Best way to have feedback with the BomeBox

Hello,

When I toggle a MidiTranslator preset on the BomeBox, I'd like to have a feedback somewhere.

I'm in a band with complex midi routing and other midi stuffs. When we play a tune, we load a preset. I used to do this with reaper. Everythings midi was proceed with Reaper.

We loaded a Reaper "preset" with TouchOsc on android, and Reaper was sending back an Osc message to toggle a square on the android phone, and tell that everything was ok.

I understood that for now it is not possible to use touchosc with BomeBox, so my question is, what is the alternative ? How could I have a feedback that the right MidiTranslator preset has been correctly loaded ? (ideally the name of the tune on the screen of a phone !!).

Thank you very much !

Hi,

For my rig, I usually use something like a Launch Control (8 button LED’s) or a Lauchpad MINI (64 button LED’s ) to provide MIDI feedback. Basically you just send different notes to the device using the Project file as presets are enabled, thereby turning on various LED’s then use that for feedback on the MIDI controller.

I don’t remember if TouchOSC can accept MIDI in addition to OSC but if it does, that would be an option.

Another thing I do for my FCB1010 controller feedback is I have a 16×2 display for it connected to a serial port and then I use the serial connection to send status messages using the serial output capabilities of BomeBox via USB. It took me a while to assemble the right components to make it work. Basically you need a 16×2 LCD display with a controller that tells the display what to do and then a USB serial connection , to send messages to the controller via USB.  The only issue with this is the packaging is not as clean as I would normally like something as it is quite fragile to carry around with me.

I would recommend the first option and maybe get your MIDI controller used on eBay where you can generally get the for a better price than new.

 

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

 

 

 

Nice !

Would it work with any led controller ? For example with the behringher x-touch mini (more adapted for me than the launchpad) ?

Also I have an akai MPD218. The pads get backlit when I press them. Would it work to lit them with the MidiTranslator ?

Many thanks !

Yes for the X-touch MINI. I have an X-touch MINI and you can control LED’s remotely with that, although the LED’s on the X-Touch MINI are a single color. I like to use LaunchControl because I have more color choices at about the same size. But if you have an X-touch MINI already, then no new investment required.

On the MPD218, I’m not sure how LED’s are controlled. I’d have to look at the manual.

Not all controllers with LED’s have a way that you can remotely control them with MIDI so do your homework first.

The X-touch MINI would probably need to NOT be in MC (Mackie) mode or we would need to research the MIDI needed to control their lights. In non MC Mode, I think you just send back the same note-on value with 127 for On and 0 for off.

Steve

Ok, so if I understand you well, this is very hazardous for the MPD218 (that I already own). So I’m gonna invest in the x-touch mini which is very cheap and could be helpful in my setup.

Do you have a basic script I could build on, something for me to grasp the idea ?

Thanks !

Well I’m not sure I would call it “Hazardous” I would just read the manual and make sure that any MIDI feedback to your MPD218 is properly planned and won’t interfere with any other operation.

As far as an example. I just put together a simple example of X-touch MIDI in Layer mode with 2 button LED feedback.

There is an output alias set up for “To Application” that I have as Bome MIDI Translator 1

There is input from X-Touch MINI and also output to X-Touch MINI

I have set up a default route from X-Touch MINI to “To Application” so that anything to the host passes through untouched.

I then set up translators for Buttons 1 and 2 on Layer A and I unchecked “Swallow” so that the translators don’t stop anything from passing through to the application.

At the preset level for Layer A, I override the default outputs to X-touch MINI only so that feedback only goes back to the X-touch MINI.

Each button has a separate global variable that we toggle on an off with rules. For instance button one uses the global variable ga.

// Toggle LED
ga=ga^1

qq=0
if ga==1 then qq=127

The output will put either 127 (light on) or 0 (light off).

I trigger with note-off input from the button. The X-touch MINI doesn’t work right if you try and trigger when pushing the button so I set it up for button release instead. This is an idiosyncrasy with this specific controller and I have not seen it with any others.

On input I capture the midi channel to a local variable oo and the note to a local variable pp.

For output I look at the value of ga and if 0 it just puts out 0 which turns off the led.

If the value of ga==1 I put out 127 which is the value needed for most LED’s for on.

I only did this for 2 buttons to illustrate but if you have any questions, feel free to come back here.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

 

That’s perfect !

I don’t have the x-touch (or maybe launchpad mini finally) yet, but with your example I managed to deal with my iRig BlueBoard which I thought was going to work out the box, but not at all ! So I recreated the “toggle led” of the board when I toggle Control Change with it.

Thank you very much !

Your welcome!

I just spend several hours (of my personal time) to create a complete template for the X-Touch MINI and though I would share it. Maybe you can give it a try when you get yours.

This one has several features

1. You can use your up and down arrow on your computer keyboard to take it to Layer A and Layer B (while not in Mackie Mode)
2. You can use your left and right arrow on your computer keyboard to take it to Mackie Mode and Layer Mode
3. I’ve set up the project to initialize the proper mode you want when it opens (or hit your computer escape keys. There are translators in the “Init’ preset that handle this.
4. I’ve mapped all knobs, buttons and the fader it all three modes (Mackie, Layer A, and Layer B) based on the default factory settings. Messages are passed through unchanged, but you can of course change the translators to the output of your liking.
5. You can push buttons 8 and 16 simultaneously to toggle back and for from Mackie to Layer Mode. When moving from Mackie to Layer, it will put you back in the last Layer you were in.
6. I included the two button feedback examples provided earlier for toggling Layer A Button 1 and 2 LEDs
7. To reduce the number of note translators required, most note messages allow for both Note-On and Note-Off in the same translator (I use rules to determine note-on or note-off)
8. I have comments in most, if not all ,of my rules
9. Although many translators take raw input (IE oo pp qq), I’ve added more informed Descriptions for Incoming an outgoing messages in the Description Fields provided by the MT Pro . If you change the rules of a translator, I highly recommend you change these titles to match what you are doing.

 

This project file is free for anyone to use for personal use but must not be sold.  I did this on my own time so if you like it, feel free to send me an optional donation via PayPal to my email address below. If you pass it to someone else, let them know where you got it (Author and contact info is in the project file description)

I’d also appreciate any feedback you have.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

 

Arrgghh ! Thank you very much but yesterday I’ve finally ordered the launchpad mini because I thought I could use it to control light on stage which would have been difficult with the x-touch. I hope your script will generate happy users.

I’m going to downlaod it anyway, in order to learn a lot from it, and to adapt the logic for my needs.

Thank you very much, you make this forum and this products incredibly helpful ! (I would really have been lost with only the doc).

Glad to help!