. No idea what I’m doing so any help would be appreciated.
What i’m trying to do is get my SSL UF1 (MCU based) to open plugins in my DAW. I have the key command set up in Keyboard Maestro, which can also receive MIDI CC as a trigger.
I’m guessing I have to translate the MCU to MIDI CC (or hopefully directly to a keystroke) in order for this to happen. I can see the midi coming into Bome as note information, but no matter what function the UF1 is performing, the note on information for each button press is the same. So if I set that as a trigger, the plugins will be popping up every time I press that button… which won’t be suitable. I also have no idea whether I should be setting the input as raw midi, note or one of the other (many) options.
Alternatively, and I think I know someone who has done this on the UA forums, it would be great for the plugin to fire up the relevant v pots on the controller, if I select the plugin. I’m going to be using stream deck with the UF1 so it doesn’t matter which button I press to access it.
Sorry if that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’d be very appreciative if a kind soul might walk a newbie through this, or even if it’s possible. Many thanks in advance
What DAW are you using? Perhaps instead of using a keystroke, if your DAW supports MCU, then you can open the plugin the way an MCU would, natively using MCU (MIDI) instead of keystroke.
If you are using MIDI to keystroke, then there are a few tips.
Before you send the keystroke, make sure you DAW is focused. You can do this by having a translator with an outgoing action of ‘focus app’, then followed by another translator with outgoing action of keystroke with a slight delay (maybe 10ms). They would be triggered by the same incoming note.
Since they would fire every time, you might need to use a global variable in Bome MIDI Translator to indicate whether the plugin is already showing or not. Then if the global variable shows it is already showing, suppress the outgoing action. This could be a bit tricky since if you close the plugin within the DAW, Bome MIDI Translator would have no knowledge of this since there would be nothing to trigger an action in Bome MIDI Translator Pro, to reset the global variable.
Now with all of this said, please see the attached example.
Translator 0.0 sets the global variable ga to 1 when notepad has focus.
Translator 0.1 sets the global variable ga to 0 when notepad is not focused.
Translator 0.2 will send focus to notepad (done in rules with the Perform outgoing action which triggers translator 0.3, followed by a keystroke ‘a’ with a delay of 20 ms. In the rules, it looks at the status of focus (ga) to determine whether to send focus or just send the keystroke (if already focused).
Thank you very much for replying. I use UA Luna. Which seems reasonably well integrated with the UF1, and maps the plug in parameters well to the v pots.
Perhaps I should try and explain a bit better…
At the moment, Luna doesn’t open the plugin window that corresponds with the plugin I’m editing on the UF1. I’m not sure if this happens in other DAWs, but it’s certainly not been implemented in Luna. So I wondered whether it’s possible to have the midi message from the UF1 trigger the keystroke that I have created a macro in KM, which opens the plugin window. However, after looking into it further, and reading your message, I don’t know if this is going to be possible because the Vpots and buttons on the UF1 are multipurpose, and you have to press them multiple times to get to the single button press where I would like the plugin to pop. So….
I’m now wondering whether the keystrokes that correspond to the insert points in Luna, could perhaps bring up the Vpot parameters on the UF1. So for example, I bring up an LA2A on insert one by using my macro, and the UF1’s Vpots now reflect the controls which they would’ve done, had I selected it from the buttons on the UF1. There is a guy on the UA forums that has managed to do this with an MCU controller using a combination of KM and Bome… but I don’t want to pester him. It might be that the UF1, or the combination of UF1 and Luna means it can’t be done, and I might need to think about adding another controller, where each Vpot is only pressed once. But preferably not if I can get one of the two above scenarios to work. I very much appreciate your advice on this.
I suppose you could have a KM macro to send the various MIDI messages to Luna (as a proxy for the UF1) to get you to the context point that you want using MCU protocol and then use a separate Macro to handle the popup window from there.
You would need some way to tell your 2nd Macro whether you are at the right context point or not so that it would only fire if you were at the correct context point. Your first macro would need to be pretty bullet proof to ensure you are always at the right context point using MCU protocol.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
The KM macro I have is pretty solid and gets me to exactly the point where I’d want the UF1 to respond. It selects the first plugin slot on keystroke #1, second on keystroke #2… etc… when you click on a plugin once in Luna, it brings up the associated window. It’s at this point, I’d like it to tell the UF1 to open the Vpots and display plugin parameters.i know that Luna and the UF1 are talking to each other when I use a plugin, because if I move a knob on computer screen, the SSL values change and vice versa. But looking at it in MTp, the channel faders, and pan knobs in Luna send midi, but the knobs on the plugins within Luna don’t send midi… or do they, and I am looking at the wrong thing?
Whether the plugin parameters send MIDI or not is pretty much up to the host DAW application. With VST3 the basic rule is to send parameters values to the DAW (non-MIDI) and then the responsibility on what the DAW does with it is up to the DAW manufacturer.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
I’ve managed it. It turns out that the UF1 sends out unique midi notes depending on the current status of the vpot and buttons. It really was as simple as getting MTP to turn that note into my keyboard shortcut I’ve set up to display the plugins. Worth paying the £50 for that alone… and I’m sure I’ll be diving deeper into it as I’m going to add a stream deck to my set up so more shortcuts and probably using some of the UF1’s CC functions. Thanks for this product!!
