Blue Cat's PatchWork - "Control input" ignores the incoming specified CC MIDI channel

[Northwood]

Hello,

I just bought Blue Cat's PatchWork and I'm having some problems. "Control input" ignores the incoming specified CC MIDI channel.
I think the purpose of channel 0 is that PatchWork then listens to a CC number from all channels. But I get the same behavior when I specify channel 1 or 2, etc.

An example:
In "Global Settings"/"Control Input":
When send CC#16 on MIDI channel 1 from my controller and click learn on "Control 1", the registered values seems good. But if I then in the GUI look at "Control 1", it also responds on CC values from CC#16 MIDI channel 2.
It looks like "Control input" ignores the incoming CC MIDI channel, even when it’s specified. Is it a bug, or am I missing something?

Mac OS 10.9.4, Pro Tools HD 10, PatchWork 1.62 (tried with both RTAS and AAX)

[Blue Cat Audio]

Hi,

Thanks for the heads up. Just to make sure: have you checked that you are not actually using the preset settings? The global settings are used as default values whenever the plug-in is opened, but if you happen to modify the values for the current preset, it's the preset settings that apply.

You can verify this by opening the " preset" settings window instead of the global settings and see if the global settings are overridden or not.

[Northwood]

Yes. I did check that. It follows the "Global Settings".
Can you verify/refute the behavior?

Thanks.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Just verified in PT11, and it seems to be working fine. HOWEVER, it depends on how the plug-in is setup in Pro Tools:
- if used as an instrument on an instrument tracks with no particular MIDI routing, all channels are sent to the plug-in => OK
- if you use a MIDI track to send the MIDI events to the plug-in, Pro Tools forces you to choose a channel for the plug-in. All events are rerouted to this channel, regardless of their original channel. I guess that it is ahwt happens to you here.

The solution is to either use a single MIDI channel and different CC numbers, or use a MIDI track for each channel. This is a limitation of Pro Tools, unfortunately.

Hope this helps!

[Northwood]

Great. Thanks. I got it working as it should with your two MIDI track solution.

But... I don’t understand how you got the ”no particular MIDI routing” on an Instrument track.

On an instrument track I need to specify two things:
A. ”MIDI Input selector”
B. ”MIDI Output selector”.

Default is A = ”ALL” and B = ”none”
With this setting PatchWork doesn’t receive any MIDI info.

So then I choose B = ”Blue Cat's PatchWork 1 - channel 1”
With this setting PatchWork receives, but as you wrote (regarding MIDI track) - Pro Tools seems to merge the incoming MIDI channels into one.
Even when I select multiple MIDI channels out in the ”MIDI Output selector” (”Blue Cat's PatchWork 1 - channel 1, + channel 2, + etc.”) it still sees them as one.

It would be a lot easier with just one Instrument track (instead of the two MIDI track solution). How did you do that?

Thanks again.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Can you maybe elaborate what you are doing here? What I was talking about works only if you want to receive MIDI directly from MIDI interfaces. If you need extra routing inside Pro Tools (for example to insert MIDI effects), I guess there is no choice but stick to one channel per MIDI connection (I am not a Pro Tools MIDI expert though...).

[Northwood]

I think we’re talking about the same thing.
I have two MIDI CC controllers that do many different tasks. Since I don’t want any conflicts with the defined CC’s I have 70-80 CC numbers left to play with. Which isn’t nearly enough. So I want to use all the 16 MIDI channels.

The MIDI routing in Pro Tools is pretty basic. So the most convenient way is to always let the controllers have input access to ALL channels. And then only let the controllers’ presets decide what’s being controlled.

With PatchWork I want to make handy layouts for easy access of parameters from many different plugins. An example: One MIDI track controls the CC’s of a synth, and at the same time - another Instrument/AUX track controls parameters of 4 different FX plugins in PatchWork. It could easily be more than 80 CC numbers active. I would be nice to do this without considering what MIDI input device is active on any given track in Pro Tools.

My last question was just about how you got the Instrument track (the ”no particular MIDI routing” setting) work with several MIDI channels. I can’t see how you did that.

Thanks for the help.

BTW.
Just a suggestion: for setting up controllers it would be more convenient if the Params Map in PatchWork could be accessed as a static window with boxes etc. instead of a drop down.

[Blue Cat Audio]

My last question was just about how you got the Instrument track (the ”no particular MIDI routing” setting) work with several MIDI channels. I can’t see how you did that.

I think if you create an instrument track and just insert our plug-in on it, it will just receive all channels by default (without doing any MIDI routing). But this is only for "live" usage. Since you need to record the messages using MIDI tracks then it is different.

Just a suggestion: for setting up controllers it would be more convenient if the Params Map in PatchWork could be accessed as a static window with boxes etc. instead of a drop down.

This is true. But there is also a "learn mode" that lets you easily select multiple parameters by just clicking on them (or moving them) in the sub plug-in editor. Have you tried it? It is much faster than selecting them one by one.

[Northwood]

Just a suggestion: for setting up controllers it would be more convenient if the Params Map in PatchWork could be accessed as a static window with boxes etc. instead of a drop down.

This is true. But there is also a "learn mode" that lets you easily select multiple parameters by just clicking on them (or moving them) in the sub plug-in editor. Have you tried it? It is much faster than selecting them one by one.

Yes, I think that's how I do it.
But I still need to get the parameters present (knobs visible – and mapped to the available 40 control slots) in the sub plug-in editor.
If I need to choose 40 parameters in a plug-in that has something like 80 candidates, there will be a lot of mouse movements back and forth to the drop down window. Or am I missing something?

BTW. I think PatchWork is a great product. Finally I can make layouts and control parameters in plug-ins in Pro Tools the way I want. The only major drawback is that I need to have the channel record enable for the MIDI input. Have you considering implementing Open Sound Control? For starters it would be enough with the ability to use PatchWork as an OSC “shell”, with the internal routing still being MIDI. I’m using OSC (via Max) with MachFive and it’s great for my workflow that whatever I’m doing in Pro Tools, or in another application, “that knob” on the controller is always doing what I want.

[Blue Cat Audio]

But I still need to get the parameters present (knobs visible – and mapped to the available 40 control slots) in the sub plug-in editor.
If I need to choose 40 parameters in a plug-in that has something like 80 candidates, there will be a lot of mouse movements back and forth to the drop down window. Or am I missing something?

I was actually talking about the learn mode for parameters assignment: instead of manually selecting each parameter in the menu, just click on "learn mode" in the params map menu, and you will be able to assign all parameters by just touching the knobs in the plug-in editor:

Learn Mode (on/off): when learn mode is on, touching a control in your plug-in's user interface will automatically add it to the parameters map (if the plug-in supports it). Once you are done with parameters assignment, you may want to disable learn mode to avoid mapping unwanted parameters.

Be it OSC or MIDI, I guess what you want is to be able to send messages directly to the plug-in with an external controller, without having to route it internally thru the host application, right?

[Northwood]

I tried that with one of your plug-ins, and it worked fine. But with Soundtoys Echoboy, it didn't. And that's one plug-in that I'm working with a lot. Bad luck I guess. It's not uncommon that plug-ins have 30-80 parameters. If the learn thing isn’t supported, a static window would be very helpful.

Be it OSC or MIDI, I guess what you want is to be able to send messages directly to the plug-in with an external controller, without having to route it internally thru the host application, right?

Yes. HUI is too limited. EuCon requires specific hardware, and is also too limited. Novation Automap requires specific hardware, and doesn't work with AAX, etc. The automation capabilities of PatchWork fill a much-needed gap. And if you would add OSC to it, it could be a game changer in Pro Tools automation.

[Blue Cat Audio]

But with Soundtoys Echoboy, it didn't.

I think for these ones you may actually have to move the knob instead of just clicking on it to get the plug-in parameter detected.

Btw if you have the hardware, I think Novation Automap has been reported to work properly with PatchWork inside Pro Tools.

[Northwood]

I think for these ones you may actually have to move the knob instead of just clicking on it to get the plug-in parameter detected.

I did move them. Didn't work for me.

Btw if you have the hardware, I think Novation Automap has been reported to work properly with PatchWork inside Pro Tools.

No I don't, but good to know.

Please consider an OSC implementation. Besides PatchWork it would be great with an efficient and low latency gain/pan plug-in for Pro Tools. This way one could have volume/pan control over any number of channels and plug-ins. This combination could give the possibility to control Pro Tools like with a big Avid S6, but for a fraction of the cost.

Thanks for your help.