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Hey Wren!
Thanks so much for this patch. I bought the Tetra the other. It’s a fantastic sounding instrument but I can not believe that DSI released this thing without a VST to control it. It’s unimaginable to me.
Sound tower are releasing a VST but god knows how much it will cost.
Wren, I need to take the next step forward though. I have no idea whether or not the Ctrlr platform will support this or not though. I would really like this patch to behave in the same way that the Tetra editor works, I.e. when you flick through patches on the Tetra, it updates the screen with the values.
This is not so much so I can use the hardware to control the device, it’s so that when I save my Ableton project, it dumps all the current settings in to my Ableton project, and then when I load the project it should restore them. The biggest problem with the Tetra is that as it stands now, the only way to backup a sound is to create the "program" in the Sound Tower editor, save it to the hard drive, and then every time you work on the song, you have to remember to load the correct "program" from the hard drive. This is very tedious and error prone. WTF are DSI thinking?
Anyway, what I’ve mentioned above will require sending a SysEx message to the Tetra, then waiting for the parameter dump and adjusting the controls on screen. This is how the current Sound Tower editor works I guess. Is this possible in Ctrlr? Can I offer my assistance to get this going somehow?
"Sound tower are releasing a VST but god knows how much it will cost."
It’s been released. If I remember correctly, it was $50. Demo is available, with some limitations.
Tested it, and it kinda works, but I do have some issues;
I can send midi-notes from the plugin and get audio out of the tetra. Also, for combos, changes made to tempo in my host (FL Studio) will alter the tempo of the combo being played. Thus, some midi is going back and forth. If I tweak a potmeter on the tetra itself, like the filter cutoff, I can see the equivalent pot in the plugin moving. However, I am not able to send that kind of parameter-info to my tetra. That is, when tweaking the pot in the plug nothing happens.
As far as I can see, my tetra is set to receive all midi-messages, so I am not sure why this wont work. I’ve had similar problems when trying the standalone (outdated) tetra-controller that atom made (thanks for all your work, Atom!!). It might be an error on my part, i.e. some global paramter being set wrong or something like that. Hence, I am posting here, since I guess a lot of you have tested various set-ups and so on with the tetra. Hope you don’t mind, Atom (?)
My setup:
Tetra <– USB –> Computer
Firebox soundcard midi out <– –> Tetra midi in (I did this so that I could use the midi out on the soundcard to send midi msgs to tetra, while at the same time being able to use my midi keyboard to play other vst’s in my host.)Any help or suggestions is very much appreciated, thanks!
Khake
Just thought I’d update a bit on the Soundtower vst.
I updated my tetra to os 1.5 and voice 1.2 and got the vst working.
I’m assuming the update will improve performance for the ctrlr-panel as well – will test and update asap.Some points about the soundtower-vst (I’ve only used the demo, so bear that in mind). I use FL studio as my DAW.
* Automation and parameter tweaking in real-time works for the parameters available in the demo version. Just couple of parameters are tweakable in the demo version though, but it works.
* As far as I can see, FL studio is NOT able to recall which patch I was using when I saved the projects in FL. If i save a projects using a patch and switch to a different patch and re-open my project the original/saved patch is not loaded. Bummer.
* Also, if i change some parameter in a pre-defined tetra-patch, like OSC1-frequency and then save the project, switch to a different patch and back again (restore default parameter settings for the patch) and then open the project again, the changes I made to osc1-freq are NOT loaded. Looks like FL is not able to save the parameter-settings for the vst.
Both points above may be a demo limitation. Either way, bummer.
* Another point, or annoyance, is the "help"-file that soundtower provides. Check this out, from the "manual":
[quote:34htrdsm]"Click the PREFS button at the top of the Editor window. This opens a window to allow you control how parameter changes to and from the Tetra PlugSE communicates with your host DAW and the Tetra. A Default Settings is provided in the lower left corner and a Cancel and OK button in the
lower right corner. "Host" refers to the workstation that his running the plug in (Cubase, Nuendo, Digital Performer,Ableton etc.) You may have to experiment with the
various options to get the results you require." [/quote:34htrdsm]Now, there are 9 different options to toggle (they are not mutually exclusive) – which, according to my math, is something like 362,880 possible configurations.
Yeah. I guess I "may have to experiment" a "bit", yeah. That said, I left everything on, and was able to send parameter tweaks and automation to my tetra.* Apparently, based on what I’ve read on other forums, there are sync-isses for LFO (DAW to Tetra via vst). Also, if you close the vst-window, apparently no midi is sent to the tetra.
Given these issues, I am not going to buy the vst any time soon.
I’ll give wrens panel a go using ctrlr and see how that works out now that I’ve updated my tetra.
Again, I hope you don’t mind me posting this here, Atom. I just thought other tetra-users might be interested in what the soundtower-plug can do and not do. As you can see, it seems to be buggy as hell, and the ctrlr-panel seems to be a much better option.
Khake
Sorry Folks, I totally forgot my login password, and no recovery password was sent to my email. Thus, every time I wanted to comment, I didn’t have the time. So I made a new username, hopefully i do not forget this.
I let my Tetra collect some dust, and recently pulled it out, but I still can use this panel with the Tetra, Ableton, and an old version of Ctrlr. Although I had to update Ableton, since it had a midi bug in Lion. I’ve thought about updating it to the latest Ctrlr version, but DSI hasn’t even come close to implementing ONE THING! And I want to know how NRPN will change before I update.
The limitation Khake said are probably not the VST’s fault. but Dave Smith Instruments fault. Read below:
* As far as I can see, FL studio is NOT able to recall which patch I was using when I saved the projects in FL. If i save a projects using a patch and switch to a different patch and re-open my project the original/saved patch is not loaded. Bummer.
* Also, if i change some parameter in a pre-defined tetra-patch, like OSC1-frequency and then save the project, switch to a different patch and back again (restore default parameter settings for the patch) and then open the project again, the changes I made to osc1-freq are NOT loaded. Looks like FL is not able to save the parameter-settings for the vst.
I had a lame workaround, where the ableton project would set up automation in the Ableton Project to load the different patches for each voice on Combo Mode in the first 5 seconds of the song, and then the song would start to play. However, DSI did not have any midi to change COMBOS at the time! I reported this bug, and they enabled this, but now you can’t switch the individual VOICES on combo!!! So now I have to use the physical panel to edit Combo’s, which is tedious, with OS 1.6.11 and Voice 1.4.2
If they update this feature, then I’ll redo my panels to work with the latest CTRLR. but without this, I figure what’s the point.
And Multimode Program Mode, you cannot save!! even the Tetra forum is barely commented on by DSI, I feel like DSI could care less about the Tetra. I was probably better off buying a different synth, like a rack, but the Tetra was so portable…
Thanks a lot for the update, Wren. "Good" to know that the problem is with the tetra (recall). That is to say, it sucks – but it helps a lot when trying to figure out how the vst from soundtower or ctrlr will work with the tetra within a daw.
Khake
There never was one, there was a Ctrlr v4 editor some time ago but it was in no way compatible with the current Ctrlr version. Creating a Ctrlr v5 panel for tetra is simple however it will take a lot of work (in terms of drag and drop stuff).
Or if you are clever enough it might be very simple and very quick to do if you know a bit of programming.
There never was one, there was a Ctrlr v4 editor some time ago but it was in no way compatible with the current Ctrlr version. Creating a Ctrlr v5 panel for tetra is simple however it will take a lot of work (in terms of drag and drop stuff). Or if you are clever enough it might be very simple and very quick to do if you know a bit of programming.
A bit more info on the second part? Im not sure if I’m “clever” but I can program 🙂
Thanks
EDIT: let me correct myself, I don’t know LUA
Well the problem with tetra is the amount of parameters (i remember that it was over 1000). This is why creating the GUI part would take a lot of time (placing all the elements, setting the preferences, even with copy paste it would be hard).
Another solution would be to build a single voice (part) editor of the Tetra (like the Mopho editor), then using LUA taking care of MIDI transmission/reception. This would be simpler, the parameters in Tetra are numbered and you could create a in-memory table of all parameters. Based on whatever comes in on the MIDI port or whatever part (voice,mode) is selected by the user (in a combo box etc.) you could in realtime change the properties of the on-screen components.
Another solution would be to build a single voice (part) editor of the Tetra (like the Mopho editor), then using LUA taking care of MIDI transmission/reception. This would be simpler, the parameters in Tetra are numbered and you could create a in-memory table of all parameters. Based on whatever comes in on the MIDI port or whatever part (voice,mode) is selected by the user (in a combo box etc.) you could in realtime change the properties of the on-screen components.
And you could still automate every parameter at any moment inside the daw?
It would be possible, you could easily create all the parameters as modulators (hidden unused), and just use them for LUA triggers so that host would see them but they would be handled by LUA. It can also be a good idea for me to add LUA handling of VST parameters (methods to add new “virtual” parameters to the list exported to the host and handlers for getting/setting values/names/display text)
It will be superb!!
Some kind of modulator that only had modulatorValue as parameter. Multitimbral synths will benefit a lot with this feature (Making only one part and managing with LUA the other parts)Hi, for some reason I can’t see the link to download Wren’s panel.. am I not understanding something???
Hi everyone .. i’m new to CtrlR .. i’d like to start with a TETRA Panel to modifiy.. it seems quite accurate so i’d like not to begin from scratch.
But i can’t manage to download the panels that you are discussing on this topic… where can i find a link ? Thanks, and cheers
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