Q: How to solo mix channels incrementally with 1 midi button?

[RobC]

I want to put one finger on a knob or fader, and another on a button. I set the fader, then press the button, and it solos the next mix channel (then I set that fader, then jump to the next one, and so forth).

Aka, it would jump from one to another. Ideally, a RE that has a button that jumps 1 value at a time from 1 to 10 for example, and sends that to a cv out, would make this easily possible.

Any ideas?

[artotaku]

I want to put one finger on a knob or fader, and another on a button. I set the fader, then press the button, and it solos the next mix channel (then I set that fader, then jump to the next one, and so forth).

Aka, it would jump from one to another. Ideally, a RE that has a button that jumps 1 value at a time from 1 to 10 for example, and sends that to a cv out, would make this easily possible.

Any ideas?

AFAIK mix channels in Reason´s main mixer cannot be soloed via CV. There is no input on the mix channel to control that.

However, the Solo buttons can be controlled with Remote protocol since they are available as remotable items. So I´m quite sure it would be possible with a custom Remote codec implementation for a midi controller you own and you would trigger the button from the midi controller that is remote mapped to the main mixer.

[Sterioevo]

There are "Additional Remote Overrides" to select the Next or Previous Remote Base Channel. This will let you navigate (with 2 buttons) left or right across the main mixer.
Then you need a controller or a combinator/EMI sending the relevant message to the channel strip via Midi/Remote.
This is essentially what the Mackie HUI implementation is, only in banks of 8 channels.
How this would work in relation to soloing at the same time is a bit problematic as you want multiple functions with a single button press, and remote requires "focus". This might be possible with some kind of scripting that incorporates the solo all off button- e.g using some Hamu devices with Later RE you might be able to create a sequence of time delayed midi events to achieve the desired result....

[Proboscis]

Here is a quick combinator I put together for you. Press play...... if it doesn't work you may need to arm the 'run' button on each OctoRex

I'm using OctoRex for instruments simply because I couldn't be bothered composing something for this purpose. but look at what I have done with the Europa envelopes, which control the combinator rotaries, which I programmed to the 14:2 mixer.

I know it's not controlling the main mixer, but with some clever thinking you might be able to expand on this as a solution. And then it frees up the SSL to make gain changes for every four-bank of instruments

incremental_solo_song_file.zip

(103.42 KiB) Downloaded 46 times

[Proboscis]

PS: Don't touch the rotaries or the buttons in the combi

[ShelLuser]

I want to put one finger on a knob or fader, and another on a button. I set the fader, then press the button, and it solos the next mix channel (then I set that fader, then jump to the next one, and so forth).

This comment won't help you but... this is exactly the reason why I got so hooked on Live: Max support right within the DAW through 'Max for Live'. Seriously: I can build such a device relatively easy using Max for Live, but unfortunately this won't help you out with Reason.

I've done some testing though, but the main problem I keep running into is that Reason doesn't really provide much programming and/or tweaking options.

My idea was simple: trying to use a threshold. So if a rotary is set to 25% then the first track would solo, when raised to 50% the second track, and so on. It wouldn't do what you wanted (have one track selected so that the button would solo the next one) but at least you'd still get some kind of control.

Unfortunately I can't make this work in Reason. My first idea was to use a combinator but unfortunately the programmer section doesn't allow for thresholds when controlling on/off settings. Either the rotary is open ("on") or it's not ("off"). That's no good. So then I grabbed Thor which is my to-go-to device whenever I'm trying to do some tweaking but it's modulation section doesn't suffice. Although you can set an amount for the destination & scale you can't set an amount which checks for a specific input. In other words: make something 'do' something but purely based on a specific signal amount.

But that did give me another idea, but this is getting out of hand and I'm not quite sure if this is going to be useful... Have a rotary control an oscillators pitch. This could be done using Thor's analog oscillator and have Rotary 1 control the octave. Then pass this sound through a high pass gate filter which blocks out everything else and set that to a certain threshold. Route the audio out back into the audio in on Thor and then use the modulation section to make this control the CV1 output. Connect that to a combinator with a line mixer 6:2 and use the programming section to have that solo track one based on the input of CV1.

Repeat and do the same things for higher frequencies, so that you can increase the pitch and based on that higher sound coming through more channels will get solo'd.

This should be able to work, but my only problem is that I'm not sure which (default) filter would be up for the trick. My bet would be on the MClass equalizer. Activate low cut, low shelf and hi shelf and then use that to pass a specific frequency threshold.

But like I said: this would turn into a rather insane and bizarre device and I'm not sure if it would really do a good job. Still, hope if can give you some ideas. And if you do happen to use Live and have access to Max for Live devices.. then you might want to sent me a PM because like I said: this would be relatively easy to set up there: I check for the selected track add one to it and then have the live button control the solo function of that specific track. Done.

[RobC]

AFAIK mix channels in Reason´s main mixer cannot be soloed via CV. There is no input on the mix channel to control that.

However, the Solo buttons can be controlled with Remote protocol since they are available as remotable items. So I´m quite sure it would be possible with a custom Remote codec implementation for a midi controller you own and you would trigger the button from the midi controller that is remote mapped to the main mixer.

I guess the easiest way will be experimenting with devices inside combinator, which will do the trick, too for now.

Later comments suggest that there are limitations or difficulties with Remote when it comes to what I'd like to achieve.

There are "Additional Remote Overrides" to select the Next or Previous Remote Base Channel. This will let you navigate (with 2 buttons) left or right across the main mixer.
Then you need a controller or a combinator/EMI sending the relevant message to the channel strip via Midi/Remote.
This is essentially what the Mackie HUI implementation is, only in banks of 8 channels.
How this would work in relation to soloing at the same time is a bit problematic as you want multiple functions with a single button press, and remote requires "focus". This might be possible with some kind of scripting that incorporates the solo all off button- e.g using some Hamu devices with Later RE you might be able to create a sequence of time delayed midi events to achieve the desired result....

There sort of is a trick for example with my KORG nanoKONTROL, which has 4 "scenes", aka. I can make one potmeter control 4 different knobs, and I only have to press the scene button.
Yesterday I checked this HAMU device, which seems to generate a useful CV data:



I was thinking of maybe using that somehow with a combinator, and then there's the MATHS VST, which can handle IF-THEN programming, but uses audio. But that means for 10 channels, I need 10 of these and Thor for Audio to CV conversion. There must be some RE to make this easier.

Gladly, there are multiple CV generating knob REs, so that's covered.

Heh, this sure will need some thinking, but so far, it could be that it will be a combination of something that everyone suggested here so far.

Here is a quick combinator I put together for you. Press play...... if it doesn't work you may need to arm the 'run' button on each OctoRex

I'm using OctoRex for instruments simply because I couldn't be bothered composing something for this purpose. but look at what I have done with the Europa envelopes, which control the combinator rotaries, which I programmed to the 14:2 mixer.

I know it's not controlling the main mixer, but with some clever thinking you might be able to expand on this as a solution. And then it frees up the SSL to make gain changes for every four-bank of instruments

Thank you! This could get me closer to the solution, too. Now that I think about it, in theory one cv generator knob would send out multiplied signals. These need to go into gates. Maybe combined with the HAMU device I linked, it could open one gate at a time. Then, with these signals going into combinators, inside them, I could at least control regular mixers. But my brain is already boiling, haha.

This comment won't help you but... this is exactly the reason why I got so hooked on Live: Max support right within the DAW through 'Max for Live'. Seriously: I can build such a device relatively easy using Max for Live, but unfortunately this won't help you out with Reason.

I've done some testing though, but the main problem I keep running into is that Reason doesn't really provide much programming and/or tweaking options.

My idea was simple: trying to use a threshold. So if a rotary is set to 25% then the first track would solo, when raised to 50% the second track, and so on. It wouldn't do what you wanted (have one track selected so that the button would solo the next one) but at least you'd still get some kind of control.

Unfortunately I can't make this work in Reason. My first idea was to use a combinator but unfortunately the programmer section doesn't allow for thresholds when controlling on/off settings. Either the rotary is open ("on") or it's not ("off"). That's no good. So then I grabbed Thor which is my to-go-to device whenever I'm trying to do some tweaking but it's modulation section doesn't suffice. Although you can set an amount for the destination & scale you can't set an amount which checks for a specific input. In other words: make something 'do' something but purely based on a specific signal amount.

But that did give me another idea, but this is getting out of hand and I'm not quite sure if this is going to be useful... Have a rotary control an oscillators pitch. This could be done using Thor's analog oscillator and have Rotary 1 control the octave. Then pass this sound through a high pass gate filter which blocks out everything else and set that to a certain threshold. Route the audio out back into the audio in on Thor and then use the modulation section to make this control the CV1 output. Connect that to a combinator with a line mixer 6:2 and use the programming section to have that solo track one based on the input of CV1.

Repeat and do the same things for higher frequencies, so that you can increase the pitch and based on that higher sound coming through more channels will get solo'd.

This should be able to work, but my only problem is that I'm not sure which (default) filter would be up for the trick. My bet would be on the MClass equalizer. Activate low cut, low shelf and hi shelf and then use that to pass a specific frequency threshold.

But like I said: this would turn into a rather insane and bizarre device and I'm not sure if it would really do a good job. Still, hope if can give you some ideas. And if you do happen to use Live and have access to Max for Live devices.. then you might want to sent me a PM because like I said: this would be relatively easy to set up there: I check for the selected track add one to it and then have the live button control the solo function of that specific track. Done.

Every comment helped so far, and so does a good thinking!

In the past I came across many such limitations, and had to play around a lot with Thor, as well as CV processing devices, but this is a new kind of challenge.
But yeah, so far the easiest way seems using combinators with the regular rack based mixers, as they are more easy to control.

Trust me, I've done real catastrophic things with CV, just to make a knob a little bit more flexible. x D

[RobC]

Aha! This might be a quick problem solver with the HAMU device:

https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... v-gateway/

[Proboscis]

Thank you! This could get me closer to the solution, too. Now that I think about it, in theory one cv generator knob would send out multiplied signals. These need to go into gates. Maybe combined with the HAMU device I linked, it could open one gate at a time. Then, with these signals going into combinators, inside them, I could at least control regular mixers. But my brain is already boiling, haha.

No problem. I knew it wouldn't be the ultimate solution, but instead thought about ways to head you towards there. As luck would have it, when I read your post I was many hours into some CV witchcraft and looking at how to use Europa as a control device on other instruments, so it was an interesting little side distraction to knock it together. I hope it inspires you to get closer to your goal. And it's given me some ideas about building a live performance suite with similar functions as in the attached song file.

That's what I love about the Reason environment, if you think outside the square, there' all sorts of magical things that can be done.

[artotaku]

I guess the easiest way will be experimenting with devices inside combinator, which will do the trick, too for now.

Later comments suggest that there are limitations or difficulties with Remote when it comes to what I'd like to achieve.

Yes, true. If you omit using main mixer for what you want to achieve you are way more flexible with mixer devices inside a combinator since you can use both CV and combinator programmer. But don´t underestimate Remote codecs, you can do a lot with it - it requires LUA programming, though.

[RobC]

No problem. I knew it wouldn't be the ultimate solution, but instead thought about ways to head you towards there. As luck would have it, when I read your post I was many hours into some CV witchcraft and looking at how to use Europa as a control device on other instruments, so it was an interesting little side distraction to knock it together. I hope it inspires you to get closer to your goal. And it's given me some ideas about building a live performance suite with similar functions as in the attached song file.

That's what I love about the Reason environment, if you think outside the square, there' all sorts of magical things that can be done.

Oh, it's definitely worth experimenting, no matter what the topic, cause it almost certainly always can inspire something new or different ~ that's the rewarding and fun part!
I do try to think outside the box as much as I can, but had a slight insomnia, so things didn't go as easily. It kind of seemed like I'm unable to recall what REs could help. After I slept through half of the day, things get more clear, haha.

Yes, true. If you omit using main mixer for what you want to achieve you are way more flexible with mixer devices inside a combinator since you can use both CV and combinator programmer. But don´t underestimate Remote codecs, you can do a lot with it - it requires LUA programming, though.

I do respect the possibility of editing the codecs, of course. For example, it's a really good solution for the dead pitch wheel on my oldest MIDI keyboard, which shows signs of Parkinson's disease, being all shakey, constantly moving. : )

[Proboscis]

Have you had a poke around with 'Select CV Switch' by Robotic Bean? I think it's free, or if not it's very cheap. I haven't given it much exploration, but basically you can set CV's in/out to 8 slots, and nominate the switch rate to 4/4 or whatever, then while your song plays, if you press button two anytime part one (button 1) is playing, it delays the onset of the next button until the first bar is complete. I'm guessing it rolls out in that manner from 1-8, but I've not taken the time to learn it's use. There's a video from the developer floating around on Youtube somewhere.

Whatever you come up with, I think that the 14:2 mixer is going to be your friend here, rather than trying to mess with modifying the SSL. It's a perfectly fine console that was the only option in Reason for many years.

Please keep us updated on this thread, as I'm interested to see what you come up with

[RobC]

Have you had a poke around with 'Select CV Switch' by Robotic Bean? I think it's free, or if not it's very cheap. I haven't given it much exploration, but basically you can set CV's in/out to 8 slots, and nominate the switch rate to 4/4 or whatever, then while your song plays, if you press button two anytime part one (button 1) is playing, it delays the onset of the next button until the first bar is complete. I'm guessing it rolls out in that manner from 1-8, but I've not taken the time to learn it's use. There's a video from the developer floating around on Youtube somewhere.

Whatever you come up with, I think that the 14:2 mixer is going to be your friend here, rather than trying to mess with modifying the SSL. It's a perfectly fine console that was the only option in Reason for many years.

Please keep us updated on this thread, as I'm interested to see what you come up with

That could be a solution, too, but it seems the HAMU device can do the stepping:
https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... mod-level/

...and a similar device to what you suggested, can do the selecting (it does it automatically, watching which gate was last active)
https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... v-gateway/

I will, and hopefully I'll be able to do it easily now. : )

[RobC]

Have you had a poke around with 'Select CV Switch' by Robotic Bean? I think it's free, or if not it's very cheap. I haven't given it much exploration, but basically you can set CV's in/out to 8 slots, and nominate the switch rate to 4/4 or whatever, then while your song plays, if you press button two anytime part one (button 1) is playing, it delays the onset of the next button until the first bar is complete. I'm guessing it rolls out in that manner from 1-8, but I've not taken the time to learn it's use. There's a video from the developer floating around on Youtube somewhere.

Whatever you come up with, I think that the 14:2 mixer is going to be your friend here, rather than trying to mess with modifying the SSL. It's a perfectly fine console that was the only option in Reason for many years.

Please keep us updated on this thread, as I'm interested to see what you come up with

My bad! The one by Robotic Bean works better, cause I forgot that HAMU's device has only 1 cv out.

[RobC]

switch thingy.zip

(2.59 KiB) Downloaded 39 times

Okay, if you press the Step button up or down on HAMU's ModStepper, so far it does step from editing one fader to another. For "simplicity" I only did 4 right now. Thor's rotary generates the knob data, which does move one fader at a time, too. Problem is, clearly, when we jump to the next fader, the previous CV value goes back to zero, and thus, the fader does, too. So there needs to be a more clever way, so we can freeze the CV value.

Hmm, I think the problem is, that the generated CV data, coming from the rotary, is static. Something that increases and decreases values instead, would be more handy.

I'm beyond horrid with explaining things, but I think people can figure out what I mean. x D

Extra info:

I would somehow need to freeze the value. (Perhaps some device can create a sample delay for CV. Right before jumping to the next fader, I would need the maximum value, which can be "stored"/fixed by enabling a cv math device. Then the next fader can get focus. While going back, could turn it off - though the midi knob would instantly reset the fader.)