Generic Sysex Recorder Utility for Ableton Live

[toneburst]

Hi,

just investigating possibilities here.

I’m wondering if it might be possible to create a generic sysex data recorder VST/AU plugin using CTRLR, to work around the lack of sysex support in Ableton Live.

Such a plugin would be able to accept arbitrary sysex data sent from a synth or other MIDI device, and record the received data such that it could be saved with a Live set and later dumped back to the device.

I’d envisage a control to initiate ‘listening’ for sysex data, and another to send the received data back out to the hardware. There might also be an option to save the sysex to a file on disk.

It wouldn’t need to be able to interpret the saved data in any way, but could be used to build up a library of device-specific presets, using Live’s own preset-management system.

Anyone any thoughts on whether this would be possible and/or desirable?

Cheers,

a|x

• This topic was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by toneburst.
• This topic was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by toneburst.

[jasefos]

I would be very interested in such a tool!
Just thought I’d add my voice here so I can see updates on this thread.

Cheers!

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[Tommy de B]

I would like this 🙂

[dasfaker]

If I’m not wrong Ctrlr only stores the value of each modulator with the project (Atom, I would like to know this for sure, you stated several times that Ctrlr stores the current state of the panel, but this is not totally clear to me), so unless you assign the sysex dump values to different modulators the data will not be restored with the project.

Of course you can save to disk any incoming sysex dump, but later when you open the panel this data will have to be recalled manually (or maybe you can devise a clever way to load the sysex file on startup and send it to the synth).

[atom]

Yes Ctrlr saves the value of modulators (programs) inside each project, to save some other arbitary data would be very simple using Lua, you could just add some data to the blob of memory that is passed to the host when saving a project and read it back when loaded again.

IF such a feature can find some use i see no problem in adding it, it’s fairly simple.

[dasfaker]

So you say that some other data can be saved with the panel but it’s not implemented yet? Of course it will be welcome (with an example, please).

It’s something some of us really needed, and I thought it was not possible.

[atom]

It would be possible now i think but in a very complicated way, but i can make it very simple with just two lua calls. I’ll implement that and add an example asap.

[dasfaker]

Wow, a step closer to make multitimbral panels without thousands of modulators, if we can save each part in memoryblocks in the project.

The only remaining problem is automation.

[toneburst]

So it would be possible to make a generic vst/au Sysex recorder with Ctrlr? That’s great, atom! I think it’s what a lot of Live users have been waiting for for some time….

Ideally, of course, I’d like to build proper editors for all my synths, but this would at least give me patch recall, if not automatable controls…

A|x

[Tommy de B]

This is super handy in ableton 🙂
Synths with a lot of knobs don’t really need an editor (although this would be nice too offcourse). With my nordrack1 totall recall would be really great!
Thanks Atom :))
If i find time i might try to make some panels alswell, but for a non programmer like me that could be hard.. have to dig into the manual 🙂

[msepsis]

I thought about this too, but wouldn’t you need to disable the MIDI ports of the synth in the DAW in order to allow it to be available to the VST this “syses recorder” panel resides? that would make it somewhat moot 🙂

Monstrum Media | Music, Sound & Software Design, Chicago / San Francisco listen

[atom]

I added the code to save custom data when saving projects in DAW, you get a Lua call and you can add any data in a form of a ValueTree, and you get it back when the project is loaded.

[daimondamps]

Hi, is there example somewhere how to do such dump to value tree and recall it back? I wan to create a Panel without modulators only to save current state of the device into DAW project.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by daimondamps.

[Puppeteer]

I’m half way through building a panel to initiate and receive arbitrary SYSEX dumps and to compare them on the screen while I do some testing with the PC3. I’ll be happy to share it when I’ve got it working properly and it might be quite easy to modify it to serve this purpose.

Not sure on my timeline as yet, I’ve got a heap of stuff on my plate right at the moment, but hopefully by the end of the year.

The Puppeteer
http://godlike.com.au

[dasfaker]

This is a very basic example. Let’s say you have a MemoryBlock called PatchData you want to save. You have to create a method for “Called when Ctrlr state is saved”

saveValueTree = function(stateData)

stateData:setProperty("RefName", PatchData:toHexString(1), nil)
end

To restore data on project loading, create another method for “Called when Ctrlr is loaded”

loadValueTree = function(stateData)

stringHexData = stateData:getProperty("RefName")
PatchData:loadFromHexString(stringHexData)
end

[daimondamps]

Thank you both.
I found this thread http://ctrlr.org/forums/topic/statedata/
There also is some info about ValueTree.

[t2k]

I implemented something like this, you can read about it in my post:

Generic Sysex Record and Send

[Author]

Posts