MUX7 and automation in Reaper DAW

[hopikiva]

Have a question about how MUX7 works with Reaper's automation...

I use Reaper.... have forever and I'm reasonably familiar with it

so one of the great features to me is the automation, and in the case of VST and VSTi, reaper's way of picking the automation lane to make visible by choosing "the last touched" parameter in the plugin...

however in MUX all we get to see are numbers, ...no names... and also it does not seem to report to reaper
what the last touched parameter is.... for example, I have the Breathy Choir patch loaded, so it's a synth
If I touch the Vol for OSC1 I'd expect reaper to see that give an automation lane for it...
But it seems to not do that...

This may be a noobie to MUX7 issue, but I'd love to understand it better and find a way to have it work
like most VST and VSTi's work in Reaper

Let me add another thought:
I see that MUX7 has a fine way to assign a MIDI CC to anything .... very kewl
So we do get that kind of automation... which is not what I'm looking for
However I find a bit of a buglett with how that works.... as follows:

IF you have the MIDI track playing and then you try to assign [MIDI Learn] a CC to something
in MUX7, the field where you choose the number for the CC, flutters and will not reliably hold
whatever you CC number choice is....
IF you stop the playing, THEN it will work as expected. OK, not a deal breaker but one would
think it 'should' accept the CC even while the track is playing, no? Any thoughts on that?

[pljones]

On the "bug", it sounds like you have an event track with more than one CC number being sent. You can use an Event Monitor module to see what the event stream looks like on arrival at the MUX event input.

Automation... MUX isn't your average synth / effect. It doesn't have fixed assigned automation. You can create your own modular effects and synths, with their own exposed controls, and change them whenever you like. Maybe the VST standard doesn't allow for dynamic labelling -- that may be what's going on. Someone else may be able to confirm.

[hopikiva]

thanks pljones.... I guess we will have to keep looking into this..... I do 'get' that MUX7 is not 'yer average or normal' plugin... which of course is partly why I'm interested in it....

[EvilDragon]

There should be a way to assign a MUX parameter you want to one of those numbered slots. Then you automate it from Reaper as you normally would.

[hopikiva]

OK... here is answer I've been after... and it works nicely... great

"As far as automating cc messages using the main track automation, yes it's possible. Put "Reacontrolmidi" as an fx on your track, and you can assign whatever cc value you want, then select it as an automatable parameter. But you're still stuck with the same resolution as the underlying cc message."

that is from here:
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=104925

good news to me

[hopikiva]

and also what Evil Dragon says.... in order for that to show up as an automation lane, the trick seems to be to change the name of the controler... for example default or stock item is named FADE... and changing that in MUX to FADE 1 gets me an automation lane in Reaper...

so with that I think we have it covered now.... I"m a happy camper

Many thanks to everyone

EDIT: hmmm well I got a little too excited... using the rename the controller works for only some but not all of the controllers... but still for those that it does not work for, reacontrolmidi does the trick...

[EvilDragon]

OK, I think I got this.


You don't have to use ReaControlMIDI at all. Automation in MUX is all about those 32 metaparameters. Define those (by dragging the parameter text label onto it, and off you go. Then it's the usual business in Reaper: click on the metaparameter knob, click "Param" button in Reaper's plugin header, then add track envelope. Easy.

[mutools]

OK, I think I got this.


You don't have to use ReaControlMIDI at all. Automation in MUX is all about those 32 metaparameters. Define those (by dragging the parameter text label onto it, and off you go. Then it's the usual business in Reaper: click on the metaparameter knob, click "Param" button in Reaper's plugin header, then add track envelope. Easy.

Exactly
And you can rename those meta-parameters and that will be shown in the host too!

[fluffy_little_something]

Somewhat related: There is one big advantage of Reaper's automation, a feature that I miss in Mulab: pitch bend automation is tied to the notes it was recorded on. So one can move notes including pitch bends around...

[pljones]

Pitch bend isn't automation -- it's a part of the (MIDI) event stream, just like note or controller events.

In standard MIDI terms, pitch bend isn't note-specific, it applies to the channel: any on-going notes on the channel should bend. The exact behaviour, of course, is down to the target of the events.

I'm not sure what you mean by being "tied to the notes", exactly?

In a MuLab event sequence, if you move the sequence, all the events will move together. Isn't that "tied" in some way?

[fluffy_little_something]

What I meant is that in Reaper I can drag a note in the editor and the pitch bend bars move along with it.
In Mulab when I do that, the note moves, but the pitch bend bars stay put.

[pljones]

That sounds like Reaper is turning MIDI events into some internal format. I prefer working with raw events -- I understand what's going on better that way .

[fluffy_little_something]

Hehe, I don't need to understand how it works. I like the comfort of dragging notes plus pitch bends around Without that editing bass lines can be a pita