KVR Audio

Roman Empire · Post by **Roman Empire** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:59 am

Hi all,

I'm trying to use a joystick to control various parameters inside my vsti's/vstfx. Mainly pitch and filter cut off.
I've tried 2 vstfx, 1 vsti and one standalone app (by Tobybear) so far, but I can't figure out how I'm supposed to do this.
One thing that's important for me is that the plugin will see my joysticks slider.
Anyway, I could see some of the plugins responding to when I pressed the buttons on the joystick and moved the joystick itself, and one, named joystickctrl, also responded to the slider.
My problem is that I have no idea of how to pass this information on to the vsti that they're loaded for...
I am totally inexperienced with these things. I've only worked with a slider and the pitchbender on my previous keyboard to control things, but using a joystick doesn't seem to be as ready-to-use as that.
So, what I need is a detailed guide for idiots on how to do this

Please, can we keep the thread on the topic, so there won't be people advising me to get a "real" controller... Obviously I know that this is another option, but for now, this is about trying to use the joystick.
Also, please do not interfer if you think I'm a lazy bastard who should be drawing curves instead with the mouse. Yes, I've actually had scenarios here before where that's the kind of feedback I'd get on suggesting something/needing help!

Ok, thanks for all help I may get!!!

Roman Empire · Post by **Roman Empire** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:13 pm

*BUMP*

50 views! I know there are some smart folks using Cubase SX + a joysticks outthere

herr_prof · Post by **herr_prof** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:05 pm

does cubase have insert midi fx? try loading it in the channel youd like to control

Roman Empire · Post by **Roman Empire** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:10 am

Well, these should be midi effects, right?
They're just loaded as normal effects.
It's been ages since I worked with midi effect plugins - MIGA, a gate effect, was the last one, some years ago.
But I guess you got my on the right track there on what to look for in the manual, and I'll do so when I come home from work.

Thanks!

Others are still welcome to gimme some hints...

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:52 pm

Check out Naive LPF for an example of joystick control. (see the .ini file settings)

http://www.admiralquality.com/products/NaiveLPF

Done with the Platform SDK call: joyGetPosEx

Code: Select all

JOYINFOEX ji;
ji.dwFlags = JOY_RETURNALL;
joyGetPosEx(0,  &ji );
		
float x = (float)ji.dwXpos / 65535.0f;
float y = (float)ji.dwYpos / 65535.0f;
float z = (float)ji.dwZpos / 65535.0f;
float r = (float)ji.dwRpos / 65535.0f;

(button states are in that struct too!)

Works fine except in Ableton where it blows up like crazy when I use the stick. No idea why.

Roman Empire · Post by **Roman Empire** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:26 pm

AdmiralQuality wrote:Check out Naive LPF for an example of joystick control. (see the .ini file settings)

http://www.admiralquality.com/products/NaiveLPF

Done with the Platform SDK call: joyGetPosEx
Code: Select all
JOYINFOEX ji;
ji.dwFlags = JOY_RETURNALL;
joyGetPosEx(0,  &ji );
		
float x = (float)ji.dwXpos / 65535.0f;
float y = (float)ji.dwYpos / 65535.0f;
float z = (float)ji.dwZpos / 65535.0f;
float r = (float)ji.dwRpos / 65535.0f;
(button states are in that struct too!)

Works fine except in Ableton where it blows up like crazy when I use the stick. No idea why.

Hi Admiral,

Thanks for your suggestion!
But doesn't this mean that I'll need to make a piece of code for each vst/fx I want to control?

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:33 pm

Heh, sorry was thinking I was in the dev board.

I'm pretty sure there's a Joystick to MIDI CC VST out there already, isn't there? (That's why I haven't made one!)

(If there isn't, say the word and I'll make one. Q: How much would you pay?)

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:36 pm

For example a quick google led me to:

http://vinuesa.club.fr/projet-flou/engl ... ckctrl.htm This one even claims to work in Ableton!

(Haven't tried it yet.)

Guckli · Post by **Guckli** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:49 pm

I did fumble with something like this years ago, but got annoyed that the solution I found (this was vst5 days...) only supported one each x&y axis and I had this nice psx-style gamepad with two sticks and velovity sensitive buttons...
That was then, I bought a hardware controller and forgot about it. Would love to use my Xbox pads though; for an old gamer like me filtersweeps etc on a gamepad are rather intuitive for some reason...

Roman Empire · Post by **Roman Empire** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:04 pm

AdmiralQuality wrote:For example a quick google led me to:

http://vinuesa.club.fr/projet-flou/engl ... ckctrl.htm This one even claims to work in Ableton!

(Haven't tried it yet.)

Yeah, that's the one that I was mentioning in the beginning, which among others I did not manage to make control anything...

Maarten V · Post by **Maarten V** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:17 pm

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

I use midi yoke (http://www.midiox.com/index.htm?http:// ... /myoke.htm (http://www.midiox.com/index.htm?http://www.midiox.com/myoke.htm)) in combination with vmidijoy (http://vellocet.com/software/VMIDIJoY.html (http://vellocet.com/software/VMIDIJoY.html)) to have an old sidewinder joystick control both cubase and reaktor instruments and effects. Even though it's not the best suited controller it works and is fun to play with.

hope this helps

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:26 pm

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought USB joystick support was supposed to be built into Cubase SX3. It shouldn't need a third party midi utility - it should, afaik, be present as a remote device in the device settings thingy. I looked into this a while back when comparing hosts as I needed a host with good Joystick support - however since I never settled on a host and so don't actually have it I couldn't tell you specifically how to set it up from there, I just know its supposedly built in.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:36 pm

aMUSEd wrote:it should, afaik, be present as a remote device in the device settings thingy.

It is, and I've always wondered what it's there for.

Now if anybody can tell me how to USE it... searched all the docs and no "joy".

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:51 pm

So did I - that's one reason I never bought SX - the manuals suck and are full of gaps like this so its really hard to get an idea of what it can do from them (and without a recent demo).

Another example of vagueness was how to setup a hardware synth to play as a plugin - I was really interested in that feature but got nowhere from my various researches (mainly because I saw it as a potential way to use my Creamware synths inside SX without using XTC mode and also integrate my 3 external hardware synths better).

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:59 pm

A hardware synth wouldn't play as a plugin. It would play as an incoming audio track. You'd just route one of your MIDI tracks' outputs to your hardware interface's MIDI out instead of to the usual soft-synth input, that's plugged (with a cable) into your hardware synth, and the sound comes back in through a regular audio inputs and track.

And as mentioned above, there ARE joystick plug-in solutions out there. It just doesn't (seem to) be a built-in feature of the host.

Using USB-joystick and Cubase SX