Remote: Map to currently hovered control

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fieldframe
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Joined: 19 Apr 2016

15 Feb 2018

A couple of hardware manufacturers (Touch Innovations, Audient) have started using a pattern I'll call "hover-to-control," in which a user can control any knob or fader onscreen simply by pointing to it with the mouse and turning a multi-function knob in hardware. The benefits, as noted in some other recent threads here at ReasonTalk, are clear: There's no mapping required, no remembering what was mapped to what, no shift buttons or paging to get to all the controls - just point and turn. And while you might still want that hard-mapped bank of knobs for some applications, this gives you precise control over every last thing you see on screen, using just one hardware encoder.

Alas, current hover-to-control implementations are something of a hack, because they have to emulate a mouse. They have to be toggled for vertical/horizontal/radial controls, and have the potential to flake out.

Reason, however, could be the first DAW to do this natively. Imagine a Remote mapping that, instead of mapping to any specific parameter, maps to "currently hovered control." Imagine having instant access to all the knobs and faders on everything in the rack, all from a single, high-res controller (such as Teenage Engineering's Ortho Remote) - just point and turn.

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Carly(Poohbear)
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17 Feb 2018

Nektar P series have this, they call it the grab feature.

The downside is the mapping is not remember once Reason or the Controller is restarted.

Also you stated they are emulating a mouse, what happens if you move the instruments\scroll screen in the prog etc.

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fieldframe
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20 Feb 2018

I have a P4 and have never encountered grab... Is this feature Windows-only? I'll have to see if I can try it out.

In the Touch Innovations and Audient products, at least, there is no reason you'd want the mapping to be remembered after a restart, because the mapping is always changing from moment to moment, and there's only one knob on the hardware anyway. The critical element is that there's no right-click, no menu involved; the knob changes mapping as you move your mouse over different controls onscreen.

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Carly(Poohbear)
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20 Feb 2018

fieldframe wrote:
20 Feb 2018
I have a P4 and have never encountered grab... Is this feature Windows-only? I'll have to see if I can try it out.

In the Touch Innovations and Audient products, at least, there is no reason you'd want the mapping to be remembered after a restart, because the mapping is always changing from moment to moment, and there's only one knob on the hardware anyway. The critical element is that there's no right-click, no menu involved; the knob changes mapping as you move your mouse over different controls onscreen.
I see what you are saying now, that's interesting what you are saying about the mouse hover. :thumbs_up:

Yes it works on the Mac too, make sure you have the latest firmware from Nektar.

Download the latest mapping (note mapping not firmware) from here
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sberq7vvyfit ... T4sra?dl=0

Video about it.


More info here and here
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7504913
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7491466&start=575


PoohBear

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electrofux
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Joined: 21 Jan 2015

17 May 2018

You can do something like this with Bomes Midi Translator, where you hover over a parameter and then you can tweak it by turning one predefined hardware control.
The problem with these mouse emulating techniques is that you have to tell it what kind of onscreen controll it is that you want to control eg horizontal drag, vertical drag, circular drag in place. So you essentially need 3 modifiers.

I agree it would be nice if this was incorporated into remote directly.

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